coming out of hiding

I thought I'd come out of hiding for a brief hello here on the blog :) The past month has been busy, but not too different from other months. Surprisingly, once we left the house, I stopped thinking about it and no more tears have been shed. I guess it was easier than I thought it would be. It also helps that we've gotten busy visiting vendors, picking out lights and paint colors and faucets.... fun stuff that has begun to make the new house feel like *our* house. The most fun thing of all was deciding to do geothermal heating and cooling for the house. It was a tough decision since it costs a lot up front, but making this decision was the first thing that actually made me feel excited about the new place. It feels like something we are doing because it reflects our philosophy and desire to do as many green things with this build as possible. We've continued this line of thinking with other choices (low flow toilets that use less water, corn-based carpet that cuts down on petroleum products in carpet production, etc.) It's getting a little more exciting every day :) Everyone told us this would be massively stressful, but so far it hasn't been. We really enjoy micromanaging the details (I guess this is a reflection of our personalities), so being able to be involved is fun for us. We aren't nitpicking too much, though. I can't afford to be driven crazy about saving $3 here and there on door knobs, etc. We're mostly going with it and trying to be both effecient and saavy.

So, it's coming along. We are waiting to hear back from the association dude to make sure our exterior paint choices are "acceptable." We picked out a rustic red color for the house, with cappucino and charcoal accents/trim. Red is a "nature color", as the covenants ask for, but we realized it's a bit out of the ordinary, so figured we'd better get it "okayed" first. This annoys me a lot. But what do you do.

Other than that, apartment living is going well. Very well, in fact. Our apartment's management is incredible--it sometimes feels like we are living in a hotel rather than paying rent. Their maintenance people respond to issues with lightning speed. The other day Benjamin slammed the front door through the wall. Oops, there goes the drywall. Great, probably the deposit with it.... I emailed them and they came to fix it right away. They said not to worry about it one bit, and they understand how kids are. Not only that, but they left a little message saying they had been here to fix it taped to a popcorn bag that said, "We just popped in to fix up!" Really??? My kids destroy your stuff, and you leave us a snack and friendly note? I went to ask a question of the office staff the other night and she said, "Here, take some pizza!" There were about 60 pizzas in the office area for "resident appreciation." She told me to just take a whole pizza for our family's dinner that night. Um, thanks! I'm not sure we'll want to leave even after the house is built :)

So, I think I'm behind on photos, so I'll end with a slightly out of order photo montage.

a long overdue halloween photo of spiderman, clifford the big red dog, and the blue crayon


before gav's first haircut

after first haircut


grandma suzi's birthday


Every morning Gav toddles out of our bedroom and heads straight for his brothers on the couch, where he cuddles for awhile


gav is starting to show more interest in solid foods, but still not a ton. thank goodness for nursing because i don't worry even a little about him getting enough nutrition since i know he's still getting the best from me :)


before the weather got COLD we enjoyed some great fall days at our local parks. i tried to take some photos of the boys at the beach, but was unable to capture 3 smiles at once. ah well, these probably capture their spirits better, anyway:

So, we moved.

The past 10 days have been a whirlwind of packing, moving, crying, sorting, unpacking, ssshhhing, and adjusting. Saying goodbye to our first house-- where we settled back into life in Iowa after the Big Apple, welcomed and said goodbye to two dogs, struggled with infertility then celebrated and tried to manage super fertility, and watched all three of our babies learn to walk-- was a tremendously difficult thing for me to do. A lot of tears were shed and repeated goodbyes were in order, but it will be a long time before I feel at home anywhere else.

We had a moving party with our favorite neighbors and friends



The men caravaning to the apartment and storage unit with the rest of our stuff

The best damn neighbors on the planet. Period.


We took the boys back to the house to say goodbye. They weren't nearly as sentimental as I was, and were more interested in racing around from room to room and being silly.

Saying goodbye to old bedrooms...


Where all my babies got rocked and nursed and toweled off after warm baths...




Where I spent 60% of my time


Where I spent the other 40% of my time



I remember so, so many snowy, cold days, sitting in the living room with overactive kids, staring out this front window, and wondering when the snow would melt so we could get outside again.


Goodbye House.



I know I shouldn't feel sorry for myself since this was a self-instigated move. We were lucky to sell as quickly as we did, lucky to be building a home we will likely love, and lucky to have a healthy family that will be our home wherever we go. Unlike thousands of other families who lost their homes to foreclosure, we are moving out of choice, so for that I am thankful. But I'm still allowing myself time to grieve.

I'm also trying to focus on the positive of apartment living. I've been creating a mental check-list of the benefits of this apartment:

1) No shoveling when it snows.
2) No stairs means no baby gates means no worrying about Gavin falling.
3) Cheaper rent and ulitity bills. No water bill (and for a family of 5, with 3 boys who change clothes at least twice a day, and a baby in cloth diapers, this is a BOON for us)
4) Someone else fixes stuff when it breaks.
5) A laundry room right off the kitchen (strangely, I'm really enjoying the centrality of the laundry room here)
6) I'm told sharing a room is good for siblings
7) I get to see the cats more. There are fewer places for them to hide. I really love my cats.

I was going for 10, but so far this is where I stopped. Still, seeing the silver lining seems like a positive start on adjustment.

Home Sweet (apartment.)



