Saturday, June 4, 2016

Happy Jeanne!

Back in April, we packed up the van and headed to Cleveland to celebrate this amazing lady on her 88th birthday!
Pax got to meet most of the Thompson and Droughton families...he was well loved all weekend! 
It's always awesome to see cousins playing together!
And to get snuggles from your aunts and uncles!
And Jeanne brought her family together...it's always so great to see everyone! To hear the stories, to hear the advice. Our families are big and fabulous and there are so many stories to be shared and lessons to learn. Aunt Ruth said something in conversation that will stick with me forever- "what does love look like at this phase"...it's probably the wisest parenting advice that I've heard to date and it's something I've been trying to keep in mind no only as I parent, but as I live.
Porter loved running with Godfather Tommy! 
And the cake! Oh the cake! Susie made a German chocolate cake for this special day...it was amazing! 
Family time is time well spent. 
We visited Malley's, spent some time at the park, enjoyed some meals out with both sides of the family and spent time together. We're so glad we were able to head out for a visit!

Busy Bees

Life has been busy and I've been slow to update. In between some big things happening around here, there are so many little every day moments that we love. Some days, daycare pick up runs smooth...some days it's chaos. Every day, these three are so happy to be reunited! Pax's teacher captured this sweet moment for us recently. 
Since our lessons at Ursinus in March, we've been working on our skills. We're happy to report that Penny is officially swim team ready! Now that she's over her fear, she's happy to be swimming with daddy, learning so much from him. Turns out, she's quite a natural at backstroke. Luckily, she's got mommy's kick ;)
Mr. P had his first Special Olympics experience. The Young Athletes Spring program was track. We only made one week between the rain and our schedules, but it was awesome to see where we will be headed!
And this kid...he's into everything! Climbing, pulling up on anything he can and crawling fast and furious. 
Dada, Nana and catch are his first words. He loves to play ball! And, he loves to eat...he likes everything except cottage cheese and bananas.
I'm hopeful that I'll get back to regular updates here soon. In the meantime, check us out over on Instagram- mammat10.

Welcome to My House

Things have been a little crazy around here these days. Way back in February, we started looking at houses. While we've had nothing but an amazing experience in kindergarten at our elementary school, we know the district isn't going to work for our family in the long term. We've kept our eye on the market and decided that it was probably time to start the process. On day one of actually visiting homes that were for sale, we walked into a house that we hoped would become our forever home. There was one slight problem...the day of our visit, a big orange sign had been posted on the front door of the home...SHERIFF SALE what????? Unbeknownst to us and our realtor, the home had entered the short sale/foreclosure process. We decided to take a chance on the home and put in a bid. Our realtors warned us that banks are difficult to deal with and that we probably wouldn't get the home. We put money into inspections on a home that may never become our home. We continued to search and didn't find anything that we liked even half as much. We waited and waited and waited. The bank missed deadlines and was generally non-responsive. 

We continued to work on our current home, getting it ready to test the market. We continued to look and thought that maybe we'd wait another year. Then, all of a sudden, at the very end of April, the bank said yes. And they decided that they wanted to move fast, as the house was set to go to Sheriff Sale on 5/25. So, on 5/24, we bought a new house!  
In the meantime, our realtor worked with us to make this happen! We sell on 6/17. 
We've got a lot of work to do! I'm incredibly emotional about leaving this house behind. We built this house and turned it into a home filled with so many memories. We etched our names into the garage floor the day the concrete was poured. RC & Danielle...did the 2007 versions of us know what this house would become? We had no idea! We've celebrated holidays with family and friends. We brought our babies home here and spent many sleepless nights rocking them to sleep. We comforted each other here during times of trial and have overcome things together in the safety and security of this house. I hold dear to my heart photos of our late grandmothers, Gram Kadingo and Grandma Thompson, visiting with us here in our house, snuggling my babies. We witnessed so many "firsts" here in this house. We confronted Down syndrome during Porter's pregnancy and said good-bye to our angel baby here. We have loved and lost, conquered and overcome, risen above and grown here. This house has been amazing! This house is my happy place! This house gave us a neighborhood of playmates and some of the best friends we know. This house connected us with amazing neighbors who have been so supportive of all our kids. This house and this neighborhood will be terribly missed. To our Pimlico Farms family- you have no idea how thankful we are! 
While we're looking forward to what's ahead and we're thankful for every bit of what we leave behind, we're hopeful that our new house, new neighborhood and new school will be right where we're supposed to be. As long as we're together, we're good! We're excited to welcome our family and friends into our new house and to fill that one with amazing memories as we turn it into our home!