We have a closing date!

We got our official notice that we are closing on May 18th. Ironically that is exactly 6 months to the day that my mom passed away. Can't even believe all that has happened since then. She is still looking out for us even to this day. We wouldn't have been able to do this without her and I know she is looking down and so excited. She talked about us moving all the time and how great it will be someday to have a house with a yard for little man and Sadie. I am so ready to be done packing and to be all settled into the new place. I hope this motivation stays around till we are settled because I have a lot of the house already packed. I told my husband tonight that Im ready to just pack the kitchen and eat off of paper plates. He reminded me that we still have 4 weeks. We got into the house (its locked) this weekend to measure windows. Here are some photos from that:

Kitchen

Living room

Upstairs

Master Bathroom

Little man's room

Fridge & Extra counter space

Stove/Microwave

Mudroom (there will be drawers)

dining room/future deck

Stairs to the basement

Stairs to the 2nd floor

Entry

Looking into the house from the entry

Living room

We feel so blessed to be able to do this right now and can't wait to open our home to our friends and family!

Easter

This Easter was an overall fun day! We went to a different church that some of our friends attend and then over to one of their houses for lunch. It was a pretty comical lunch for my sweet friend because pretty much everything was not going her way but we had a lot of laughs which is exactly what I needed! This is the first year in 28 years that I have not had an Easter basket or new Easter outfit. My mom loved the holidays and she loved to bless us all with that. I know that they are just things but it was so fun to watch my mom do all of that with joy in her heart and I got to go do all the shopping with her for them. I know that the first holidays are going to be the hardest so I am glad to be through one more. I tried so much to focus on what the meaning of Easter is and not just who is there to celebrate with. Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!
Here are a few pictures from our day. I will have one eventually coming of the 3 of us.

One of these days I'll keep up

I wish I could say that life has slowed down and that I'll keep up better with this thing. I really would love to have everything documented here because I don't keep a journal or anything other than this blog.
Here are some things that have been going on lately:

• As you can see from my last post our house is coming along quickly! We broke ground on Feb 20th and the last 2 months have flown by. We are so ready to get in and get settled but also feel overwhelmed with all that needs to be done. We were able to cross one item off the list today and buy our washer and dryer. We scheduled it to be delivered the 3 days after we close. As of right now we close May 18th.
• Little man is not so little anymore. He's turning into a full on 2 year old and he's been a crazy man. He's throwing tantrums and testing his limits but he also LOVES to give hugs and kisses. We started him in his big boy bed a week ago and that has been both good and bad. We've never had a bed time routine with him. We always just changed him and put him in bed awake. I decided it was time to start one! The day we put his big boy together we started a new routine. We change him into his PJs. We read him 1 Bible story from his toddler Bible. Then we say a prayer with him which he just loves. He makes sure we both fold our hands. Its really sweet and I am loving our new routine. Then we tuck him in and both kiss him good night and tell him we Love him. It has turned into my one of my favorite times of the day!
• Its been almost 5 months since my mom passed away and Id like to say Im doing well with it but I'm really not. Im not exactly sure when or If ever I will really come to terms with it. Its been harder than I could have ever imagined. I miss so much of the time we spent together. Even today I sat and cried because every year (even once I was an adult) we would go and buy Easter outfits together. It was such a fun day! I know tomorrow will be another tough day but I have to keep remembering that she is no longer suffering and no long in pain!

I hope that you all have a wonderful Easter!! Here's my little man visiting the Easter Bunny. He loved him! Still no screaming kid pics from this little man.

House update!

We should be closing on our house in a month. Yep it really is going to take about 90 days from ground breaking to closing. Here's the most recent picture!

The pilars will be painted the dark outline color, we'll have dark red shutters and a dark right front door eventually and the garage door will be the light cream color with windows. I am so excited to see it coming together and can't wait to move in! I also swallowed a crazy pill and decided to throw little man's 2nd birthday party the weekend after we move in. :) Should be an exciting May!

Missing Camera part 2

Since my blogging fell off so much in the last few months I am finding things that I missed or pictures that I missed. Last year we started a new tradition with Stewart and that was going to the Macy's downtown to see their big christmas display. It's amazing. Its of Santa's workshop and then at the end you can get your picture taken with this amazing Santa.

Here's some pictures of this year. My grandparents went with me this year.

 Here's a few pictures from last year. My mother in law is on the left and my mommy is on the right. I so wish she could have been there this year and every year as a part of our tradition!

Missing Camera

Our camera went "missing". I looked everywhere except the one place it always was..One of my diaper bags. (yes I said one of. Its become a collection) I didn't end of taking it to New York which I was bummed about but the pictures I got were good enough with the iphone that I didn't really miss it after all. The camera has been giving me trouble and the pics are super blurry lately. Not sure what the issue is because its fairly new but my point of this whole thing is that there were pictures that I forgot about so here they are. We went to the MN children's museum with a couple of his buddies back in December and they all had a blast. One of his little friends moved away and we miss them tons!

Future mail man?

Grocery shopping with his lady friend

MMMM wonder how many kids have chewed on this before him?

I kind of want an apron for him because how adorable is this?

My moms craft room

There is a room at my mom's house that was just for her crafts. She has 3 sewing machines and 1 surger in there. It was a room we spent hours in making all sorts of random stuff. Well the last few weeks I've started to go through it. Im going to have an small space (8x8) to make into my own craft area and Im so excited to keep going with our projects. This past weekend I really just wanted to do something crafty. She has tons of random material, ribbon, and frames so my wheels started turning and here's what Ive come up with so far. Im slightly obsessed now with making these fabric flowers and decorating frames! Love how they look even when they aren't perfect. The zebra print ones Im going to use for our key holder in the mud room. We both shared a love of animal print so there will be some accents of that in the new place too.