So far the boys have adjusted really, really well. They adore the bunk beds and sharing a room hasn't fazed them. At least not after 3 nights of it...

and the boys aren't the only ones enjoying the bunks


Gavin's new favorite play spot



So, we're here. I'm working on moving on. Hopefully as the new house picks up speed in the building process I'll get more excited about what's yet to come. For now, I have only fond memories of 431 53rd Place.

Portland

We had a lovely, lovely time on the west coast. Gavin was a great traveler, and the first amongst his brothers to fly in an airplane. He scooped up admirerers from state to state :)

After arriving Thursday, we went out to dinner at Isabel in the Pearl District, not far from our hotel downtown.


Being that we still felt like we were two hours "ahead," Gavin's usual wake up was far TOO early for Portland standards. It was still darkish.

And Mike was fighting a head cold, so while he slept, Gav and I went out in search of coffee and fun. We did a lot of walking before 9am that morning.

Once Mike got up, Friday became our big exploring day. It started out gloomy, but the peaked out later and it was a gorgeous day. Good thing, because we walked and walked and WALKED. Gavin was a rock star, riding in the Ergo for about 9 hours that day without complaint.



We were truly anthropologists that day, exploring the city on foot, and getting out of the touristy area. It wasn't what we had planned to do, actually. We set out for lunch, targetting the Grilled Cheese Grill after spotting it in a dining guide. Little did we know that it was MILES away. We spent about 3-4 hrs trying to get to this place, and it was one of those great journeys that we never would've started had we known what it would entail, but in the end, were glad we did. We met many Portlanders who were nice enough to give us directions on the way, and saw a lot of neighborhoods. We stopped through a park to rest and saw kids playing soccer and let Gavy out to roam. It was a beautiful day for walking. In the end, the sandwich was good, but not good enough to go that far for. But the experience was memorable.



Part of the fun of exploring the city on foot was discovering little local spots we would not have otherwise known existed. One of those was Voodoo donuts. We knew it had to be special when there was a line half way down the block at noon for..donuts? We decided it could not be missed, even if we weren't really in the mood for a donut.




Check out their creative (disgusting?) menu here: Voodoo Donuts. With toppings like bacon, tang, fruit loops, and bubble gum, how could we have missed this? I got the maple bacon, and Mike got the dirty old bastard:


Two mornings it was a wee bit rainy (in Portland? Noooo, you don't say) so we merely ventured across the street for breakfast. Luckily the place, Kenny and Zuke's, was the bomb. A deli like you'd fine in good old NYC, complete with pastrami omelets and smoked salmon eggs benedict (both of which I got to try since, you know, we went for breakfast two mornings in a row.) The funniest part of this was that they made apple sauce in house with ginger and other fantasticities (yes, I made that up) and it was thick as paste and tasted even better...but Gavin made faces when we put it in his mouth. Instead, he chose to eat the dijon mustard on the table from a spoon. No faces with that. Goon. He was a wet but happy Ergo rider on these rainy days.


Sarah and Orion's wedding was fabulous. So perfectly them. Beautiful ceremony....



and a stunning reception (Gavin was drawn to the dance floor. a lot.)


The anthropologists present were representin'.






And the dancing was sure something.


All in all, we had a great trip. It went fast. The boys did not miss us, according to all the grandparents taking care of them for those 4 days. The morning after we got back, I gave them the hats I bought for them from this incredible non-profit free trade store (seriously! Check it out: Banyan Tree) and after a few moments of "ooh! a winter hat!", it was back to brotherly business as usual.

There was a hole. In the middle of the ground.

and the green grass grew all around, all around..... (well, sort of.)

Before we left for Portland, there were stakes.


Now that we are back, there is a hole. We are on our way to building a house.

Reunited

Some of you may remember Hawekeye, our beloved blue heeler, whom we gave up two years ago (almost to the date) because we were having a hard time handling his high-need behavior with young kids at home. Several months ago he ran away from the farm he was staying at and I figured we'd never know what happened to him. I was quite surprised to get a phone call 2 days ago from an animal shelter in Waterloo (2+ hours away, on the NE side of Iowa) that they had just taken him in as a stray and booked him in their animal control intake office. If any of you have ever questioned the need for microchipping, let me sing its praises. This is the 2nd time I've been located because of the microchip that was placed when he was a puppy. It's a lifetime thing and has helped find him twice now.

Yesterday I loaded up the 3 kiddos and took off for Waterloo to pick up our old dog. I shed a lot of tears along the way, but was happy to see he wasn't emaciated or scard of people or in rotten shape. In fact, he was mostly his old self. The past day and a half he's been staying at our house until he goes back to Osceola to live on Mike's parents farm. I'm stunned at how much he's subdued since he lived with us 2 years ago. He doesn't bother the kids at all, but plays so well with them. He no longer dives into his food like he's starving, but waits until we give him the okay to do so. He doesn't bark as much. He still loves to play fetch, is potty trained (amazing since he's been an outdoor dog for 2+ years now), and knows how to walk on the leash. He's been nothing but the perfect dog since he's been back, which has unfortunately caused me to rehash all my old feelings of guilt and sadness of letting him go again. I told Mike he's lucky we're moving to an apartment in 3 weeks or else I'd probably petition to keep him for awhile.

Jack's not making it easy on me. He keeps saying, "Oh, I LOVE Hawkeye! He's such a good dog! I'm so glad he's home again!" Twist the knife :(