Big Move Ahead

You know you want to buy our phat crib. 

 If you follow me on Facebook, you will very likely have seen that our house is for sale. The great house payoff has become the great house selling/buying/renovating adventure. Long story short, my gal pal Julie convinced my man and I to look at a house in her neighborhood back in March. We were in no way interested in this house and we looked at it just to humor Julie. After looking at the house and speaking with the seller, we felt like this might actually be the house for us. The house is a little old and dated, but we fell in love. It's quirky and needs a lot of work, but we are so excited and see this as an adventure. The Lord has opened door after door in order for us to buy this house. We will close on the new house later this Summer, renovate for around a month and then move in sometime in August or early September. If you are interested in buying our current house or if you just want to look,go here to check it out. And, if you have sold a house by owner, please share anything and everything you learned from the process. I will post pictures of our new house once we close and it is officially ours.

As a result of our move and subsequent renovation, there is a very good chance that our little crew will be living in temporary housing during the renovation. By temporary housing, I mean a long-term stay hotel or an apartment that has month-to-month leases. Because our living situation will be up in the air, our foster son, JJ, needed to be moved to a new family. He has been gone two weeks now. His transition has been smooth and we have kept in touch with his new (precious!) foster family. The first couple days after JJ left were very sad. JJ moved into another great situation and we will get to see him again at playdates and hopefully provide respite for his foster family. As far as foster care goes, this situation is ideal. But, I was still weepy and boohooed my eyes out the first night he was gone. We sat down to eat dinner and I felt the full realization that there wasn't a one year old sitting to my left scarfing down his food and alternately grunting, signing for more and reaching out to hug me. My sweet man asked me how my day was and the flood gates opened. My sister, Rachel, was here, too. There was no shortage of hugs and shared tears. I really have a wonderful, wonderful family.

We all have adjusted to our new normal of once again being a family of five. After emerging from six months of foster care, our eyes are still slightly foggy and Justin and I are recovering from the stress of everything that comes with having a foster child. I am not ready to unpack the entire process at this time, but I will eventually share tidbits of our experience here on the blog. We do plan to reopen our home to foster care once we get settled in the new house. We would love to adopt and have an adoption specialist with DHS who is on the lookout for a child that we can keep.

If you're still here after this long post, thank you! I'm going to leave you all with pics of our crew. Enjoy the cuteness!

My big boy showing me one of his treasures on Mother's Day. 

The view from here during our Mother's Day picnic at Lake Maumelle...see that precious boy's feet! Love and miss him! 

Brook (left) and Vivi (right) walking and talking hand in hand at Lake Maumelle. Hilarious cute girls!

Vivi (left), me and Brook (right) at a Mother's Day brunch at the girl's preschool.