Thanksgiving is almost here

I know once the Thanksgiving weekend starts (sometime tomorrow afternoon), I won't have time to post anything about anything because the weekend is going to be nuts. Thursday - Thanksgiving all day. Friday - shopping all day. Saturday - double sister birthday party prep and party. All day. Sunday - Calvin's baptism (not all day). Monday - work. UGH. I know we're not alone in the runrunrun that this weekend will be, but you get the idea. Wahh - we are so blessed with so many loved ones to see. It's a GREAT "problem" to have.

And since pretty much all I think about is my new house and how to stay sane before getting there, we have LESS THAN A MONTH NOW until this is reality. It will still be crazy reality a month from now, but it will finally be HAPPENING. I can't begin to tell you how excited that makes me.

I'm thankful! I'm pretty much always thankful, but since we're pointing it out and all this time of year, here is a list of what I'm thankful for (and definitely not all inclusive. a book is not what I'm looking for here).

• My husband! While this whole pack-up-and-move craziness has not always brought out the best in us, he's been amazing and keeping us all grounded. He's a wonderful husband and father and in the sake of saving time, just know that he's our rock. He keeps our family going.
• My kids! I'm so blessed to have these two adorable little monkeys to keep me BEYOND busy and we love every minute of watching them grow (although the current game of "let's see who can accurately guess how many times Hadley says "NO" in one evening isn't my favorite. no lie.).
• My In-Laws. We would be dead on the side of the road if it hadn't been for them the past 3 and the next 1 month. Amazing people. The end.
• Our health! We are all relatively healthy people and for that, I'm ever grateful. It can be so scary when someone is sick, really sick and we haven't had to deal with that much at all.
• Our Iowa house selling and our Wisconsin home to move into! YAY!

Ok there are TON more but I'm just going to keep those to myself and know that we're thankful for all we can do, have, and will do in the future. Happy Thanksgiving (a little early), folks!

SOLD. SOLD. SOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HA HA HA the funniest thing happened. I blogged yesterday about the showing on Saturday, what a pain, they came in the middle of packing and we didn't hear anything, so obviously they didn't like it...WELL, it turns out they LOVED it. LOVED it so much, in fact, that (long story short) they wrote up an offer and we sold it! Last night! Here's how it all went down (b/c I need to remember this later).

• (mid morning Monday) Our realtor emails us that the family really liked the house and might write an offer!
• An hour later, our realtor emails us an offer! A legit one! (no low balling here)
• We counter!
• They counter!
• We stew while I'm on my way home from work (crying, mind you. this is our FIRST HOUSE with all the memories and emotional attachment, you know). Adam is worried they won't let us counter one more time. I said they would have wrote $X FIRM if they meant it. Adam talked to Sara. She's brilliant and agreed with me that we should counter one more time.
• We counter!
• We wait. UGH.
• I'm talking to my SIL about something on the phone. The phone practically implodes (it's the house phone so I'm not so good at working it - not ours). I realize Sara's calling. I call her right back.
• Confusion about who called who.
• "You got the deal! House is sold!"
• I do the happy dance in the bedroom where I had been on the phone. I get details I will remember for a nanosecond and then promptly forget because HELLO! We just sold our house successfully!
• I sit on the couch and text Adam who is sitting in the recliner (longest. 7 minutes. ever. for him to check the phone that is practically attached to his hand).
• He finally sees he has 5 texts from me and falls off his chair while reading them.
• CHAMPAGNE!! We sold our house!

See? I like this game. Now is trying to figure out if we have to get our stuff out sooner than Dec. 21st as planned...either way - YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYYYYYYYYYYY! And that is how we sold our house.

We moved again.

I don't know how many times we're going to end up moving until our Iowa house is completely into our Wisconsin house, but for now, we've made another move.

Friday was a whirlwind of work, IEP meeting, race to run a few errands, grab the girls before they zonked out completely at school, and drive 5.5+ hours to Iowa so they had a little time to run around before falling into their beds (their OWN beds, yay!). We made it fine. Al & Sherri left around 3 and made it fine. Adam's flights were delayed an hour and a half but he got the trailer and drove down fine (only almost hit ONE deer).

Saturday, the real chaos started. I left for an 8am massage (I HAD to use up a gift certificate, darn), then we picked up the Highlander from the shop where it got a last free tire rotation, and then booked it out of the house that we had to reclean (after all the morning packing chaos and little girls' rampage) for a showing at 11:00. Of course! A showing in the middle of packing! Why not! And we have yet to hear how that went so I'm assuming it was all for nothing. More packing while the girls napped, then race to The Children's Museum for a daycare Christmas party (which was fab, as usual, and awesome for the girls to see Mary and friends again...Hadley would NOT let go of Mary for quite some time). We raced back home for dinner, play/pack time, girls got another bath, packing until 9:45. I ran out for well-deserved adult snacks and then we hit the sack hard. TIRED people, I tell you.

Sunday hit with a trip to church for a last worship which was SO heart-filling it wasn't even funny. It was sort of hard, actually, and I found more than once I had a large lump in my throat. We have an amazing church family at Grace Lutheran. Home we went and packed up as fast as we could b/c rain was coming. By rain, I meant giant thunderstorm but Adam and Al were diligent and got it all packed up/tarped down, and we hit the road just before 11:30. Longest line ever at McDonald's, then headed out of Muscatine by noon. Al had to stop for tarp adjustment. Adam and I kept going. I had to stop for kid bathroom break (a half hour into the trip...grr). Once we turned north, the weather turned. The west wind was HORRID and got worse the further north we went. I had the black luggage rack thing on my car and it might as well have been a sail. Long story short, it was once of worst trips between WI/IA weather-wise we've ever had. STRONG 30-35 mph winds going across the road most of the time with hard rain. The last hour "blessed us" with torrential rain. Nothing was ruined (that I know of yet) and we all made it.

We have lots of furniture/big stuff left in Iowa. Dressers are empty. The garage is FULL and will take a load in itself. I'm terrified about moving the China cabinet and grandfather clock. We plan the next "adults-only" trip on Dec. 20th/21st (not sure of leave date yet) to get the rest of the big furniture we need to move in and be comfortable in the new house. It's hard to believe that's just a few days over a month away! So close to getting into our new house...we can't wait! And now a crazy week of conferences awaits...

ListS

Those of you who meet me figure out within about 2 minutes that I'm:

1. Type A. 
2. Mild/Moderate OCD.
3. in LOVE with LISTS.
4. Oh yeah, I adore my family. 

So back to #3...The number of lists that are currently sitting at home waiting for me is almost obscene. (why did she underline at home? what a weirdo...)

Not a weirdo. If they were with me at work all day, do you think I'd get anything done? Anything? I *might* see my students but outside of that? Nothing. I'd be so excited to work on my lists, reorganize them (especially after the HUBS gets ahold of them and "adds" to them in his different colored pen and boyish handwriting), and then wait until the minute I get to go accomplish them that I'd be one of the worst employees ever. 

So they sit at home, waiting, while I'm hoping that my DH leaves them alone until I can get my grubby mitts back on them again and ignore whatever else is going on around me as I work on them while researching things to do with my lists online. 

Right now (outside of my ever-running work lists that stay at work), I have lists for:

• What do we need from Iowa to effectively run a household? (organized by room, with *s for cross-referencing things that don't "live" in the correct room in Iowa - like all my kitchen stuff that's stored in the basement)
• What can stay in Iowa (all pending no house sale, mind you) until we get down again late January?
• What can be stored in cold weather? What goes in the enclosed trailer(s)? What can ride in the back of a pick up truck?
• CHRISTMAS LISTS!!! What our kids want, what other people's kids want, ideas for other family members, what's been actually purchased already...these are my favorite. Oh wait, all of them are my favorite. But Christmas has a shiny gold star just for me. 
• Before signing on the new house list/schedule
• Day of and after signing on the new house schedule to when we are actual DEPERE residents

And you know what? It made my heart happy and my brain calm to make the list of my lists. Fellow SLPs and several other friends reading this can relate - you know who you are - and you are nodding your head reading this. You are my people. 

Onward with the day and tackling my lists because lists weren't made to sit there. They were made to have each item crossed off, one by one, in a certain way with a certain pen, and even for a few things to be added that I accomplished just so I can immediately cross them off. I love lists. The end. 

Just under 2 months

Just under two months since we've moved back to WI (Sept. 6th).

Just under two months until we're living in our (OUR) new house (Dec. 27th; 56 days away, but who's counting?).

I'm not going to lie - both sort of feel like an eternity.*

I also know I really shouldn't be allowed to whine here because we are very fortunate to have saved and worked hard and put ourselves in the position to be where we're at in terms of veryimportantthings like a house purchase/sale. I'm just not a patient waiter!!

So let's talk about fun things, like the girls, as I have hardly updated about them lately and it's been all me me me. Or house house house which makes me think me me me b/c it's a huge part of me. Girlie time!

Morgan (I'm FOUR now) Addison

• Our smartie. She's currently the youngest in her class at school now as we "encouraged" them to move her to the 4s room as soon as she became of age instead of leaving her with 3 y/os she was light years ahead of (think about it - 6 months as a preschool/toddler aged person is HUGE). They wanted to wait until the holiday break (2 months away). We didn't and likely would have moved her to a different location. Thankfully, they moved her for us within the building. ;-)
• She's catching up to her peers quickly and is working on Pack 3 of the 4 packs of sight words she has since starting in her new class a few weeks ago. She currently knows such words as the, and, a, she, he, and (and more but I can't remember them all). Some days she struggles with the social side of things and is "learning" about bigger kid issues. On days when I wonder if she should be in more academically challenging arenas, I am reminded she's right where she belongs socially and the two balance each other out nicely.
• She still hates getting up early to go to school (6:10/:15). Oddly enough, back at the Iowa house it was not uncommon for us to groan and hear/find her awake at this time ready for the day. Two more months, child. Then you can get up a bit later. :)
• She's playing more and more with Hadley and they are fun to watch when it's going well. Not so fun when it's not.
• Morgan has some MAD Baby Calvin love. She holds him no less than a hundred times when we visit him. SO excited we'll be so close.

Hadley (sassy pants) Elizabeth

• She continues taking her climbing and falling to new heart-attack provoking levels. She particularly enjoys climbing into Grandpa Al's smaller recliner, then leaning over the side of the arm rest, and trying to catch herself with her hands as she goes to the floor. I can't tell you how many face plants that kid has taken off that chair (or how many laughs follow after it's obvious she isn't broken).
• She's catching on quickly to things and enjoys school, too (daycare - we just call it all school for ease of lingo). She counts to 5, 6, 7 or more - it's hard to tell sometimes. She uses 2-3 word utterances and has HILARIOUS inflection (oh NOOOO! YES! Daddy-O to name a few). She also knows the first two letters in her name and we're working on D. She knows some colors. She knows shapes. I'm going to blame this move on why I'm not grilling her all the time like I did with Morgan at this age.
• Hadley has some serious. grandpa. love. I don't know what we're going to do with her once we move out...if it's a minor/moderate owie, she bypasses me without a thought, then Adam with a little hesitation, and then just throws herself into Granpa's arms. (at least she still reserves the serious stuff for me/Adam.)
• She's the happiest little monkey to ever be woken up in the morning ever. This morning, Sherri found her awake already (odd) with her water bottle in her crib going "woah!" every time she flipped it open. She's totally more than ready for a toddler bed but we'll just take care of that once we're all moved in. She's our baby so who cares. She's small and still fits so boom. Crib. Crib until she's settled at the new house. Then...toddler bed. That will be an adventure in itself...
• She's been wearing 18 month flood pants and some 2T clothes. This weekend she's officially being turned over to 2T as most everything 18-24 months still fits but I promised my girls at birth they would never wear high water pants unless they wanted to (who would want THAT gah, said the mom who wore them all the time growing up ::cringe::). Since I'm in charge of what she wears and Adam just brought her 2T stuff home from Iowa (he traveled there at the beginning of this week for work), she's getting switched. I was looking at her 18 month winter coat and wondering what size Morgan was in at this age...seems like she's a good size smaller than Morgan who might have been in 3T stuff her 3rd winter, age 2? I'll have to go back and look.

Ok, all that said, it's time to get some work done. I needed a break. It's been an awesome afternoon without meetings and the like to clog my productive juices. That and I don't know if I will ever know what's going on around here...hmm. Sounds familiar from about 6 years ago during my first year at the AEA...Happy time change this weekend, folks!

*DISCLAIMER: Eternity isn't meant to be a poor reflection of our (extremely super awesome) hosts (Adam's folks). They've been nothing but helpful, accommodating, and amazing since we've taken over their house and lives. There is, however, something to be said about having your own space/house in our culture and for a Type A OCD person such as myself, I have to give myself a pat on the back 6 days out of 7 when I've held my shit together and not been an @ss because I miss my "boring" life in my own house.