Daddy Visits!

Daddy got to come home for a long weekend for my birthday weekend, and we had a great time! But first, a few catch up pictures I found as I was looking through the camera…

Poor Laney, so abused… one day as we were going into or out of the house she started throwing a fit on the front porch. I don’t think she appreciated it when I started taking pictures…

Laney’s new favorite thing to do: pick flowers! We don’t go anywhere without her wiping out the entire dandelion population!

Miss A is fascinated with Isa… and the feeling appears to be mutual!

And a few Easter shots I missed… these are from Uncle Tim’s house the Saturday before Easter.

Grandpa and his girls!

Laney & Mal dyeing eggs. Laney doesn’t quite have finesse down yet, so she’d drop the eggs from about six inches above the cup… good thing the table was covered!

All done dyeing!

One of Audrey’s new favorite past times- sitting on Laney’s bed reading. She loves books… my kid! :)

And now onto our weekend with Daddy! Before he got here on Thursday evening, the girls and I headed to the ball fields to watch “the boys” play softball (Charlie, Corey, James and Dad all play on a league sponsored by Black and Gold Auctions and our church). It wasn’t Audrey’s first foray onto the fields, but it was the first that she was alert enough to know where she was! She was pretty intrigued by what was going on for a little while…

We did manage to enjoy a few days of good weather while Josh was here (which was quite refreshing, since it’s pretty much rained nonstop for the past month). So we took the opportunity to spend lots of time outside! (And Josh got to mow the yard that hadn’t been mowed since he was home last 3 weeks ago… he needed a machete- lucky him!)

Audrey has discovered the little cozy coupe and she loves it! She hops in, and then pushes it backwards until it runs into something, grinning like a maniac the whole time. Pretty cute!

Let’s go, Mom!

We busted out Laney’s t-ball set, too, which is what Mommy likes to see!! :)

Look at that determination!

Even Audrey got in on the t-ball action!

We also got out the giant bubble wands Grandma & Grandpa Price got for the girls for Easter. Laney loves to pop bubbles!

And we had to cool off with a popsicle, of course. A’s first freeze pop, and she seemed to be a fan!

On Saturday we headed out to my folks’ house to celebrate my birthday with our typical grilled food and lemon cake with lemon icing! And, because I do it to everyone else on their birthday, a picture of me with the cake…

Audrey was a FAN of the lemon cake… of course, I haven’t really found much Audrey isn’t a fan of, particularly in the sweets department…

Laney was more a fan of the present bags…

Love that smile!

And one last shot of the night… Charlie, Sam, and Josh watching Anastasia with Laney! :) Those boys would put up with anything for their girls!

So that’s about it from our weekend with Josh home. We had fun, but we sure are looking forward to being settled as a family again! It’s coming up pretty quick- Josh’s next trip home will be to help pack, close on our house here, drive to KY, and close on our house there. Then, the next time he comes home will be to drive me and the girls there for good. Kind of scary to think about!

Things are moving along pretty well with the double closings. We close on our house in Columbia on Friday, May 20th. Then, we’re going to stay in town for the weekend to go to a wedding on the 21st. We’ll probably drive to Grandma Judy’s house on Sunday and spend the night. Then we’ll get up and leave early Monday morning to close on our house in Elizabethtown, unload the trailer, then Mom, Dad, the girls, and I will be headed back to Columbia.

We are pretty excited about our house in Etown. It’s the only house that we looked at that I really walked in and thought “I could live here, this house would really work for us.” It’s downsizing, about 1000 square feet, but we expected that. It’s a house that was bought by a builder and he’s gone through and updated it (painted, closed off the washer and dryer so they’re not just out in the kitchen, put in overhead lighting, central air, a heat pump, all new counters and appliances in the kitchen, etc.). There was a little scariness in the making an offer, because we thought we were approved for pretty much exactly what it was listed for. But part of that approval included a $5000 grant, and when Josh went back to look at the house one more time before putting in an offer, we found out the grant was gone. And, since we now didn’t have the grant to count as our down payment, there was actually a $7000 swing in what we were approved for. I was pretty bummed. But our realtor convinced us to go ahead and put in the offer, and just see what the builder did. So, we put in an offer for $77,000 on an $85,000 house, not expecting much. But, God is good, and the guy took the offer! He did not, however, agree to pay any of our closing costs, so now we are going to have to come up with about $5000 by our closing date. Some of it will come from the sale of our house here, and the rest, well, we’re counting on God to provide. He has worked everything else out so far, we don’t expect this to be any different. We probably have enough in savings (although, I wasn’t counting on an $800 van repair this week), we just won’t have much of a safety net left. But, well, Matthew 6:25-34 is still true! And now we’ve gotten a fantastic deal on a solid little house (here it is, if you’re curious). So, if we have to move again after Josh finishes school, we’ll be in good shape to sell it…

In other news, I actually had a job interview this week! It is an information specialist (librarian) position at the DOD schools in Ft. Knox. So, it would be about 30 minutes north of Etown, but it would have fantastic benefits. I think the interview went pretty well, but, since it’s the army, there won’t be any news for at least 2 weeks. I would love to know before our closing, because then we wouldn’t have to worry so much about being approved for our loan… but, again, God will provide.

So, there’s the long update! Lots of pictures and lots of news… will try to keep everyone updated between packing stints! :)