Check out Ashli's blog to see our Easter Egg fun!!!

We have been so busy with the house, moving, etc that it is hard for me to catch a second to post everything. I want to remember this transition and time, but at the same time, I want to enjoy it!!! I don't want to sit in front of a computer - I want to spend every second I can with friends and family. But, I digress.

We had an offer on our house! The 1st person to come through on the 1st day. They came back again and again and put a bid in. We had to turn them down though, because she wanted to move in on april 30. Even if she would have offered asking price, I am not mentally or emotionally prepared for that yet. All my plans through June include us at this house. AND, there is no way I want to move my kids TWICE!!!

Keep your fingers crossed though as we have 3 more showings today...which I have to leave for now. More to come later!

Gifts from Japan

Patrick's soon-to-be partner in Japan and his wife and kids sent G&E a care package to get them excited about Japan. How sweet is that?!?!!? The kids loved getting a package from there and are excited about seeing more toys like these when we get there.

In other news, we put our house on the market today. We already had a realtor tour and a showing - with a second showing scheduled for tomorrow! I hope this happens smoothly and easily!

busy bees

Well, obviously we are very busy getting ready for our move to japan - so please forgive the lack of posts. Our first challenge was getting our house in good shape to sell it (well the best shape). We decided just to sell (instead of rent) because we will be an entire DAY away, so we had our realtor and a staging professional come in to help give us ideas of what to do to help the house sell quicker. They were pretty simple (new light fixtures ($10 at Lowes), flowers in the plant boxes, more lighting, etc) ...except for painting. We sort of refuse to paint the kitchen (we love the red color and it pulls together our entire couch, rug, placemats, etc) and also refused to paint Evie's room and ours (they were just done). BUT - we did agree the rest of the paint could use a little sprucing up.

My friend Dana had a huge 5 gallon bucket of tan contractors paint and a bunch of supplies, so I begged a few friends (Dana, Ashli, Tara, Melissa, and Kristen) to come over and help paint on Sunday (Autumm watched the kids). I must say we did an amazing job! Thank goodness there were 3 ladies who had painted before and were great with instructions and doing some of the hard parts (trim, etc). We had 6 of us, and we got the whole thing done in 5 hours! I even ended up groveling some more and did the basement as well on Tuesday. Then, I only had one other person (in shifts - Ashli, Tara and Mary) and it took MUCH longer! But it was worth it! The house looks great and we have our realtor coming tomorrow to take pictures and then it will go up on the MLS this weekend! Keep your fingers crossed.

Yokota Japan

Yep - we have verbal orders (still waiting for official written orders) to go to Yokota Japan. We are still awaiting many answers (when will we start, how long will we be there, etc) but we are so excited to get out of our comfort zone and experience a different part of the world. What an experience of a lifetime!

Can you guess where we may be moving???

More info to come!

Seriously?!?!!?

We just keep getting snow, more snow and MORE SNOW! We've had more days off from school than we had going to school. So needless to say, the kids have been getting a bit of cabin fever! We did have the chance to go to Nathan and Carter's birthday party ( a swim party - thank goodness!), play at a friends house for some sledding fun (thanks Charlotte) and had a Valentine's playgroup party to keep them entertained. We also did get one day of school in last week, which was the Valentine's party. I made these delicious Cupid Clusters (3 cups yogurt burst cherrios, 1 cup melted white choc chips, 1 cup crushed dried strawberries) and put them in cute heart shaped tins. Of course, I also sent in my yummy pretzels with red, pink and white m&ms. De-lish!

Cupid Clusters

Since we were snowed in mostly, we got to play a lot with the neighbors. We went to Angie's and used our present from MomMom and PopPop Bull (heart shaped popcorn balls) and created fun toppings and then ate them! We also played more in the snow and had our first official sleep over (with Silas staying over here on Monday night once we learned there was no school on Tuesday). It has been fun - but I am soooooooooo ready for spring!!!!
Making heart shaped popcorn treats

I have been chomping at the bit also to get out (without the kids) for some fun...which came in the form of Fergie Ferg and the Black Eyed Peas Concert. Even though the roads were horrible (and I had a snow virgin driver), Dana and Autumm joined me in going to this awesome concert! Thanks, Babe, for letting me buy the tickets as my V-day gift and staying home with the kids - YOU ROCK!

Dana and Autumm at the concert

Snowbulls

No - that is not a typo (although we did make lots of snowballs for another massive snowball fight). I would like to announce that Mr. Snowman met a wonderful snow-woman and made 2 beautiful snow-babies. Introducing, the SnowBulls....(and yes, Patrick is trying to make out with his)



The neighborhood kids came over and played for almost 3 hours today! What a fun time :-) The snow was perfect again for snowman making and snowball fights! This time, the kids did all the snowman making. They added pig tails to Evelyn's and my snowwomen (as hair) and gave Patrick and Gavin tails (hey...I was just happy they put the sticks on the BACK side of the guys :-)

We plan on adding some faces later, but it started getting dark and the kids were getting cold (okay, I was the one getting cold). But we also had a great snowball fight, shoveled the driveway, played in the igloo and fort, and thoroughly enjoyed this amazing snowfall we have been getting. We are supposed to get more tomorrow too - so it should be another fun day at the Bull's!

