happy fathers day!

happy fathers day, stacey!!

we hope you had a great day today!

but we hope that you know EVERY DAY how much we love you and appreciate EVERYTHING you do for us!

WE LOVE YOU!

oh ... these are the people in my neighborhood ...

katherine, brett, drew, cade, alex, gordy, and ben

(FYI ...there are 4 more kids missing from the picture that are usually part of this crew)

if you ever happen to be looking for one of these crazies .... chances are ... they're in my backyard :)

it's official

after 3 days on the market we got an offer.

we officially accepted today!!

along with that comes SO many feelings.

relief. excitement. sadness. happiness. wonder.

we've even gone so far as to say to ourselves ... are we sure we want to be doing this?!

but ... we do.

in the mean time ... i am going to enjoy this beautifully staged home and see if we can break a lifetime record for the number of days in a row we've actually made our bed! :)

our future T.P.'er

the past few days have made me think that we've been REALLY busy getting the house ready and ben is lacking a little attention.

i know i have mentioned before that he is SUPER impulsive and that he is VERY much like curious george.
he doesn't necessarily do things to be naughty. but what goes through his mind before he does them that says "WOW that sounds like a great idea!" is beyond me.

let me just run through the last few days ...

this weekend he was with my mom. he dumped her laundry soap, fabric softener and bleach all together into the laundry tub - just to see what would happen.

on monday he peed into the bathroom garbage can - just because he kinda likes to pee in there. (i do have to say - one advantage ... he's a better shot into there than the toilet!)

on tuesday - i took him to drew's baseball practice. during baseball practice i look over and there is ben - running out of the port -a-potty with a big long string of toilet paper. he ran over to the playground and started "decorating".



i have no idea what makes you tick ben.

i have no idea why you do the things you do.

you may drive me crazy ...

but at least you make me laugh
(even if it is when you aren't looking).

my 2nd grader!!!!

today was drew's last day.

so that makes it official - I HAVE A 2ND GRADER!!!!

he had so much fun in first grade. and he learned SO much!

i owe a HUGE part of that to his teacher. she was amazing and we will really miss having her next year.
although we've already said it - thanks mrs. n for all that you do!
have a great summer!!!

as for us ... the "real fun" starts tomorrow.
pray for me. drew just went from 26 people to listen to his stories to 3 :)

ATTENTION!

dear june bugs,

i love june. but every year you decide to show up with it. i hate that.
please go away.

a REAL man

last night while we were driving the boys to WI, drew told us "i am going to keep my DS for a really long time. AND ... when i have a family we are going to take lots of vacations! AND ... my wife is always going to drive because then i can play it."

HA HA!

don't get any ideas, stacey!!

the difference a day can make

today our entire house got staged to sell!
we had taken about 3/4 of our stuff out and new furniture and accessories were all brought in!
it looks FABULOUS!
they put in SO much work today - and we love everything they did!

HOWEVER ... do we love it enough to stay?

nope. not quite :)

freckle remover

i walked into the bathroom today to see ben looking in the mirror with soap all over his face.

i asked him what he was doing.

his response ??

"nothin much. just trying to wash some freckles off."

ha ha :) sorry buddy ... i hate to break it to you ... but i have a feeling those freckles are there to stay.

life is precious

so ... we learned today that both of the victims from the tornado a week ago were from our church. the first being the little 2 year old boy. the second being a mother/wife who died on thursday while cleaning up what was left of her family's life.

because of this ... and because our church has so many attenders that live in the area ... the series we were on was paused and our senior pastor did a special sermon today.

he started out his sermon by describing where he was a week ago - it was a normal sunday afternoon & he was sitting & watching golf. at one point he got totally annoyed that such a good tournament would be interrupted by what was probably another false alarm tornado warning. when he got the call minutes later that hugo had been hit so hard - and that a family had lost their baby boy - life was instantly put in perspective.

after a very emotional sermon ...one where i fought back tears THE ENTIRE TIME ... i've been challenged to remember what REALLY matters! to keep my focus where it should be. that could have been us. have i prepared myself for that? do i live my life knowing that every single second is numbered?! knowing that i have done everything possible to show my kids and stacey how much i absolutely adore them and can't imagine my life without them?! AND ... if every single thing that we had was pulled from us and we were left with nothing - would we be content because we know what's important?! i sure hope so!

every time i think of this family that lost their son, it makes me cry. PLUS ... their little girl is still in the hospital and it's not looking as promising for her as they once thought. this family has truly been stripped of everything! i can't even begin to imagine what that is like. our pastor told us this story today - he was talking to the dad about all that had happened and all that their family had lost ... and the dad's one wish was that they could find nate's teddy bear. (ok ... can i just tell you that is the point where i TOTALLY lost it!)

we put so much time into building "the perfect life". (or finding the perfect floor plan ... or the perfect school set up :) ha ha!! ) but it doesn't matter!!! all it takes is 30 seconds and it could be gone.

of course i still need to live life ... mine may not end tomorrow ... or the next day.
unfortunately i still have to make decisions.
but today just reminded me that in the grand scheme of things ... they don't really matter.
we're going to love our house regardless of what it looks like ...
ben is going to be fine no matter where he goes to kindergarten ...
and ... i WILL make it through this week of getting the house ready without going TOO crazy:)

life goes on ... we're in it together ... with God at the wheel ... and THAT is what matters!