a few pics from right before the move....







everybody's first night in their new beds-







making progress in the bathrooms. in fact, this picture is already outdated cause i totally have running water in my bathroom now :)



we lived with our tub in our room for the first week. now the room feels a bit empty without it.....



exploring our new backyard-











gave neiko a piece of cake. he used his hair to clean his hands :)



these last 4 pictures were for neiko's birthmom. i wanted to show her his new room-



he loooooves playing out on the patio. he loves being outside in general, so much so that he lets himself out the doors all the time. gotta always keep my eye on this one.....he is TROUBLE! :)







so our second week in our house turned out to be just as busy as the first. the first garage sale did not go well, so i advertised on my own and had it again the next saturday.

also i spent 2 days cleaning a house for dave.

so with making signs for the sale, lining up sitters so i could clean all day, coming home and cleaning all evening, having the sale, hosting a girls night, and helping our good friends move it was another crazy week.

and this week is the school's big fundraiser, which is put on by us school moms, so that tells you what THIS week is like......

BUT THERE IS AN END IN SIGHT.
on saturday we leave for gulf shores, alabama to put all this craziness behind us.
soooo ready to spend a week on the beach with dave and the kids and some of our family and friends.
no school schedules or house stuff or ANYTHING to stress about.
.........unless you count packing for 7 and a 14 hour car ride with the kids. :)

I have to mention that in the midst of our chaos my little (former) baby has been growing up. she is just another one of the kids now and does everything they do. and she says everything they say.

some of my favorites-

"wait a minute!"

"one more time!"

"i've got a better idea"

"can I go too?? oh, I'm too little....."

"stop saying that, neiko, that's annoying!!"

and

"stop singing! you're hurting my ears!!

of course, she never says that last phrase to ME. ok, yes she does. all the time. :)

She informs me every night that she doesn't like her new bed. Except it sounds more like this- "I don't like dis bed. I don wanna pleep in dis bed. I wanna pleep in foa's bed."

But koa's bed is a bunk bed with Shaeya sleeping on top. And koa still bangs her head. So far Shaeya is so happy to be sleeping on the top bunk that she hasn't complained too much....

So here is a small glimpse into the first week at our new house-

We have no washer and dryer yet. 5 kids plus a week with no washer and dryer.....

and we had a flu bug run through 4 of the kids this week. But thankfully only 1 of them puked.

And then there is neiko. Our move triggered some kind of something with him. He has been truly terrible. Defiant and stubborn, throwing lots of tantrums and throwing food. Pushing every boundary, getting into EVERYTHING, and constantly letting himself out the doors. He is doing something bad every minute.

I had to set up a "time out" pack n play in the living room to deal with some of these behaviors.

But at the end of everyday I sit down with him in the rocking chair in his room with his favorite blanket and some warm milk. And he lays his head on my chest, and I sing to him while I rub his back and his head. And somehow I know my sweet boy is still there. He is crying out for love and consistency and I'm doing my best to give it to him.

He is just trying to deal with another life change and with a busy mommy.

And I will not be this busy for too much longer. I went from cleaning and unpacking to trying to get organized and set up for a garage sale. The neighborhood sale is on saturday and I decided that it would be worth it to join in. The timing is sorta bad but also good.

Otherwise, we made progress with the bathrooms this week, i got the kitchen and our closets organized, the washer and dryer are coming tomorrow, and then after the sale on Saturday the big garage might actually be empty enough for one of us to park in.

Sooooo next week should be better. I'm not saying that this week was bad, I'm just saying that next week will be better......:)

WE DID IT!!!!

We went through a few frustrating days after our inspection on Wednesday- the inspector left Dave with a loooong list of things that needed to be done before we could get our temporary certificate of occupancy.

My plan was to use Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night to move our clothes, dresser drawers, kitchen stuff, and food. But when we got that impossibly long list we decided I better just stay home with the kids those nights to allow Dave to get as much done as possible. It was pretty frustrating. I was so stir crazy at home, trying to stay positive and keep packing not knowing if we would get to move this weekend or not. And Dave was working crazy hours on that list. One of those nights he crawled in bed at 2am.......

But he finished everything, we had a second inspection on Friday, and we PASSED.
We were so relieved and excited, and then trying to round up some last minute help for the move the next day.

From there everything went pretty smoothly. We got our stuff moved, cleaned my parent's house, set up beds, and started in on organizing.
And we are still organizing.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who helped us and who watched our kids!!

We feel so blessed and happy and relieved to finally be together and in our new home!!!!!

We have what seems like endless amounts of trimming, painting, and organizing ahead of us. And we have only 1 fully functioning bathroom- 2 of them do not even have counter tops or sinks. Also our living room is decorated with a huge pile of trim.
But none of that matters at all to us at this point- we are just so happy to be living here.
With 2 parents for the kids, only 1 house to take care of, and no more showings!! :)

i just have to say that it is pretty pathetic how far back these pictures go.
i laughed when i saw i had never even posted our "first day of school" pictures.





the smile that stops my heart.....
he is so beautiful.



these next 2 pictures do not at all capture what grocery shopping is really like with these two. :)





a normal day at the grocery store gets us a lot of attention.
a little more than i would prefer.

here is tekoa doing what she does best....





tomorrow is "bring a friend day" at gymnastics and tekoa is bringing shaeya :) they have been planning for and dreaming of this day for a week. they are both very excited. so cute :)







at least my delay in posting pictures gives us a little glimpse back into summer.....sigh.......















i'd like to be able to say that neiko had enjoyed some candy or cake or something in these next pictures.....



but it was sidewalk chalk......
gives me chills just thinking about him putting chalk in his mouth.



and we had tyden's birthday earlier this month.
in honor of his 10th my brother allowed him just this once to fish off a dock at the lake that is designated for fish feeding only. he had the time of his life.



and finally, house pics.
our final inspection is on wednesday at 2pm and we are so anxious to find out if we can move this weekend.
we are still minus some countertops, mirrors, and a lot of trim, but as far as we know we should be able to move in.

