Willie's 5!

Willie turns 5! Tomorrow is his big birthday party at the Bison game. It's actually a joint party for him and Ruby but most of the attendees are Willie's crew. He wanted to invite his whole class and since that number triples with parents/siblings and our family friends.....the Bison game was about the only sensible venue. And the Bisons will certainly appreciate another 50 or 60 fans!


Since Willie was 3, he and Jay have been warning me about his big boy haircut to come. I had thought I made myself clear that maybe age 7 would be an appropriate threshold, but I didn't get my way this time. (Yes, it happens more than you know.) Willie was thrilled to surprise me and giggled for about 15 minutes straight as I just stared in disbelief. After some tears....It really is precious....I just wanted to bottle my baby up as long as could. Coach B cut it and got his own satisfaction from my being in the dark on this one I'm so sure.

Willie aggravated us by requesting an Ariel cake but I ignored him and ordered Scooby Doo. He gets a privilege of watching a show every afternoon to unwind/snack and we've found Scooby Doo on demand. Thankfully, I hit a home run!

Ruby's 2!

Ruby turned 2 on the 15th! She has a precious spirit (most of the time). And, her coversations are just amazing to me. The grocery clerk at Publix gives her a coloring book yesterday and she calls it "her folder." Not sure when she picked up that big school term. She's also added "I 'preciate it" to her conversations in context might I add. Tonight's exchange.....Me: I love you, Ruby. RW: I 'ppreciate it.

When Willie was very little Gran built him a stool that has a verse written on it about "reaching the things he couldn't and reaching the things he shouldn't." Since Willie could walk, I rarely recall Willie moving his stool from the sink. I guess since Willie easily reaches the sink, Ruby is comfortable owning the stool now. She moves it around the house freely to get into many things she "shouldn't."

The picture without the stool is Ruby cleaning our kitchen floor on Oakley Dr. It's probably last picture taken at Oakley and one of her last shenanigans there----sidewalk chalking the kitchen floor. I was only absent a minute I promise----it was like graffiti. Gratefully it cleaned up easily before we moved out the next day.

Renting!

In a matter of 6 hours or so, dear friends, professional movers and I had set up house at the rental. Hey, it's not so bad either. We brought the core essentials only. The children came home as if they'd been living here for years. They were excited and have lots of play space.

Tomorrow will be dedicated to moving the other 1/2 of our stuff (nonessentials) to our future house where it will be stored in teh basement until after renovations are complete.

Thursday is reserved for closing, moving the pool table, and movig a fort that has been given to us. Who knows what else we'll wind up with.

Very special thanks go out to the friends that helped us get through today. Thank you Tasha, Jenn, Keeley & Buisson's! Yes, they are all in addition to the paid movers and the senioritas. It was a team effort. The first 3 ladies helped me get the rental house completely unpacked and organized such that we sat down for a family dinner tonight! The Buisson's hosted a play date tonight so Jay could watch a high school game and I could go back to Oakley to do some prep work for tomorrow. The pix are of Ruby and Anna Bell having the best of times "cooking" up something!

It is working out!

I've been saying and believing it would all work out! We haven't known where we are going to live for, oh, at least a month. We have known since before Christmas we had to be our of our beloved home on Oakley by January 15th.

Over the course of most of 2008, we developed our strategy of selling (yes, in this market) in our stable, time-tested neighborhood and then buying b/c there would never be a better time in theory. Well, the strategy seems to be working thus far. And after looking at houses for literally almost a year.....we finally were able to get one that had everything we hoped for. That list is long so I won't bore you....You'll just have to come visit us in a few months.

It's great ranch in Oak Hill which is in the heart of Nashville on a flat acre and a half. We expect there'll be plenty of wildlife and there is a creek way in the back. It is certainly everything we were looking for. If everything keeps going well, we'll close the beginning of February. In the meantime, I get to live out my dream of planning for a renovation! For the next 3 months, we are going to rent during the renovation.(We think we finally found an appropriate and affordable option for a very short-term lease near LU which was no easy task!!!!)

