Parades and Picnics!

Blessed

Posting tonight on this "extra" day off for Chris, thanks to Memorial Day weekend.  Life continues to be crazy for us, but yet we are so blessed by the sweet lives of our three children. 

I have more pictures from today to share later (still on my camera and yet to be uploaded), but today was one of those days that I can sit back and reflect on how thankful we are.  We may have had our share of ups and downs these past few months, but I was reminded today to look for joy in the small things, the simple things.  

We started off our morning at 7:30 (first blessing)...our children never sleep past 6:30 and when I woke up to the sounds of two children and saw the clock right at 7:30, I was thankful for an extra hour.  One hour of sleep does wonders for a tired parent.  

We quickly got everyone dressed and were out the door by 8:20, on our walk to downtown for the annual Memorial Day parade.  Met up with some friends, had some bagels from the local bagel shop, and watched my boys amazed at the fire trucks, motorcycles, police cars, and the bag full of candy that they caught...all while baby Abby slept through the whole commotion in the Baby Bjorn.  This all before 10:00 am.  

Headed home for play time, lunch, naps (and a quick run for Mommy, as I am pushing myself to get back into shape yet again after my third baby).  It's amazing how your body quickly falls out of shape, but yet how it all comes back to you once you start up again.

And we were off in the afternoon to our sweet friends who threw us a going away BBQ.  It's hitting me that we are finally moving in less than two weeks.  Good food, great friends makes for one full heart.  More to come about the move later.  

But sitting down tonight as I'm working on a few things for The Chirping Moms, I realize that time is passing.  And this sweet girl is getting bigger, and happier, and lovely.  Oh so lovely--I had to share a few pictures with you all tonight of sweet Abby because she is just growing up way too fast.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the fellow moms out there!  And to all the moms in our own life:  my mom, Chris' mom, and all the grandmas:)  We are so thankful for the moms and grandmas that have raised us as well as my "mom" friends who help me stay sane everyday!

All I ask for Mother's Day is no dishes, no cooking, no laundry, and no cleaning!  It's going to be a pretty low-key day, just what we need after our crazy weeks, around here spending time with these three sweet loves...

Our First Trip as a Family of Five!

I'm rewinding back a little here in this post.  Life has just been too crazy (you don't even want to know everything that has happened in the past couple weeks) and I have to admit that I just hardly have a moment at night to think, much less blog here;)  But we are rewinding back to the beginning of April.  Abby was not even three weeks old, but we took our first family trip with all three kids.  BIG step.  

It wasn't planned in the calendar, but our house went on the market on Wednesday.  By Friday, we had at least 20 showings with a weekend packed full of more showings and the Sunday afternoon five hour open house.  Instead of dodging in and out of the house all weekend while trying to maintain a pristine "showing" condition, we packed the car and headed south to our soon to be new home, the DC area.  

So we packed the car and were on our way by 9 am on Saturday.  We arrived right around lunchtime, parked our car near downtown, packed the stroller, and were set to go.  First, we grabbed lunch at Cosi (oh how I miss having more of these near us, so I'm looking forward to some more Cosi very soon!).  Then, we took in the sights of DC---White House, Smithsonians, and more!  We actually lived in downtown DC right after college so it was nice to be back in familiar grounds.  I used to do my daily runs in the National Mall, spend many weekends taking in sights, and enjoying the beautiful weather!  On top of it all, we happened to be visiting right during the cherry blossom "peak", the best time to be in DC.  

While we were downtown, my dad called to tell me that my sister and he were in DC visiting the cherry blossoms (She lives north of Baltimore so this was a fun trip into DC with visiting Grandpa)!  WHAT?!?!  He didn't even know that we would be in downtown DC (since it was a spur of the moment trip) and we were within less than a mile from one another!  So we quickly found a meeting point and grabbed some dinner with all of us.  What an AMAZING surprise!  

We said our good-byes after dinner so they could head back north and we decided to load up and head to our hotel.  By the time we made it to our hotel, we checked in, grabbed a little snack from the vending machine, and let the kids play before we were ALL in bed around 9!  It's funny how life changes when you have kids---I think that I may have fallen asleep before the boys did.  

Somehow, all five of us slept relatively well (minus Andrew falling out of bed) and survived our first night with all five of us away.  I think that's pretty good for a 4 year old, 2 year old, and 3 week old in one room!

The next day we had saved to do some city touring to help narrow down our rental house search that we would be completing in a couple more weeks.  We spent about three hours driving around trying to get a better feel of towns so we would be fully prepared when we met with our realtors.  We took a few breaks for meals, park time, and feedings.  The kids did great...they were so tired that they even took a little nap!  

So that was our first trip away as a family of five...a little pleasure, a little business...all towards the steps to our new adventure in life!

When it rains, it pours...

This is our theme of this weekend...I don't really want to go into details of the chaos that is filling our life, but just hoping that we will be seeing a rainbow soon!  

And trying to remember what is really important, these three kiddos...

Another busy week...

Too tired to even write:)

We are still in the chaos of getting our house sold, which is a BIG story in itself, but I will wait to share until the never-ending saga is done...

On top of some major house selling chaos, Chris had his wisdom teeth pulled this week and Aiden came down with the flu.  Let's just say that one night this week all five of us ended up in our bed:)

On the good news, our rental house in DC is all set to be moved into on July 1st!  We will have about three weeks of "no home" in June, but Chris will be in a hotel in DC once the fellowship begins and I most likely will spend most of the time at my mom's house with all three kids!  Our stuff is all set to be stored in the month of June and it looks like the DC end of this move is squared away.

I have to admit that this past month has been CRAZY---my boys are probably getting the short end of this stick with all the stress that is going on, but we are hoping that the end of this chaos will be over soon and hopefully life will resume back to normal.

Boys are doing well, despite all the craziness, and Abby is growing right along. She hit six weeks this week and is such a sweet and easy baby!  We will keep you posted as life continues to bring us a new adventure daily!  Until then, enjoy some fun shots of the kids: