Calvin Thomas!! (and more house info)

We may have found our house? I'm not sure. But I think we're sure. And after that's all said, we need to know if this is the right decision or not. Crystal ball...where ARE you!?

We don't know what to do. We're pretty sure we want this house and we can do it now. Our realtor is checking into things that we would need to change to make this happen and work for our family (ie. add a shed and dig out an egress window for Adam's office). The price is excellent and really, there are only minimal cosmetic changes we'd want to do over time (outside of the immediate shed and office for Adam).

We are downsizing which is oddly enough, a breath of fresh air for me (for now, ha...). The Iowa house and yard were too much/big. I always felt like I was barely keeping up and always behind. I'm excited for the plans we have for the basement to make it fully work for our family when the girls are bigger and need more space. For now, they'd have an awesome basement floor to ride bikes on and throw balls all over without breaking anything. (maybe we could have a pitching room for the girls...ha, Adam would be thrilled at the idea).

We looked at a new construction today that was again, beautiful. All new constructions that we see are. Tile, kitchen, master everything, blah blah blah gorgeous. Yard too small (story of our lives).

I know this makes no sense and is just a ton of rambling about houses, but we're getting really close to making a choice, I think. Maybe we'll change our minds tomorrow. For now, I'm feeling really comfortable if we were to offer on this house and get it. Our girls will be happy here, our dogs will have the space they need, and I feel like I could participate in MORE of the girls' lives on many levels if we were to be here.

All that boring housing news aside, WE MET BABY CALVIN today! Calvin Thomas (Tom & Carrie's baby) graced the world with his presence Saturday morning. He and Morgan are exactly 4 years minus 1 week apart in age. Every two years or so, another little Schmidt comes along (insert inappropriate giggle here). He's 20.25" long, 8#7oz, and a handsome little guy. We are so excited we'll be close to see him grow up. Welcome to the family, little big guy!

Ok, it's time for ice cream before Week 6 starts. Wish us luck on the house issues and we wish Tom and Carrie luck on their sleep for the next week and beyond. :)

Ready for some house confusion?

So after a looooong Saturday of looking at houses, we have some options. Long story short results in bulleted list. And go.

• Existing home about 5 minutes from where Adam's brother, Tommy, lives in DePere (rather ideal location) - we liked it. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being we'd offer immediately without a second showing and 8 meaning we'd go back for another look, I'd definitely have given this house an 8 or 9. It was nice - the yard was almost perfect, the bedrooms were split, but the garage was only 2 car, the master was a little tight to fit our furniture, and there were dings on a few doors/kitchen cupboards. Otherwise, not bad at all and within our price range to be able to swing it while still sitting with the Iowa mortgage. (read: moving before Christmas, maybe)
• Brand new build in a not ideal district for our family. The lot was sort of small but felt bigger than it was d/t where the house sat on it and the shape of the lot. Other than that, the house was perfect and we'd have bought it immediately had the stars aligned with the Iowa house selling and it was in one of our ideal school districts. Dang. 
• So...after a couple of other houses that had something wrong (ie. one house/lot was PERFECT and then the kitchen/dining area were apartment-sized at best) we are entertaining the idea of asking the builders to build the dream house on lot that was the size we want in a district we want. Boom, our realtor emailed us with four lot options already. We are still waiting to hear back about the actual size of said lots b/c anything under 0.4/0.5 is not going to be an option for our family. Down side? None of these lots are in the district closest to all our family (DePere). They are all in Howard or Suamico. Not the worst, but proximity to family-wise, it would have been awesome. This isn't counted out yet b/c of the first bullet. All in good time...
• SO...we're waiting to hear back from the WI realtor about lot sizes. We're waiting to hear back from the IA realtor as to whether or not we can somehow sway the potential buyer we have (remember? our house made the "cut" for this one family last week? we still haven't heard back...) by offering incentives of some sort to tip the scales in our favor. Hopefully it will all fall into place b/c we're excited about getting this next (last) step done. 

Still crossing fingers...still praying for an Iowa sale...and happy where we're at for now. Adam is traveling this week which puts us at 3 out of the last 4 weeks. Then comes a welcome break. And a four year old (OMGSHE'SALMOSTFOUR). Less than two weeks!

SEVEN!

Who's shocked...I'm behind and our anniversary was Monday but we're going to pretend I wrote this Monday and carry on with life b/c no one's perfect, especially me. :)

We've made it through seven years of this crazy married life together - which puts us at over 12 years together (we both drop jaws with shock and awe at this fact - how can it be that long already??). I don't have lots to say other than I'm the luckiest gal on the planet to have this guy by my side. I couldn't imagine anyone else living this life with me and still loving me even after all the crazy I put him through (oh and vice versa. totally. in different ways ;-).

