Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The Final Countdown

We have started our final countdown of days in Virginia.  As I type this we have only 9 days to go.  We have been extremely busy ironing out the details of our transition to Beaumont and working on house issues that have arisen with both the selling of this house and buying of our next house.  We were extremely fortunate to get two offers on our current house on the same day and it was sold in 14 days of being on the market (lucky us!).  We have a 10 day period of being "homeless" in between selling this house and our closing date in Beaumont.  The girls and I are flying to MI for that time period to spend time with all of the grandparents.  Jay will be driving alone to TX as he has to be there to start his new job. 
 
Blog posts have been infrequent lately because we haven't had any super exciting adventures and because I haven't been taking many pictures lately.  We are mostly home bound with the cold winter weather and our days consist of playing inside - mostly with princess dresses on.  I am sick of indoor pictures and am looking forward to the warm Texas weather and more fun outdoor pictures.  I also don't like the fact that Emma is growing like a dandelion and is literally two sizes too big for her winter coat that fit her at the beginning of the season.  I originally figured we could just wait till we got to Texas when her fleece would be plenty heavy, but suppose I should have forked over the money for a new coat a month ago.  Therefore, the pictures that I do take outside look silly with Emma's small coat.  Bad mom move #3824. 
 
We did go ice skating when Nana and Papa were here last month.  Jay took Emma and it was a freezing cold day (in the 20's).  I figured Emma would last 10 min max, but she absolutely loved it and we had to peel her off the ice.  She was clinging to Jay at first, but by the end she was doing it all by herself! 
 






Peek-a-boo!


Anna has been doing awesome with her speech lately - it has been an explosion!  She usually has 3-4 or sometimes 5 word utterances.  Her favorite things to say are "I'm huuuuuuuuuunngry" (she says this 100 times a day!), "Do mysef!!" (decipher: Do myself!  Girlfriend wants to be miss independent!), "where going?" (asks a million times in the car and wants to know where we are headed), "I WUUUVVV ______"  (Insert favorite character of the day.  She LOVES Mickey or LOVES Tinkerbell or LOVES Dora.  She is so dramatic about it.)  We LOVE the fact that she is doing so well!  We will really miss her speech therapist Carol who has been awesome!
Anna with her speech therapist, Miss Carol
I will really miss all of the new friends we have made here in VA.:(  I know that we have created friendships to last a lifetime, but it is hard to say goodbye.  Many are Exxon friends that we can luckily say "So long for now" but others are not.  Below is a picture of my neighborhood girlfriends that I enjoyed so many play dates and girls nights out with.  At our last girls night out we discussed the changes we have had in almost two short years: two new babies, two new babies on the way, and one adopted baby! 
My Little Rocky Run girls
Random picture of Anna loving the dentist visit.  She did SO much better than last time.  I am pretty sure it is because she just read a Dora book about how she visited the dentist.  Anna loves Dora.
Anna loved the dentist

Going away party with other dear friends.  Luckily I know I will see Jenny and Jenn again!!

Fun trip to local winery with Emily and Jenn
This video is Anna showing off her mad jumping skills.  She can finally leave the ground when she tries to jump:) 
 
Here Anna is showing off her counting skills.  The girl forgets #1 every time and forgot #4 this time, but she is so stinkin cute counting!! 
 
We are looking forward to getting settled into our new house (if we can ever agree to final terms on it!) and settling into life back in Beaumont.   I have already been working on getting the girls signed up for swim lessons and Anna signed up for preschool next year.  Emma has shed a few tears over the move and is sad to leave her friends here, but I know she is resilient and will adjust quickly.  We have one quick overnight trip to Philadelphia before we leave as our last hurrah.  It should be a good getaway for us before the big move.