Willie had visited the Oak Hill house with me one day with a contractor friend. He located an Big Wheel in this almost empty house that he rode for nearly an hour in the basement. So when I reminded him about this house, his only question...."will the big wheel be there?" You'd better believe that this mama showed no shame and reopened some long, tough negotiations to ask for the Big Wheel. I guess we could have bought him one but it makes me feel better to get it as part of the deal.

I'm also trying to work a deal with the guy buying our house to trade our refrigerator for his brand new pool table (which he can't bring to Oakley)....Heck of a deal, I'd say. We'll see how that goes.

If you are wondering about Jay and how he can do this in basketball season, he really can't. We certainly didn't plan for it to all happen in January but we carefully and prayerfully walked through open doors. I basically just update him everyday and I'm trying to make this as non-eventful as possible on his side. He's exhausted this time of year anyway and we got beat at the buzzer tonight which just took the wind out of our sails. Real downer for tonight for sure. The A-Sun conference is a very competitive league. You get beat by a team that will get beat the next night by a team you beat last week. Will drive you nuts!

Ruby's stunts

We had Copper Kettle dinner with some of the players (which is always a fun opportunity during the holidays) the other night. About 2 miles into the short trip home, Jay glanced back in the dark car to figure out if the unusually quiet Ruby was asleep. Willie then took notice and alerted us to get a better look at Ruby. She had somehow figured out a way to bare her shoulders while strapped in her car seat. Anytime she gets very quiet.....we get concerned. I guess squeezing her core through the neck of her shirt was all she could come up with while strapped in her seat.

Happy 2009!

We hope your Christmas season was sweet as ours. The children were delighted that Santa found us. He found our cookies and Rudolph found the reindeer food too! Willie awoke before us all but he didn't come wake us. Evidently, he ran to the den, saw the presents, then waited in the living room for someone else to get up. We got up a little after 7. Jay went to get the kids up when I heard him talking to Willie who was clearly wide awake. He had been waiting patiently on us for nearly 45 minutes without touching his gifts. That's serious restraint b/c as I recall Christmas mornings.....I don't think I could have done that. He was pleased that Santa delivered on the Sled. We're still just waiting for snow. Ruby, of course, followed Willie's lead and got into the excitment. Ruby was quite affectionate with her Elmo as you can see.

We've enjoyed our family time with the Walton's and Uncle Jeff came way out of his way for a surprise visit. Our trip to Mississippi was basically exhausting but it was laced with lots of memorable family moments, and we certainly would not have had it any other way. We enjoyed several days in the country, a very sweet visit with my Grandma which I am convinced she knew me, and then capped it off with a visit with the Strebeck's.

As for 2009....We still don't know exactly where we're living 10 days from now, but we have some solid leads. We'll be in temporary housing and we're hoping that the permament housing is close to a deal (although there's some significant renovations in store.) I really have had a deep peace about it all, but I'm eager for it all to start coming together.

Where, oh, where???

Where, oh, where are we going? So you may remember way back late summer I mentioned selling our house. Well, it wasn't for the fainthearted but we got it done... for a good price... in this market which was our strategy. Well, originally our strategy was to move into a 100 year old house which time and prayer changed our heart over. So then our strategy became sell at a good price and it will be the best time in history to buy something......So far so good. Interest rates are at a 50 year low we read today.

The only problem is we don't know where we're going. So we have the sadness of leaving our home which we love with no excitement to replace it. I'm kind of grateful though. It really has me thinking about our family in the context of nothing but our love for each other.

So please pray everything works out and we enjoy the journey of life b/c in the midst of scheduling movers, finding temp housing and then finding a permanent home, we're going to celebrate our Savior's birth, celebrate Willie's 5th birthday in January, Ruby's 2nd birthday in January, and celebrate some Atlantic Sun conference wins. We're going to host the Walton's for Christmas, visit the Wallace's in Mississippi, find ways to care for others, coach Fall Hamilton basketball and love each other!