16 months of being apart almost every night might be over in 5 days!!!!!!!!

well i have been trying for a few days now to get a bunch of pictures uploaded but for some reason it is just not happening.
so this is what you get. the boring house pictures. which are already outdated....

things are getting REALLY crazy at this point as far as moving and cleaning and finishing up things at the house, so unfortunately blogging is going to have to take a back seat.

also we have had quite a few mix-ups with the cabinets and countertops which adds to the chaos. hopefully we can get things back on track and get enough done this week to maybe move on saturday. that's a big maybe....i'm not getting my hopes up.

so for now we are putting everything we move into the basement of the new house. which means i have a HUGE pile of boxes down there and have no idea where anything is or what i will need or how to get to it. should be a lot of fun trying to get organized.

and a quick update on the adoption-

absolutely nothing is happening.

birthmom is still in south carolina and she says she has no money to get her back to louisiana. so i don't know what is going to happen at this point.

all i know is we are almost halfway done with our year of power of attorney guardianship and our lawyer said that we do not want to let that year run out before we finalize the adoption.

please pray for our adoption.

pray for neiko's birthmom. she is struggling. she needs JESUS.

please pray for her to somehow get back to louisiana.

and pray for our family. we are sooooo ready to be neiko's mommy n daddy and to give him our last name.

but above all please pray for GOD to be glorified and for HIS WILL to be done and for us to have enough FAITH to leave ALL OF IT in His hands.

He began this good work and He will be faithful to complete it.

.......and this is where i would put a beautiful picture of our son and his amazing smile if only blogger would let me!!!

lots of craziness going on around here...
showings and cleaning
cabinets and trimming
school and driving

we got our island on saturday and are expecting more kitchen cabinets on thursday.  which means my husband will stay up all night thursday night to try to install them all before the granite company comes on friday to measure for counter tops.
HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!
the end is getting closer!!!!!
all we need is a kitchen sink and we are moving!!

i am beyond ready to get us out of my parent's house and finally into our own!
especially now that i am showing this one.  pure chaos......barely even possible. 
but it is not forever! maybe only 3 weeks more!
and my parents do have an interested buyer right now so pray it works out!!
it would be a HUGE blessing to be able to focus on moving at this point and not worry about keeping this house looking perfect at all times!

i am usually the one with all the chaos and drama, but my husband got to have some of that for himself last night when a semi trailer that was delivering some dirt to the new house totally tipped over into our yard. 
they had to bring in a crane and a skid steer to right the trailer and get it put back together.  and i guess all the neighbors enjoyed the show....
needless to say dave wasn't able to get much work done last night ;)

i mentioned school and driving....
big part of life right now. 
and on friday we reached a whole new chaos on that end when we opened the doors of the van to load up and found shredded kleenex everywhere.
we had an extra passenger who had been up the whole night emptying my box of kleenex, chewing up my earphones, shredding a pencil, eating a hole in my cloth grocery bag, and pooping EVERYWHERE. 
we had no choice but to just get in and drive cause we had a busy day, but it was so gross.  at one point i grabbed my lip gloss to put some on and found a mouse turd stuck to the side of it. 
then around 3 or so that afternoon we made it to the lake for a long, relaxing weekend- and my first opportunity for damage control on the van.
i started moving things around, and sure enough, the little guy jumped right out at me.  and out of the van. 
what a mess.  i am still amazed at how thorough the little guy was at making it to every part of the van.  kind of reminds me of the time tekoa hid in the van with a red marker......sigh......

speaking of tekoa-  she is not attending preschool this year because of the chaos and the approaching move.  she is taking gymnastics again, though.  once a week.  and she is LOVING it. 
after her first class they moved her to an advanced class and she is sailing through. 
her teachers keep telling me she was built for gymnastics and they can't get over her upper body strength and the way her back can bend :)
not sure if i want her to actually be a gymnast but we are both having fun with it for now- apart from me chasing 2 overly tired past their nap time getting into and climbing on everything toddlers around the viewing area while koa has class.....

waiting to hear from neiko's birthmom about her move.  she mentioned last week that it might not happen after all- which would be bad news for us. 
we have had some intense conversations lately....tears on both sides.
she wonders if he will want to meet her someday and if he will hate her for giving him up.
this was my response-

"He will NEVER hate you cause we will tell him all about how much you loved him. You loved him enough to let him go when you felt that he needed more than you could give. And you loved him enough to give him a family. Grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles and cousins. You are an amazing woman and I will always tell him so. I cannot imagine how hard it gets for you and you totally have my respect for this. And Ali will understand someday- it'll just take time. You have blessed us HUGELY and we will always be grateful."

we are trusting God and His timing, but we are getting really ready to make things official and finally get this adoption finalized.  say a prayer for this if you think of it!!

the last item of note is my son's 10th birthday.  which is tomorrow.
now THAT can make a girl feel old!!
a decade of parenting. 
i'd like to think the first decade is the hardest with all the things you have to do from birth to 10.  it makes me tired just thinking of all the sleepless nights and all the physical work of caring for and training and cleaning up after and teaching that goes on during those first 10 years.......but something tells me those days will feel like a breeze compared to what is ahead.....

hopefully my next post will have some pictures cause i've been getting really lazy about pictures!
some pictures of those long awaited cabinets hanging on the wall would be so nice!!!