Lakehouse Getaway!!!

I am playing a little catch up on my blogging.

I'm sorry for being gone for so long . . . I've been a little busy and all my possessions are in storage or in boxes. I've been trying to normalize our life a little, especially for my children.

While we finished up our move and packed away the rest of our life (which, by the way, is exhausting!) we sent our children away with grandparents.

I thought it would be slightly traumatizing for the girls to see an empty house. The end was hard enough for them. As for the boys, they would have been underfoot too much to get it all done. We were grateful to Grandma B to drive them off with 2 days to go.

Before they pulled away, the neighborhood came over to say "good-bye". This is when Cameron started asking why everyone was crying, because the tears were flowing.  :(

 These two are going to miss each other  :(

 These girls have grown up together and plan to keep in touch by email. (I have to let Zoe used my computer tomorrow!)

This has been my children's family. These are the kids that they played with daily. In the last couple years their friendships have grown. These kids have the parents that I trusted my children with. I will miss that sense of security in my surroundings.

This is a neighborhood of friends that we are hoping to be lucky enough to find again.

Grandma B took them north and spoiled them. Grandpa B gave all the boys rides on his John Deere tractor. The girls cooked with Grandma and the boys enjoyed looking at the fish in the pond.

Then Grandpa and Grandma S picked them up and took them further north to the Lakehouse.

Cameron has been asking to go to the Lakehouse since March. It was just such a crazy spring that this was the first opportunity. KC and I were a little sad that they were going without us.

After the crazy marathon pack, I drove up to spend some time with them. Poor KC was stuck at work since he had to take off the time for the move.

I'm just going to share some pics of the fun :)

 Just have to say, Grandpa has a lot of help driving the boat now!

Castiel played in the sand, Emmitt tried drowning twice, Cameron caught his first and second bass, Audrey was jumping off the dock and raft, and Zoe built a sandcastle surrounded by a moat with a waterfall :)  All in all, great get-away.

Such a great get-away, we are going back this weekend with daddy!!!

We Have Sold Our Home & Are Currently "Homeless"

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.  ~Author Unknown

About 7 1/2 years ago we moved into Illinois not knowing what to expect. KC's job had moved us there and plopped us down in the flatlands of Illinois.

I can't believe how young we look!

We moved in with our 2 precious sweet little girls :)

The house that we were able to afford was less than desirable.

It had become a bachelor's party house, complete with dirt and beer stained carpet, weeds waist high, cigarette burns in flooring, shoe prints on the ceiling, fist holes through the walls, even a keg of beer.

But it was big enough for our family and in a neighborhood filled with children. And when we moved, my two promises to Zoe were "to find her friends" and "to put her in school". At two and a half, they are easy to please.

And ... in those 7 years, we made that home ours. We made it beautiful again, a place that we were proud of and a home comfortable to raise our family.

I placed Zoe in Park District classes, including a dance class and I found her lots of new friends.

That home is full of the best of times and a number of hard times for our family. The memories that I will cherish forever and the ones that I am happy to forget.

Now we have moved further north where we can be together more as a family, and be surrounded by more cousins and aunts and uncles. And most importantly, see KC (daddy) more.

We have moved on and said "see you soon", not goodbye to our Plainfield family, of wonderful neighbors who we already miss.

We now have our hands full with a few more boys that have completely changed the family picture!

Now we wait for a home. We wait for the banks to decide if it will be ours or not. This "short sale" stuff is no fun at all.

So we are "homeless" in a sense.

Not to worry, we have been taken in :)  And they are the ones you should worry about.

My sister and her husband have opened their doors to us and have made my children feel like it's their home too.

Their family of 4 has become a family of 11. Which sounds crazy. And in a way it is. But in a more incredible way, it seems to be working.

Sure, with 7 kids in the house ... there is crying and fighting and competition .... but now, I am sitting here and they are happily playing.

We hope to start getting answers from the bank. Getting an idea of when we will be able to have our own home again.

I have heard "I want to go home, but we don't have a home", "I don't want someone else living in our house" and "I miss my friends", which is hard on a mommy.

But we are starting to turn a corner, and they are starting to accept the change, as children always seem to have the ability to do. They are definitely harder to please at these ages, but I have promised the same promises. I will help find them new friends and I will put them in school.

And soon, we will have our new normal :)