And my phone is dead but since this is a special moment of free time I'm going to type this up and maybe add pictures later.
Or add them to a separate post 3 months from now!
This is what we have been doing:
- Ryan got a new job in Fort Collins at Advanced Energy. He started in October.
- We house hunted for several weeks (toyed pretty seriously with building another house) and then fell in love with a home in southwest Fort Collins right next to the foothills. We have no backyard neighbors and huge windows. I love the open feel of it.
- My brother came home from his mission in the middle of November. We hosted my family for dinner the night he came back, as well as Thanksgiving a couple of weeks later.
- Kent and Lalo stayed with us for a few days during Thanksgiving week.
- We got our house rented to a nice couple.
- Business for LILLEbaby really picked up in mid-November and I was super busy, which was both great and really stressful since we were moving the third week of December. I still have no idea how in the world I got everything done between packing, working, and being a mother. I guess I can only give credit to all the great people who helped me out during those weeks by watching Maya and Brianna.
- Maya turned 3! She had a fun party with nearby family and a rainbow cake that she had been requesting for months.
- After lots of negotiating and almost pulling out of closing on the house the DAY BEFORE we closed, we finally got everything lined up and felt comfortable making the purchase. It was a huge headache and we definitely wondered if we were doing the right thing a few times. We prayed about it a lot, and felt whatever happened would be the best for our family.
- We bought the house on December 22nd. Picked up a moving truck that night. We spent 7 hours loading the truck on the 23rd with the help of a ward member friend, Ben, Jared, Ethan, and Adam. I finished packing while the men loaded. We drove to Fort Collins, where my dad, Brady, Holly, and Garrett met up with us, and had everything unloaded at our new house in about 50 minutes.
- Spent Christmas Eve with my family, Christmas morning at our new home with our own family, and Christmas dinner at Brady and Erin's.
- The following week Ryan and I spent 12 hours cleaning the Erie house to get it ready for our renters. Ryan went back 2 other days, and he ended up ringing in the New Year at a McDonald's drive-thru. But we (he) got it all done! I won't say it wasn't hard leaving that house, and painting the girls' rooms back to the original color was rough. It was where we brought our daughters home to, where we planned to stay for much longer, and where Ryan worked so hard to landscape our backyard. Now that we are in our new home and have started to make it our own, it is much easier to look back on it and realize it was a stage in our lives that will never be forgotten, but is no longer part of our present.
- We love that we are back in Fort Collins. This city is our home, and will always be "home". Ryan has told me that he feels like this house is our forever home; something he never spoke of regarding our home in Erie. Our new ward is great, our neighbors are awesome, and it all feels so right. It is my greatest hope that we stay here extremely long-term, if for no other reason than that I really really really despise moving.
Next week little Brianna turns 18 months old! She is starting to talk a lot, purposely does really silly things to make us laugh, and today I was carrying her cradled in my arms and she said, "Baby!" It made me realize she isn't a baby anymore, which of course pulls at my heart strings a little.
So that is why I have not had time to blog. Life got crazy and it got crazy fast.
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