We didn't do anything superexcitingomg to celebrate and we didn't buy gifts (although Adam lied and got me a big bouquet of beautiful flowers) because we're hoping to buy each other a new house here very soon. We went out for an adult's only dinner Saturday night at a place called 8th and York in Manitowoc and it was nice. The food was good (spicy!) and the chocolate we picked up for ourselves the girls at Beernstein's after was delicious as well. We even went to a few stores and browsed without care. I know - big time fancy, no? Either way, it was great to reconnect alone because those times have been hard to come by lately given Adam's traveling schedule and our current life situation.

Happy 7 years, T! They've been the best and I can't wait to see where the next 7 take us...(can you imagine in 7 years when the girls are almost 9 and 11?!? Me neither.)

In Iowa housing news, "ironically" we went to church on Sunday and boom, 3 showings this week after the trail had gone cold. One showing was a waste of time and we were informed of that before it even happened. The first showing resulted in our house "making the cut" along with a few other houses so hopefully the family makes a quick decision and chooses ours. We still haven't heard from the last showing but it was a wife and she'd have to have her husband come back next week when he was done traveling. And for the record (as I'm sure many of you know and/or have experienced), waiting blows.

In WI housing news, we started this week with NINE houses to look at tomorrow (Saturday) and by Tuesday afternoon, we were down to 4 b/c 5 of them had offers pending/accepted. Wonk wonk. One of them was our dream home (minus the size of the girls' rooms - small) that was on the wrong lot with a garage that was too small (ha, I hear you thinking "dream? doesn't sound like it..." but everything else was amazeballs) so I wasn't terribly sad b/c I was already questioning if that one would really be the perfect fit. It had so much going for it though...so now we're at around 5-6 houses we're going to look at tomorrow starting at 11:30. One that we're VERY interested in is currently only a basement with a great view of the sky and it won't be ready until the end of December, which doesn't matter, because we just found out the basement house sold. Are you kidding me?!

But wait! You haven't sold your Iowa house!! Why are you looking at houses? Funny you should ask. Well, first of all, in case the Iowa house would sell sooner rather than later, we want to look at some and know what's out there. Second, this gives our realtor a chance to get to know our likes/dislikes for when the time comes so we don't waste time (we have a new realtor from the last time we looked at houses in August). Third, we are entertaining the idea of a second mortgage with big prayers it wouldn't be much of an overlap. We can swing it but it's scary at how our life style has/will be changing with my new salary and then a second mortgage on top of that. The cool thing about the new construction is that it would buy us some time of NOT having two mortgages...but adds commute time without question since we wouldn't move in until the middle of winter (ack). If we were to buy tomorrow (which we won't), we might still ask for a 90 day close or something like that to buy us time. Either way, we are eager to find out where life is leading us so we can complete our "new normal."

That all said, we continue to be ever so thankful for Al and Sherri and how graciously they are letting us all but take over their home. I mean it - we've literally taken over and I'm sure they're tired. I'm sure they're (secretly - they'd never tell us) sad that there are babies and toys ALL OVER THE PLACE (you know how kids see toys put away and instantly must recreate the chaos) among a million and ten other things they miss about their "normal." I'm positive they're tired of the dogs b/c they're high maintenance and can be annoying (but oh do we love them and their sick selves. Maddie is sick now, too, so we have double doggie bronchitis. More meds, more vet bills, joy all around). But thanks to Al & Sherri. Many, many thanks.

And off we go. I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow. We literally count down the days to sleeping in starting with ... Monday.

Getting the hang of this

We're almost done with Week 3 in WI and I think we've got this.