And boys will be boys...

While we were over at Ashli's house yesterday, we noticed a similar pattern with the boys playing...

I guess it doesn't matter what the weather is, boys will be boys!

Thanks Ash, for capturing this :-)

Top 10

These are the top 10 things I loved about this weekend:

10. Watching Patrick take over 30 minutes to try to fix the tv screen (the channel number was staying lit in the corner), which took Evelyn 3 seconds to mess up.

9. Being surprised by the amount of snow we had, and getting a chance to go outside and play for hours on end with the kids.

8. Having kids that LOVE being out in the cold and not whining that they are cold or want to go back in...I had to drag them inside to eat.

7. Building a 6+ feet tall snowman with the kids and Angie's family.

6. Having our friends, The Simpsons (Autumm, Alex, Alexa, Packy and Olivia), come over when their power went out for a fun day in the snow.

5. Making breakfast from scratch for all of us and making soup in the crock pot so the house smelled yummy all day.

4. Having a massive snowball fight between the daddys vs. all the rest of us.

3. Patrick making a fort/igloo with a tunnel/slide inside so the kids could play.

2. Sleeping in until after 8 each morning.

1. Having the kids be so tired from the snow that they crashed before their bedtimes and Patrick and I were able to watch scary movies that required lots of snuggling :-)

Meet Mr. Snowman

He took 4 people to roll the bottom layer, 3 people to lift the middle and all of us to decorate and make his hair perfect. Thank goodness this snowfall has good igloo/snowman/snowball making snow because the last big storm had lame snow you couldn't do anything with.

Girls will be girls...

Evie, Hannah and Olivia
aka Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Ariel

gymnastics and valentines

So I think my last post about gymnastics (last year) was about how Evie was most likely going to get kicked out. Well, guess what?!?!!? She is doing AWESOME! She has moved up and is now in the class without me, which is why I think she is doing so much better. She is such an independent little thing, so I think she needs her freedom. Anyways, she is doing great and loves it. Gavin is still the only boy in his class but I think he doesn't mind ;-) Brenna and Alexa (his buddies) are also in there and he has gotten to know the other girls too. I think he is just excited about gymnastics as Evelyn is! I love thursday mornings when they realize they are going to gymnastics and they listen to me, get dressed on time, Evie asks for her 'gymnastics hair', and they play with their friends there. It rocks!!!

This week, we also had the Welshes over to make Valentine's cards. Special Agent Oso (a tv show) had on how to make v-day cards, so the kids were all into it. Gavin even remembered how they describbed to draw a heart, and did a great job, ifidosaysomyself. He also made a card for himself... "because it is important to love yourself." I couldn't have said it any better!

Now...things I DON'T like about having a girl...

Sure, I love doing hair, and I will be excited to ONE DAY help Evelyn with make-up...but this is ridiculous!

swimming

Gavin is the one on the left...

Gavin has been enrolled in swim lessons for about 9 months. He has moved up twice - but will probably stay at the level he is on now (Ray) for a long time. He can swim on his back all by himself for the length of the pool (but only by doing "chicken, eagle, snake" not the back stroke) even if the picture above shows him with a floatie. He can also put his head in the water when he swims, but often ends up coughing. He loves his swim lessons :-)

Friends forever

Patrick and I have been talking more and more about Japan and have been asking the kids what they thought about moving there. The first thing Gavin asked was "Will I meet new friends"? So we said "Of course, you will meet new friends throughout your whole life, no matter where you are. Meeting new friends is very special, but it is also very special to have friends that you have known forever. Like Aunt Eileen and Uncle Matt have been mommy's friends forever. And Uncle Tony has been daddy's friend forever."

After much thought, Gavin later told us, "Ok. My friends forever are going to be Kelly and McKenna, Nathan and Carter, Brenna and Ava, Greg, Seth, Hannah, Big Boy Sam, Silas and Hailey." Breaks my little heart, but also makes me feel warm inside that he has such good friends...

Why I love having a girl...and other random thoughts

This is just a cute pic of blue eyes!!! Sorry for the bad quality - it was from my phone.

This is why I love having a girl. When I was in elementary school I absolutely HATED having my hair done (just ask anyone who knew me and my hair then). In middle school, some of my friends taught me how to do fun things - like braid and french braid, etc. Those techniques got more education from my aunt who would teach me while we were on vacations and from friends who became hair dressers and from college roommates and from sorority sisters.

So as soon as Evelyn started getting hair long enough to grab, I got her used to me tugging and pulling on her strands to make cute hair dos. She is very fortunate to have beautiful hair to begin with, it looks cute even when I don't do anything. But all the new bows, and bands, and hats, and barrettes...make doing her hair even more fun. I follow hair-do blogs now and learn fun new techniques. Today I did an inside-out braid (reverse braid, bone braid - it has different names). It looks super cute - and Patrick thinks I am wonder woman for being able to do cute things with her hair.

Today we also put up Gavin's storage unit (thanks Autumm) and labeled his toys. The kids get so excited to clean up and they help one another pick up their rooms. It is by far, the best parenting move I have made :-)