The Graduate

Addy graduated from preschool last Friday!!

With her teachers
The whole group
Singing the cutest little song
She was so excited to get roses from mom and dad!

we have a house

We finally agreed on an offer with the builder and we have a house in Mississippi! I'm not sure when we actually close, probably toward the end of May. But something to look forward to!

My favorite part is that it's pretty much all one level. Four bedrooms on the main floor and then one bedroom and bathroom upstairs and that's it. No basement, no more going up and down stairs carrying 2 kids 10 times a day!

Mitch's favorite part is that it's right next to the boat landing. There's a lake in the subdivision which is nice! There's also a pool, tennis courts and a golf course.

Kitchen

I'm not super excited about the way they did the cabinets (or the light fixtures above the island) but we're having them change some to make them more useable.

little butler's pantry between kitchen and dining room
Fireplace in the keeping room
Fireplace in the living room
Backyard - not huge but big enough for our playset!

The front isn't all that exciting, it's one of the downsides. But we figured if we want a "perfect" house we'd have to build again and neither of us really wanted to live in an apartment for a year or so.

I'm a bad blogger

Being home alone with three kids will do that to me though! We are in Georgia now and while I don't necessarily like being on my own 24/7 I do like having places to go like Addy's school to break up the day. Plus I have a college girl coming over a few nights a week so that helps.

All 3 kids are sick right now which SUCKS but we're on the mend, I think. Mitch comes home this weekend and then my parents will be in Tennessee the following weekend so either I can go there or my mom can come here. They sold their TN house so they're having a garage sale May 9 and I'll likely join in, then Addy graduates preschool May 16 and after that we can go to MS for good. I placed what I hope is my last online order at Old Navy today, and after that I can shop in the actual store. Woo-hoo!

We put an offer on a house in MS, they counter-offered, and now we're counter-offering again. It's so tempting to build again to get exactly what we want but I really don't want to live in an apartment for a year again. I want a house this summer so I can plant flowers!

Mississippi

We are here! The plan is to go back to Georgia Monday but we'll see. We got an offer on our house that I'm sure we'll take, we should decide on which school district we want to be in this week so now all we need to do is find a house!

Some highlights from our visit so far:

• got caught in a tornado my first! I've been close to funnel clouds before but never an actual tornado. I had taken the girls to Walmart, of all places, and all of a sudden the power went out and they were yelling for all the customers to get to the back of the store. Addy was pretty freaked out and now is always wanting to see what the weather is supposed to be like but otherwise we survived. It's probably a good thing we were at Walmart because two of the cars parked where I'd park at the apartment building had their windows blown out.
• looked at houses and I think we need to tone it down. We probably started out looking at the more expensive houses and it's hard to go back but I think we need to. plus this apartment is probably 5000 square feet less than our house in Blairsville and I have to say it's kind of nice not to feel so spread out. I'd like another bedroom, a bigger master bedroom and bath and a bigger kitchen but otherwise I like being in a smaller, more cozy place.
• found a babysitter or two! We had one girl come watch the girls the other night while Mitch, Jessica and I went out to dinner - it was so nice! She wants to use us as her work study next semester so she'd come help with the girls for at least 2 hours every day which would be sweet! And another girl we found has worked with special needs kids before and seems like she'd be a great mother's helper this summer and possibly beyond. I just need to check a couple of her references but I talked to one and heard nothing but good things. Yay!
• looked at schools and we'll look at one more tomorrow. Right now we're concentrating on finding a good preschool program for Riley. I also checked out a private school for Addy and will probably schedule a tour there. Otherwise I've heard good things about the public schools in the two counties we're looking at houses in. But it's nice to have options!
• Target! I went there, bought a few things, and got back to the apartment within a half hour yesterday. Amazing! It takes an hour and a half just to get to a Target where we live in Georgia.
• Starbucks! I'll probably settle down after we get a house and I have my cappuccino machine here but for now I'm enjoying my daily dose.

tomorrow's forecast

Blairsville, Georgia: high of 52

Jackson, Mississippi: high of 82

Woohoo! :-)

boring moving stuff

We are moving.
I have to get this through my head and get more excited about it! I think I'll be more excited once we find a house. According to Mitch I'm not going to like the apartment he's got and knowing how much I hated living in our rental house last year waiting for our house to be built we need to find a house soon.

Why are we moving?
This question was asked in Riley's blog but I'll answer it here. It does mostly have to do with Riley - we live in a small town with not-so-good services for special needs kids. Our OT comes from the school system and has told me I should jump at the chance to leave. Our therapist who has a 3 year old son with autism said she would pack her bags tomorrow if she had an opportunity like mine.
Mississippi probably isn't our first choice or anything but a job came up that Mitch liked and they offered to buy our house so we took it. There's no way we could afford to buy a new house or pay rent along with therapy and our current house payment. We're moving to a bigger city that seems to know what they're doing as far as special needs kids so hopefully we made the right decision. There's an autism school in Jackson we were trying to get Riley into but with her new diagnosis I'm not sure that's the right place for her. I still think the schools there are better than the schools here.
Plus! The nearest Target here is an hour and a half away. The nearest Starbucks is 45 minutes away. I am excited to be around civilization again!

So anyway!
We (me and the kids) leave next Thursday to spend a week and a half in Jackson and lucky for me my awesome friend Jessica is meeting us there! We'll look for houses, look at schools and look at private therapy options. Hopefully after that we'll know what we're doing!

Happy (belated) Easter!!

After we got back from church we discovered the Easter Bunny had made a visit!

Addy starts following the trail Riley helps follow the jellybeans
A bonus picture of me since Morgan slept through the whole thing
We found the baskets in the Barbie playhouse!
Happy Easter says Bunny Riley!

Time to hunt for eggs

Morgan had fun!
Riley is so cool
Morgan found an egg
Addy and her friend Madison got the high ones