• I'm feeling a TON more comfortable at work and very effective with several of my self-contained preschoolers as I work towards communicatively engineering their classrooms (CEC) so they are able to communicate using pictures, signs, and words in all areas of their environment. It's a long process but the dive I've taken into it already is paying off. Huge HOORAY - I introduced a few of my ALS (aided language stimulation) boards to a few of my kiddies during structured play activities and the next day I came in, the teacher said that as soon as they went to centers time, one of the kids went directly to a center with a board and started using it while playing trucks. That's a win if I ever heard one!
• I'm also feeling more comfortable in almost all other aspects of my job...except paperwork. I haven't had a real high demand to use what I've learned about it yet but that's coming next week. For the time being, I'm going to enjoy the therapy ride I'm on and keep on truckin' through.
• Home life gets better daily...meaning that the girls are understanding our new routine and even if it involves almost 2 hours of traveling (car time, pick up/drop off, etc) daily, we're working with it and making it happen. The girls are having less tantrums and we're working on getting more sleep in their night time schedule b/c they are certainly getting less than they did in our normal, routine Iowa life.
• The dogs make me nuts b/c we don't have a fenced in yard of any kind anymore (electric or physically standing) so someone needs to be with them at all times or they need to be tied up (totally out of their norm). I feel bad b/c they hardly have any time outside while Adam travels (the past two weeks) because cooking dinner requires me to be inside and it's hard to watch dogs AND kids AND have fun at the same time. The ILs have been nothing more than a HUGEGIANTOMG help - this would be a million times harder without them. But with Adam traveling, the "hard" factor goes up some notches as usual.
• I need to learn to go to bed earlier but am functioning pretty well on 6.5-7 hours of sleep a night. Maybe that's part of the reason for this head cold I have...or it's the germs I've picked up from all my friends at school, per the normal back to school routine.
• Adam. He's doing well home officing but he's only had a week of it, honestly. He was home the first week and on the road this and last week. We miss him terribly and are so thankful he's coming home tomorrow (for one week and then travels again another week). The girls are beyond excited that, if all goes according to schedule, his plane landing time should allow him to be home in time to play with the girls a bit and put them to bed.
• The Iowa house...ho hum, the trail has gone cold and I swear everyone has decided to hunker down for the winter and not buy houses. :-( We were pretty sad earlier this week when a second showing fell through and they were comparing our house to ones $50k more - which is so stupid b/c they're NOT COMPARABLE. Almost no house at that price difference is (unless we're talking millions. which we're not. but just in case you were looking for loopholes, there's one for ya). The guy Adam called to mow the lawn this week said that our address sounded familiar b/c he and his wife had looked at it online and were interested. Unfortunately, they're not in a huge rush (although they should be. just sayin').

More from us soon. I need to start working out again but I'm so tired by the time the girls go to bed that I breathe a huge sigh of relief we made it to their bedtime with/without tantrums and ruckus, then pack up for the next day, I shower at night now to save morning time, and then it's almost 9 by the time I even consider sitting down. That means little/no workout time unless we take the girls for a walk after supper. It will all work out...as long as I start eating less ice cream. ;-)

PS Poor Morgan came home with a fever and Hadley came home with a dried face of snot. I can breathe through my nose but I'm coughing in an annoying manner. Isn't Adam a lucky guy to come home to us beauties? HA HA HA...

Week One Done.

And we survived. We drove late into the night last Friday night and arrived in our home state and we made it. We had clothes, toys, and TONS of things for work (mostly me. like 85-90% me.). We were weary, tired, and excited. That hasn't gone away yet at all, and I don't anticipate it going away for quite some time.

We weren't sure about the KinderCare we ended up going with even though it is the most economical across the board (of the 7 in the GB area). Looooong story short, we're feeling much better about it after Adam talked to the director Friday and everybody's feeling like this is going to work out for now. The girls both cried when I left them Thursday and Friday which made me want to vomit and cry all the way to the car/work, but each day I picked them up I had reports of "she had a MUCH better day today."

We're having some SERIOUS TERRIBLE TWOS issues with Hadley and she's significantly regressed with potty training (which makes me furious even though I shouldn't be). I also realized yesterday that she's FINALLY popping through 3/4 molars she's missing which may be contributing to the fuss. That said, the kid will cry for 20 minutes straight, forced even, after she has run out of A) real tears and B) forgot what she was crying about in the first place. We're praying it's a phase thing and related to the huge transition we just threw them into. If it's not, I'm going to be an alcoholic by the time she's 8. (ok I won't be, but I might try to sell her a few times. Ok, not that either. I'll just lose my sanity. That might be more "fun.")

So work. Work. Wow. I can't BELIEVE the difference between two states. It finally dawned on me this week that the question I bombed with Appleton? The one where they asked, "What IEP system do you use?" and I fumbled like an idiot b/c I was all, um, don't YOU use the one your STATE makes you use and since I live in Iowa clearly I don't use whatever system you are using? Nope. Not even close, folks. All you educators, especially those in special ed, are going to audibly gasp when you read this - Every district gets to choose their own IEP system (someone out there makes tons of cash creating IEP systems!). So, if Jonny Smith lives in my district but then moves down the street down to Ashwaubanon, his poor special ed people have to enter his IEP into a whole new system! Now, this happens when a kid crosses state lines and that's fine. But no matter where you go, you have frequent fliers who change districts multiple times a year (unfortunately for the poor kid) and I can't imagine the paperwork! Oh good Lord.

I could go ON and ON with the differences. Some are shocking. Some make me almost fall off my chair. Like this one - my caseload has taken a huge hit and dropped significantly....however, the kids have TONS of minutes compared to Iowa so my schedule is almost as packed. I like the idea that I am part of the school because I was hired by the district, too. My dept is still 50+ strong and I like that, too, although the dept as a whole is much older than my the AEA I was in. After talking with another SLP Friday, she said that the district was at a point where they were requiring SLPs to have at least 2 years' experience before being hired! I was so sad - our rookies are some of our strongest people in our AEA and I value their fresh eyes in the field. Plus, they grow with you and the relationships formed are hard to break.

