Time to breathe

Little entertainer

Finally...I feel like life has afforded me a few moments to breathe.  These last few months have been nothing but crazy.

Let's see...what are the highlights.  Found out I was potentially getting a job transfer to Lincoln back in February.  That became official in April.  So we started the process of getting our house ready to be put on the market.  That meant a whole lot of cleaning, organizing, sending stuff to good will, putting stuff into storage, new carpet in the basement, new flooring in the kitchen, refinishing the deck, yard work, and a whole heap of other small tasks that amounted to quite a lot of work for both Ian and I.  Ian did a whole lot of the work just because I couldn't, but we both felt like we were working non stop for the last couple of months.  All with the hopes that when we put our house on the market it would sell quickly.

Painting with a friend

Well our hard work paid off.  We put our house on the market on May 23rd and we signed a purchase agreement on the 25th.  It was absolutely crazy!  We ended up having quite a bit of back and forth with the buyer to get all the details worked out, but it FINALLY became officially about 2 weeks later that this person was going to buy our house and we were going to close on the 26th of June.  It's all just a blur of working, cleaning, a few moments of fun here and there for birthdays, and then boom...we sold our house.

And while selling our house was quite the blessing, it  also was a bit scary because we had to immediately switch gears from moving out of our house, to finding a new place to live.  We didn't want to feel rushed into buying another house, so we planned on renting for a little while.  We struggled with finding a place because of our dogs (two big does is a bit tricky when looking for a rental FYI).  But we managed to find a place and moved in a few weeks ago. Ian's done a lot of work getting us all settled into our place, and it's starting to feel like home.  I'm not sure the dogs agree since we lost the fenced yard, but there is a BEAUTIFUL dog park not to far from our apartment.  So I think as long as we take regular trips there, they'll forgive us.

Sprinkler fun

And now, I get a moment to actually sit and relax and enjoy where life is taking me.  That's been very difficult to do lately.  I've been very focused on job transfer and housing stuff I've had a very hard time connecting with this pregnancy and the fact that we're having another child.  It's been difficult for me emotionally to feel excited about this pregnancy.  That's been very hard for me to admit and accept, and has caused all sorts of other feelings of guilt in me.  I didn't personally feel 'ready' to be having another child and I wasn't sure if we as a family were ready.  There's so much that comes with adding another family member into the mix and I felt like we had just started talking about having another child and BOOM, we found out we were expecting.  It was a lot to process all at once-especially for a type A person who likes to have some thought go into things before a major change is enacted.  Within the last 6 months, we've had a lot of change.  We found out we were adding another member to our family, we were going to be selling the first house we bought and made into a home together (where lots of memories were created), I was going to be leaving the office and coworkers I genuinely liked being around on a daily basis for another location, we were moving 50+ miles away from our friends in Omaha, and we were going to be moving into a small apartment which meant a HUGE lifestyle change.  So much in our lives looks different today than it did 6 months ago, and I had no idea that THIS many changes were going to be happening all at once.  All of that just amounted to a gigantic amount of feelings (both happy and sad) that I had to work through.

My beautiful first born

And now I feel like some of the processing has been done and I can actually sit back and enjoy the fact that in a little less than 3 months (ack!) Rowan is going to be a big brother.  We're going to have another baby boy in our family!  While that means twice the diapers, messes, sleepless nights, and tears it ALSO means twice the smiles, laughs, hugs, kisses, and precious moments.  And I get to see Rowan and his brother develop their relationship.  I'll be honest, Ian and I were both a little bummed we aren't having a little girl...but for me, all that 'disappointment' went away when I realized Rowan is going to have a brother 2 years younger than him.  They'll get to have adventures together.  I'm sure they'll get into a lot of mischief, but that's what kids do.  And at least they'll be doing it together.  Still have no idea what we're going to name him, but I suppose we have a few more weeks before we have to get that figured out.

So here's to 2014 being the year of changes in our family.  Life does move pretty fast, and I'm beyond grateful right now that I have a chance to sit...relax...and enjoy where we're at.  Life is good-I just need to remember that even in the midst of craziness.

Chess pieces bigger than him