The slow days of summer

After 8 days of being sick, I finally called for a doctor's appointment this morning.  The doctor really thinks that I just had a bad allergy reaction to something in the air.  He said I did everything right short of using a neti pot. Have any of you ever used one???

I ended up getting an ouchy steroid shot to get me to feeling better sooner.  I actually already feel GREAT! Praise be for modern medicine!

These first 2 weeks of summer break have been everything that I hoped they would be.

Slow.


Easy.


Not busy.


Relaxing.

I have worked on projects that I have wanted to get finished.  

I have been deep cleaning the house. 
-Seriously, how should I have to deep clean a house that I have only lived in for 3 1/2 months??!!

I started reading an actual book.  
Oh glory!  I have been reading one on the Kindle since January, but to me, there is just something about having a real book in my hand.

Today I worked on my recipe collection.  
I find recipes online and then forward them to my email to keep in a recipes folder in my email.  
I also have a Word document that I am creating to store all of our favorite recipes.  I'm then going to print them all to keep in a binder in the kitchen.

I updated most of the recipes and even picked some to try out that have just been sitting in the folder.  I'm so happy that I have more time to cook and try new recipes!

The kids have been loving all the free time.  
They have played outside, read tons of books, drew pictures, colored pictures, did puzzles, watched movies, eaten popsicles, and even helped me with cleaning the house!

And can we talk about this amazing weather we have been having?!!
Well, minus the storms and rain.

I have had the windows open every single day!

In June!

Hotter temps are coming soon and we will have to find lots of ways to keep cool!

We are happy to start having Tim home soon.  He has been working like a madman to get the schedule done for the junior high so that he can finally take some much needed vacation time.

We have fun things lined up for when his is finally off.

We are also looking forward to a visit from Jessica and Parker and then our summer vacation trips at the end of the month!

What fun things do you have planned for summer?

Moving stories

***This is my 700th post!  crazy!  So glad it is about such a happy topic!***
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I'm sorry if you thought these stories would be "moving" to your heart.  

These stories are actually about well, moving.

I want to talk about our upcoming move and other moves I have made in the past.

I moved a lot while I was growing up.

My dad was in construction and specifically, building bridges.  So, we had to move to go to where each job was located.

I was born in Arkansas and I spent my early years here, in Texas, and in Oklahoma. 

My kindergarten-part of 2nd grade were spent in Choctaw, OK.  We then moved back to Arkansas to stay.

Once we moved back to Arkansas, we lived near dad's family.  We lived there for a few years and then moved to another house.  I do remember living in both places.  After moving back to Arkansas, dad started working another job that was not in construction anymore.

In 1992, I was 11, and my parents bought the house that they still live in today.

My next move was when I moved to Arkansas Tech for college.  I lived in the dorm the first year.  

After the first year, I moved into an apartment with a friend.  I stayed with her for the summer, and then I moved into another apartment with another friend.

I lived with that friend for a couple of years, and then finally moved into an apartment by myself for the remainder of college.  I did have a couple of roommates during that time, but not the entire time.

Those moves didn't seem like a big deal at the time.  They most certainly were easier since I was only moving one person!

I moved in with Tim at the very end of college (we were married the week after I graduated).  Again, that move wasn't too bad, I will still just moving me.

We lived in his house from 2003 until he got a new job in the summer/fall of 2007.  That move was cuh-ray-zee.  I had a not-quite 1 year old and a not-quite 2 year old.  AND we were closing on the house we were selling and the house we were buying within a day of each other.  I STILL remember how stressed out all of that had me.  I was so close to a breakdown. So close. 

So, it was to my immense relief when we moved into the house at Paris finally.  I really thought at the time, that it might have been the house where the kids would grow up all the way up in.  We were in my hometown, Tim had a great job right up the road, and we were very close to family.

We were there for two years when Tim received a dream job in the part of the state that he had always wanted to be.  I will admit that I was not nearly as excited as he was about the job.

I was even more not excited when we had to live apart that entire school year because our house would.not.sell.  It was awful.  I still remember how the kids cried for Tim every night at bedtime.

