What we've been up to lately...
Getting our house ready to sell.
In the last month or so we have started thinking about moving to a home that will sustain our family of 6 long term. We love our house now. It is 1100 square feet and it doesn't even feel too small for us right now. But we know that while it feels comfortably full, there is no room for growth. NOT that we are planning to grow any time soon or anything... but we aren't ready to say we are done with having kids. We have no idea how they may come in the future (naturally, through foster care, through adoption) but the next house we buy will need room for the possibility.
After thinking about this (and also that we need to live in a little different neighborhood with small children), we have found wonderful houses twice. Both times they have sold before we could make an offer. Mostly since no offer will be taken seriously until our house is on the market. Now that our dream houses (for the right price) are no longer out there we are still feeling motivated to move. Even if we rent for awhile, that is okay, since owning a home is currently holding us back from being able to buy a new one (especially since we aren't interested in renting ours out and becoming landlords).
So we have been moving forward getting ready to sell. We have lined up someone to do repairs around the house. We are getting a new front door. The bathroom ceiling has been repainted. Several other rooms will be painted in the process. We are rearranging furniture to make more sense to potential buyers... And as someone who loves to decorate and "stage", I am also having fun making the house look nice! :)
We are also still dealing a lot with Peanut's health issues. Pray for him. There are too many things going on with him to even list. There is also a court date coming up at the end of May that will give us an idea of what his life holds for the next season. Just pray for Peanut if you think of him. Pray God's will be done. Pray protection for his little life and for complete healing for his illnesses/complications. Lately, it has started to make me very sad to see how delayed he really is... I am starting to feel helpless to help him improve- even doing all of the therapies, etc. it is hard to wait for improvement that comes so slowly.
Peanut started to say "Mama" this week. My heart melts every. time.
Melody is a little girl now (she would say a big girl :)). She is potty training. It is going well so far.
The twins are doing great. Craig is humongous. I call him a "hoss". Georgia is precious and peaceful. Melody has started to call her "Georgie". Sleep wise the twins are finally on a pretty good routine. They eat around 6am, 9 or 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 6:30pm and 9 or 9:30pm- with the occasional extra feeding thrown into the late afternoon. Then Craig has been sleeping until 5am or 6am (depending on if the last feeding is closer to 9pm or 10pm) and Georgia is still waking up once at night- usually around 3am. I don't nurse the twins together- they are REALLY big. It is kind of hard to juggle them both at the same time. Not to mention it means I am stationary if I feed both together. I need the ability to chase my other little ones around or care for them (make them meals, bottles, etc) so while I don't "Tandem Nurse" I do "Tandem Care" for my family. I am usually nursing a baby while giving Peanut his morning bottle, or nursing a baby while I help Melody go to the potty. I have started to use a ring sling which has seriously helped the nursing while doing something else thing.
All in all we are insanely busy. We are also insanely crazy thinking about selling a house/moving while we adjust to twins and care for Peanut in the midst of all of these health issues. But it is fun. And one day when we live in a house that we aren't going to move from for a long time and Peanut is a little bit healthier and the twins are a little older, life will feel positively easy. Easy Peasy as I like to tell Melody. But I'm not longing for that kind of easy at the moment. I am loving these crazy days. As I said on Facebook recently, this is a good kind of chaos.
Our children are blessings. Our life is crazy, but happy. And again, we are so thankful to everyone who has helped us in this season. We really are doing well because of you.
I am off to get a few hours of sleep now. Well... after I attempt to clean up our living room a little bit. We moved furniture around tonight, so it needs a little help... then I will get a few winks- I promise! :)
Love,
Rachel
