Musings on Moving

We're down to about 5 weekends in Bradford before we ride off into the sunset.

One will be spent in New Hampshire.
One will be spent in New York.
One needs to be spent baptizing Piper.
One will find Erik at work.

York and work sort of rhyme, right?

So that leaves two. Count them, one, two free weekends before we close the chapter on our lives in Pennsylvania. And I wouldn't even call them "free" so much as "minimally scheduled." Grant is experiencing (and happily, expressing!) some trepidation about the whole thing. I think he's confused about why we're going to Grammie's, why we won't be together, how there's a new school with a different teacher and why we really won't have *our* stuff for about six months. I'm not really sure if having him gone for the pack out or here for it will be more helpful. If there even is one. If we don't get orders, the packing will be on us. And then I started thinking: is it better to ask the teacher if we can bring in some last day treats for his class, or if we should just treat it like another day.
And that got me thinking about a little gift for his teachers who have been so good to him. Do all parents think their teacher loves their kid an extra lot? Maybe it just seems that way because they're always bragging on him. Or maybe all parents just assume that everyone thinks their kids are as perfect as they do? Either way, school has been a great experience for both of us. Going somewhere that we were familiar with (his school is at our church) with at least one, and later more, teachers that we were familiar with before they became "his teacher" has broken us in to these years so easily. It makes me tear up to think of leaving the school. But, "We do hard things", right? That's what we've been preaching to G lately, and I have to epitomize that. Such a fine line to walk between allowing myself to be visibly sad when the time comes to say goodbye - I HATE goodbyes - and then shifting gears to excited for a new adventure.

I guess we'd better get this all figured out though, because the time is drawing near and this is just the first of many times he'll remember what it's like to say goodbye.

Piper is ONE!

 

The sweetest girl I've ever known turned one last week.

 

We had a serious party, with some serious out of towner friends and family.

 

I don't think anyone could possibly love this girl more. Especially her brother. And me. And her dad. But especially her brother. I am amazed by and grateful for their relationship EVERY.SINGLE.day.

 

So now, a few things you might not know about little Pipes, courtesy of her birthday party photos.

  

She likes to chew on her dress hems.



And loves a good game of peek-a-boo!

 

She suffers from a chronic case of Resting Bitch Face.

Exhibit two.

And as it turns out...

....she freakin' loves cake. Which we learned when she dove face first into that cake of hers.

It was Cherry Chip, by the way. I'll be glad I wrote that later.

As an aside: A pack of dad's chem-lights can add at least 2 hours of life to a party.

Someone couldn't be persuaded to go to sleep during her party. But that's okay, we have lots of fun together.

Happy birthday, gorgeous girl! We all adore you!!!

Throw Back Thursday

Lake trip by the pics.

 

Our great house with a great dock (complete with a duck family living under it!), two boats, a slide and great views.

 

 

 

 Books were read and boat rides were taken.

 

 

 
Neither kid particularly enjoyed their life jackets.

 

But they did enjoy each other! This was taken before our first day of boating!

 

 Grant caught several fish with the help of Papa and the super cool fishing pole and tackle box Papa gave him!

 

Here's Grandma and P looking on. Tell me these two aren't twins.

G wasn't super sure about tubing the first few times out...
in fact, I'd venture to say he was against it.

P is not only the girl with many nicknames, she's also the girl with about a billion sun hats. It's my person mission to have as little of her body exposed to the open air at any time as possible. ;)

 This girl slept on me on our big boating day, and this will probably prove to be the last time.

She's getting too independent for my taste! (Check out what Uncle Mike calls her 1940's bathing suit! She totally pulls it off.)

 

Grant tried tubing again, and apparently all he needed was a little help from dad!

 Thumbs-upping is hard and requires quite a bit of concentration.

 

 Turns out, Erik is kind of a hot dog on the tube. You think you know someone after almost ten years.

 

We forced both kids to try the lake. They were both furious about it.

 

 Erik and Uncle Mike took G out on the kayak on our last night. You can't see it, but G took along a little beach shovel as a paddle.

G has obviously inherited my squinty face.

 

 

 

 

 

This almost became a pretty big incident. We heard them trying to fire it up - or whatever the technical term for creating the hot air is, looked out, and saw this. Seriously, look how close to the water that is! They eventually got high enough to go over those trees in the back ground, but then we saw them start dipping again - toward another lake!

 

Let's look a little closer.

 

 

 And P started "cruising" while we were there, and said her first "official" word - "uh oh!"

  

Nothing Really

Our house is on the market. No showings yet. It's only been 3 days, but I was all ready to go with a checklist of things to do before leaving, a plan on where to go and what to do. Hopefully though, I only need to use it a few times.

Right now, I'm listening to the carpet cleaners banging around upstairs. My plan was to come down here and do this, uploading pictures from P's birthday, but I left the camera upstairs and don't want to get my feet all wet fetching it.

In other news, I finally managed to get our 2013 Photo Book ordered from MixBook. Procrastination paid off in a sense because I ended up saving $68 by waiting for their annual birthday sale. Mixbook is EXPPPPEEEEENSIVE, but if you have a sale/groupon whatever, it makes the price more bearable. Thing is, their books are the best and easiest, so even if you have to pay full price, it's worth it.

Wow, the rambling...

Last Friday was Erik's LAST NIGHT OF GRAD SCHOOLLL!!! I could not possibly be more excited if it was my own self that had earned a Master's degree. Seriously. Thank the Lord that is OVER and we get some precious time as a family before going our separate ways in October for awhile.

My mom was just here and we sent a suitcase of goods home with her to lighten our TDY load. I was super proud, in my stressed out, house prepping state, that I managed to think of writing a list of everything I sent with her.

This reminds me to order P a Daddy Doll.

Geez Louise, I keep thinking something creative will come upon me and I can delete all this other insanity. But it hasn't. Maybe I'll go work on my to do list instead. More later. :)

G Loves School!



The progress G has made in the last six months at school is crazy bananas. He's grown up so much, it's so exciting and so sad all that the same time. But it's been really good for him, good for he and I, good for me and Piper and just good for me, so I definitely think it was the right decision for our family.

Ms. Leeanne was kind enough to put up with G toting around his
Daddy Doll while Erik was gone.

 

Several months ago, after only 15 minutes of instruction from me,
G began making his G (which he calls "my G!") all by himself!

 

 

That says "I practiced my name at bumpy writing, I can make my G independently."
I love getting these progress notes each day!

The just had some chicks hatch at school!