Home Sweet Home

We have arrived!

We actually arrived in Florida at the end of June (I can't even remember what day we got here), and moved into our house on July 12th.  It has been quite the "adventure" since we closed on our home in Papillion on June 4th.  In that short time frame, we changed locations SIXTEEN times!  The kids have done a great job during all of this transition, but it really started to wear on us all.  The positive side to all of our travel time was that we got to visit and spend time with many family and friends before we headed to our new location.  Thank you to those of you who so generously hosted us during our crazy time!  

Here is a picture of us in front of our new home:

It took us awhile to find our house, but we are super excited about this one.  It is located in a great neighborhood (at the end of a cul-de-sac!!), and we have a great yard.  Needless to say, we will be spending a lot of time outside and taking advantage of the Florida weather.  Already the boys are experts at sighting various species of birds, turtles, lizards (one lives in our mailbox), and Josh even spotted an alligator!  Oh, and I love the vegetation here- there are tons of pine trees, and tropical plants/trees, and it is beautiful!  AND, we have two of these in our yard:

Unfortunately, our moving company is backed up on delivering, so our stuff won't be arriving until July 28th.  Thank goodness we brought sleeping bags and pillows!  We were able to borrow some kitchen basics and a baby gate from the base "loan closet" which has helped a ton!  I am so excited for our stuff to arrive to make life a bit more simple, and to get us all back into a normal routine.  I also can not wait to unpack...call me crazy, but I L.O.V.E. to organize, and I am ready for this challenge!  

We have a lot to learn about Florida living, including the hurricane.  Just when I was getting used to Nebraska tornados, I am challenged with a different natural disaster!  We found these in our garage:

 Apparently, these are custom fit window coverings that we will be putting up when a hurricane is approaching!  I hope we can figure this out...!

Now that we have a working computer, I will be catching up on posts- a lot has happened since early May!  Thank you for keeping us in your prayers, we are healthy, safe and have enjoyed the journey!

Henry's End of Year Program

Here are a few pictures from Henry's last day of preschool waaaaaay back in May!  It is amazing how quickly the year flew by, and it was a joy seeing the growth Henry made during the year.  The students put on a little program for the parents, and it was adorable!  The children sang a few songs for us, recited The Pledge of Allegiance, and they played a slideshow of pictures taken during the school year.  It was a wonderful year at Little Lights Preschool, we will miss all of our friends there so much. 

 Here is Henry with his teachers:  Mrs. Marshall and Mrs. A

Henry was quite the performer on stage!  Too cute!

Henry (and little bro, Sean) and two of his favorite classmates: Haley and Delainey

 

Things are winding down

Some exciting stuff going on around here...

First of all, we sold our house!  We sold the Saturday evening before Easter!  Needless to say, our Easter celebration was all the more celebratory.  Selling a home was about as fun as I had imagined...not at all.  Like many times of "suffering" we are glad we experienced it, but glad it is over.  Thank you to all who offered up prayers for us, we know they helped.  A special thank-you to St. Joseph (the patron saint of house-selling), we did a novena for his intercession, and we did indeed sell our home with all of the specifics that we included in the novena.

Congratulations to Josh...we recently received word that he passed his final board exam!  When it is all said and done, I believe he had four days of written national exams, two days of written western regional exams, and two full days of clinical exams for western regional boards...WOW!  He has also finished up all of his clinical requirements for graduation, and he only has SIX more days of school left!!  HOORAY. 
Josh, I am so proud of you, and I am honored to be your wife.  I look forward to the next chapter of our life together...

A few weekends ago, Josh and I attended his senior banquet.  We had a blast!  It was so fun to get dressed up and celebrate the conclusion of four great years with his classmates and professors.  Here is a picture of our big night out!                 And us with some friends....

It is called blood

You know we did a lot of paint touch-ups in preparation for selling our house when...
...we were at the park yesterday afternoon and Sean injured his big toe/toe nail, and from the top of the playset, he lifts up his foot to me and declares, "Mommy, I got wet paint!"

Egg Hunt

We attended the city Easter egg hunt last weekend.  The boys had a great time, and of course, Josh and I loved watching them have a great time.  Henry was so excited to be "hunting eggs" that he didn't really "hunt eggs"...he would grab one and then just run circles around 20 other eggs while other little hunters picked them up!  Our plan was that Josh would follow Henry and take pictures, and I would follow Sean with the video camera (last year I tripped over a kid doing this, and I still got the job again this year!), and then we would somehow switch....or something.  Anyway, Sean started off the hunt in tears because he couldn't keep up with Josh.  So, we probably passed 1,000 eggs on our way to Josh, but we caught him, and then Sean was happy and willing to pick up some eggs!  Inspite of all of this, we still came home with way too many eggs. 

My favorite part was our annual picture with the Easter Bunny!  For the past four years, I have found pleasure in forcing my children into the arms of a not-so-cuddly-looking-bunny, and snapping a picture while they are crying and struggling to get away....this year, they didn't disappoint! 

Unfortunately, I cannot find the picture from last year (and I guarentee there were tears), but here is a recap from previous years:

2008

2007

We pray that all of our family and friends have a very blessed Holy Week and Easter celebration.

Coach Sean

One evening after dinner, we headed downstairs to watch some of the winter olympics on television.  Sean (as usual) picked up a ball to start a game of catch with Josh.  Josh got a bit distracted while watching a speed skating race, and missed the pass that Sean had thrown at him.  Sean was not pleased, and corrected the error:
"Watch the ball, Dad!"

Our baby eats!!

This post is long overdue...We recently started Will on baby cereal and some baby foods.   For those of you who are not familiar with long and stressful journey it was to get Sean to eat, I will sum it up by saying it was a not-so-fun year of various test, Dr. appointments, various forms of therapy, and we were eerily close to having to start tube feedings.  So, this is why I was extremely nervious to see how Will would react to food, I certainly did not want to have a repeat experience.  So, when the time came to offer him foods, understandibly, I had butterflies in my stomache!  The family was gathered round the highchair for the big moment, and we had the cameras ready, and...he ate like a champ!!  We were all cheering and laughing, video taping, and snapping pictures!  I even had tears in my eyes!  I feel truely blessed to have a baby that CAN and WILL eat.

Here are some pictures of our big eater.  

Although he didn't care for it, he even consumed some green food!!

The other day we had gone out to lunch to celebrate Josh passing boards (HOORAY!), and on the way home, Will made a weird noise from his carseat.  I looked back to see him holding a chicken strip and eating it!  Um, Scary!  We are not sure how he got ahold of his big brother's left-overs, but he did, and he was enjoying it.  I think we really do have a big eater on our hands!