The tap dance house

Here's a few pictures of our new home. We closed Friday and plan to move in mid-April. We hope to clean a bunch and do some repairs between now and then.


Your car belongs in this driveway for a visit!


We call it the "tap dance house" because of this front room where our realtor taught the girls to tap dance one time while we were looking at the house.


I love all the light in this kitchen/dining room!


Another favorite part of the house is the way it's so wooded in the back.


A laundry ROOM (not closet)!



This is the extra bedroom upstairs. We'll use it as a playroom...something we were really hoping for in our Little Rock house. The floor is laminate, and I'm not sure yet how I'll make it cheery and fun in here.

We're grateful for the chance to call this house our home for now. Thank you Lord!

Company

It's been a super fun week! Last Friday was my birthday. I had lots of fun helping the kids make a cake then enjoyed dinner at Pei Wei with AJ and the kids then shopping at a twin consignment sale. Last weekend we went to Fayetteville to spend time with Ben and Maggie and a few other great friends. The kids laughed so much while playing with their doggy cousin Tusk. It kind of makes us want a dog, but only kind of.



This week has brought some fun people to Little Rock. We had family pictures taken by a high school friend of AJ's who was in town from California. A college friend, Meredith, from Kansas came through last night, and we loved catching up with her over dinner, games, and of course some music. And the Smiths (some dear friends from Midland who grew up in Little Rock) are here for Spring Break. This morning the kids and I went to the zoo with them, and tomorrow we get to have dinner with them! The fun continues...my parents will be here this weekend to spend their spring break with us. We're so excited!


Drew is doing much better now! We're almost done with the medications and breathing treatments that were prescribed as we left the hospital, and he's so happy and fun now that he's feeling better. He loves dogs and trucks and makes my day each morning when I go into his room and he says, "Hi Mommy!" Not sure why he loves to wear these necklaces, but he puts them on several times each day. I'm sure he'll grow out of it!

HOME!

We're home and so happy to have Drew in a place where he can safely crawl around and play. He's adjusting to breathing treatments every 4 hours. He's been taking lots of steps today too! Thank you, Lord, for his improved health and for family who are close enough to come take care of the girls while we were at the hospital!

While I have time...other news

First, a few fun Valentine's day shots. We had fun baking heart cookies and taking them to neighbors and friends, making our traditional cheesecake (this one was Chocolate Raspberry, and it's the best we've ever made), and dinner out with the kids.







The Midland house is SOLD! I can't even say "our house" anymore. Sad. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the wonderful friends who have helped us finish up with moving, cleaning the house, getting keys to the right people, etc. We're praying that we'll get to come back to Midland someday. We miss doing daily life with you.

Our offer on a house in Little Rock that we really like has been ACCEPTED. It's a short sale, so we're waiting to see what the inspector says since we get the house "as is". We have to be sure it doesn't need expensive fixes, but if everything checks out okay, we're scheduled to close March 30. I need to get a picture of it.

We now have furniture! I missed the washer and dryer the most, but it's fun to have things like the couches, dressers, the piano, etc. It's really exciting to think of really settling in the house we'll buy, but this is a very comfortable in-between.



We had fun celebrating AJ's birthday. It was simple...a painting from the girls, his favorite dinner, cake, but we had fun loving on the best hubby and daddy in the world!





We're loving being so close to AJ's family. I went to visit them while AJ went to Midland to move our stuff to Arkansas. We also went to the Little Rock zoo with Grandma, Poppie, and all the cousins last weekend and had a great time. What a treat to get together more often.

Picnic at the park after the zoo

Drew is walking! He took 7 steps then 10 steps two different days before he got sick. I think he'll take off once he's feeling better. Video to come.

Hospital

Well...yesterday Drew was breathing pretty fast (about 70 breaths every minute). He's done this a few times before, and I always struggle with whether I should take him to the doctor. He always seems pretty okay besides breathing fast. Yesterday I decided I should call and talk to the nurse about it, and she said she wasn't sure if we should go to the ER or the pediatrician's office--YIKES! I convinced her to let us come to the office. They gave him a breathing treatment, which freaked the girls out! Can you believe a nurse went to another part of the office with the girls to play where they couldn't hear Drew crying? Wow! He seemed better to me, but they did a chest x-ray. The doctor came back and said his x-ray looked bad and that he was being admitted. Period. Bummer. He has lower lobe pneumonia, and she's kinda confused about why he has it. We don't have family history of asthma, allergies, etc and he hasn't had a fever. We'll see a specialist at the children's hospital once we get this pneumonia taken care of.

He was dehydrated when we got to here to the hospital, probably because he puked the day before which I thought was just a stomach bug like Jenna had this week. Because of his dehydration, they've had a terrible time drawing blood and inserting an iv. He's been stuck 11 times. One time worked but it came out three hours later. Poor thing. This morning the doc said we'll do a shot for his antibiotics instead of the iv. Yea! He'll get the shot again tomorrow morning, and we may get to go home if he's doing well.

AJ worked some yesterday but was able to be flexible and come spend some time helping. His mom drove here as soon as I called, and she's staying with the girls. What a blessing to be only two hours from family!!! AJ stayed with Drew last night while I went home to get some rest (he's so good to me!) and went to work this morning. Drew's getting a good nap now and is in pretty good spirits except for the times when he's being stuck by needles. Thanks for praying. We're ready to go home but trusting that God's always taken care of our needs in the past and will continue to do that in this situation.