We finally bit the bullet the next school year and found a house to rent here in Bentonville.  We moved and were paying our mortgage on the house in Paris and the rent on the house here.  It was a very tight time for us.  We also lost Tim's mom that fall.  I truly do not have the best memories of the time we lived in that house.

That spring, we received a notice that the house we were renting was going up for auction. APPARENTLY, the owner had stopped paying on the house a long time ago.  So, 7 months after moving to Bentonville, we had to move AGAIN.  

Not a happy Lenette.

Praise be, our Realtor had a home in our price range that we LOVED.  We have spent two wonderful years in this house.  I will really miss some aspects of it.  It's been a great little home for us. And we sold our other house not long after we moved in!

I say all of this to preface our upcoming move.

We have been looking for homes to buy for 2-3 years.  We have always been conflicted on what part of town to live in, what do we want in the house, and just a million other things when you finally go look at a house and it doesn't measure up to what you read online.

We finally found a house that both of us were cautiously optimistic about.

When we went to look at it, we found out that it was still under construction! What's that you say?  A brand, spanking new house?!

I loved so much about this house and it was fun to pick out paint colors and carpet.  Tim is extremely happy because we will have a 3 car garage!  That's been hard to find in our price range.  I'm happy because it has 4 bedrooms, a lovely kitchen and a gas stove!  We also will never have anyone behind us.  That was a big selling point for us.  To be in town and not have someone up your rear is a big deal here!

I can truly say that this may be the happiest move that I have ever made.  I'm excited and I can't wait to be in the home that my kiddos will finish growing up in.

Without further ado, here is the outside of our new home...

The painters were here that day, hence the random car in the driveway.

And the front door is now brown and not the tan color like in the first two pictures.

It's a wonderful neighborhood with sidewalks to walk and let the kids ride their bikes.
It's very close to the school we will probably be attending.
It's in town!
It's so funny the things that matter when buying a house when you are a parent! ha!

Waxing Nostalgic- the Paris house

I've struggled with what to write about this house. Not in a bad way, but in the way that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to convey how I felt during the time I lived there. 

I'm still afraid that my words won't completely tell the story. 

We moved to our Paris house in August of 2007. We sold our Dardanelle house in only 2 short weeks!  The frenzy to buy a house, sell a house, pack a house, sign papers and move with an almost 1 year old and an almost 2 year old was INSANE! I still remember how stressed I was. I did not think I was going to make it through that process. 

I did eventually make it through and we settled into our new home. 

There was something about living in the town I grew up in. I knew everyone,so it was not an adjustment moving there. Tim's job was amazing. It was little stress, he was home everyday at lunch and his drive home only took 2 minutes! 

The kids had so many milestones there and just the ages that they were while we lived there were just magical ages. For C Girlie- age 2-almost 5 and for B Boy-age 1-almost 4. The baby, toddler and preschool ages. They became best friends there. B Boy learned to walk there. They left their cribs and went to toddler beds. We had a playgroup and visited the library and were only 10 minutes away from my mom. 

Now, the house wasn't perfect when we moved in. It was very far from it. The first year we lived there we did so much work to that house. I personally (with some of Tim's help) painted every room of that house. We redid a bathroom. We closed in the garage. We completely re-landscaped the yard. We did electrical and plumbing work. It was a job, but it was our house and we loved it. 


This house is where blocks were played with in the big playroom, children ran circles around the dining room table,and the first fun Halloweens, Thanksgivings, Christmases and Easters were.   


It's where so many visits from "Aunt" Jessica happened.  Nights of being apart from Daddy, but watching American Idol instead with Jessica. 


We had so much backyard fun.  All of our cats were there. 


So many walks in the double stroller happened here.  We had a great little street with neighbors that kept mostly to themselves. 


These years at Paris were some of the best of my life.  I cherished every day watching my little kiddos grow up.  I went from being completely overwhelmed when B Boy was born and I had two babies, to being in a really good groove and routine as they got older.  It was easier to be in the moment and watch them play and learn together.


Not everything was rosy, as I went through a tremendous amount of health issues while we lived there, but the memories we made with the kiddos while they were small are priceless in my heart.