Don't get me wrong - I know I'll like it here, but it will take some getting used to. It's not just GB as a district - it's statewide things that I'm going to have to get used to. I am so VERY EXCITED to have plans in place to create communicatively engineered contained preschools at this school, but since I've got all of the new going on that's threatening my sanity, I'm going to give myself 2 years to really have it awesome and all figured out. And then I'll revamp it and make it more awesome. I can't wait.

Ok, so just to let you know, we're hanging in there. Adam's first week home officing went well - he said he's super productive since Maddie and Jessie don't come to talk to him about their weekends between business happenings ;-) although I'm sure he's missed his colleagues. I was so very sad Friday when I went to a SLP dept meeting and knew no one. I always knew everyone (almost) and had too many people to sit by (by the way, I struggle with sitting places alone - I'd rather eat in my car than eat at a restaurant alone). Thankfully, I ended up next to a really nice girl, around my age, who it turns out was my Aunt Laurie's intern a long time ago in Two Rivers. (small world)

And for the record, the house has had 5 (I think? Maybe 6?) showings. The last one might come back with her hubs/parents. Either way, I'm still terrified we're never going to sell and we'll be stuck not in "our house" forever (shouldn't happen...). Thinking positively. Trying hard. And still so glad to be home.

Day Care/PreK - CHECK.

Real quick...

Our weekend in WI was a success. At least on the front of day care/preschool. LONG story short - the in home day care we visited just didn't even come close to Mary's. We found an amazing preschool at a church but we were so sad it was only 2 days/week. We wanted Morgan to go more often than that. We finally came down to a Montessori or Kindercare. We went with Kindercare; they both can go to the same place all day (and could at Montessori, too) but we just got a better feel for Kindercare. They start Monday and we think they'll do really well. I told Mary this morning and she knew of the programs. Her "approving look" when I told her solidified our decision even more.

We found our forever home. For real. It was amazing. Done exactly the way I would have wanted. Then...the lot was too small. The garage won't fit our needs (we need over-sized 2 car or 3 car garage). So God knew what he was doing when I was all sad and mad and furious that we couldn't put an offer in on it immediately...The realtor showing is today at our IA house so hopefully that will increase traffic and "the one" will find us and buy it so we can move forward in WI. We went back and forth all weekend on whether or not to go for two mortgages if we found our forever house (the market is SO FAST up there) but after terrifying number crunching and the like...we're sticking with one mortgage at a time for now. We'll see if that's the case if we're still in this position in 6 months. (please dear GOD I hope we're not).

Now, to get some sleep sometime this week...I'm still waking up super early just to lie there and worry. Pleasant, no?

8 Crazy Days

You know that Adam Sandler song, The Chanukah Song where he talks about 8 crazy nights? I feel like that's been my life x100 (still Morgan's favorite number) the past 8 days.

9 days ago we found out we could move to WI.

8.75 days ago we found out we were going MUCH FASTER than anticipated after receiving my job offer and me accepting.

8 days ago we really started in on the house and haven't stopped since. Updates we'd been talking about taking a year (or less) to do happened in a week.

And tomorrow our "blue house" (as Morgan so affectionately calls it) is going on the market. I can't tell you the anxiety I'm feeling about this, as I'm terrified it won't sell much in the same way it didn't last time we tried this. Last time was for fun. Last time was "because we wanted to."

This time, we HAVE to. We have a new life waiting for us and it's not going anywhere. It's coming at us fast. And while I'm so very eager and excited and THANKFUL to be staying with Adam's folks, I worry that we will be a burden on them and that the longer this goes, the longer we might eventually make things awful. Two dogs and two young kids makes for a fast-paced life which is good for weekends...but not so sure they know what's coming with weeks (and maybe - but hopefully not - months). We are so blessed to have this opportunity with them...we just worry.

We're worried about day care and PreK for the girls but those questions will be answered hopefully after tomorrow's craziness of visits all morning long (and maybe afternoon....tbd). I know they'll adjust and be ok. Thankfully Morgan is old enough to tell us if things aren't going well and Hadley is getting there slowly but surely.

But the house. I'm nervous for the house. We have several in the DePere/Howard-Suamico area we love (via online pics/stats). We would love to avoid 2 mortgages at all costs. We know God has a plan which has been evident by the past 9 days falling into place the way they have after waiting for over a year for this moment in our lives to come. I just wish he could share it a little early sometimes...

So that said, anyone in the Muscatine area who knows of someone looking for a good deal on a great home in a fabulous neighborhood, please send them our way! Wait until TOMORROW (Friday) to have them look online for the house but it's in the Rolling Acres Subdivision (just north off of Hwy 38). It will be listed with Sara Carlson through Ruhl & Ruhl. Thanks in advance and prayers for a fast home sale are more than welcome!