It's 2010!

Since Facebook exists and has all of my friends on it, I've pretty much allowed this blog to fall by the wayside. However, lately I've found myself wanting to vent and write. We have a lot going on these days, and I just can't type it all in my status updates. :-)

We are all doing well... all six of us. Gracelynn is making great strides in becoming a typical American child. She is still quite the spunky, active lit

tle girl who makes you want to pull your hair out at times, but it's amazing to see how far she has come. I figure God knew what he was doing when he connected her little red thread to us. He must have thought, "Hmmm.... Christy and Mike just don't have enough excitement in their lives. It's too easy."

She and Tommy are fairly good playmates, at times. But like all siblings, that only lasts so long. Ha! Fortunately they are beginning to show their own individual interests that sometimes keeps them busy on their own. Tommy is a Lego-maniac these days. He shows me websites of his favorite Lego sets that he NEEDS NOW constantly. Even those ones that aren't sold in the USA, he's determined to get from Santa at Christmas since Santa can make anything. Who decided that wonderful "fact"? If he isn't building new

Lego vehicles, he's playing Lego Star Wars or Lego Indiana Jones on the PS3 or DS... or scanning the Lego website for games and videos.

Gracelynn loves to draw and make artwork. Unfortunately due to her insistence in using drawing materials in ways that are destructive, she's usually only has access to Color Wonder products. Oh, how I LOVE Color Wonder! She also received a Melissa and Doug wooden castle for her birthday, so she's been playing with that a lot... even making Lego people and food to go along with the wooden characters.

Ben and Reagan are really growing up and making me feel old. Ben is almost a middle schooler, for crying out loud. He's into Spore and creating new worlds of dinosaurs and other creatures. Reagan is my writer. Even her teacher says that thoughts and ideas just pour from her little mind constantly. If she's bored, she'll write stories (books!) She's still in Brownies and soccer, too.

As for Mike and I, we have big news. No, no... not another child. LOL We're out of room! Which lead us to begin looking into the possibility of moving sometime. We honestly thought with the economy and the housing market these days that moving wouldn't happen for awhile. However, we happened to stumble into an amazing situation.

I've always loved this one neighborhood about 15 minutes from our house, still in the same county. It's tucked back in the middle of the woods, down a long dirt road. I first went out there for a Freecycle pickup. A few weeks later, I dragged Mike down that road to show him this neighborhood that I fell in love with. A few months later, I began going to a hairdresser that lived in that neighborhood. And so, I kept going back and back and back. When we bought our Sequoia last year (yes, we did get it), I immediately drove down that ol' dirt road back to that neighborhood to try out the 4WD... even taking my fam

ily back there to show them this beautiful neighborhood tucked in the woods.

Well, we went out there, just for a drive... just to see if any homes were on the market. Nothing was at the time, but what a shock.... we saw this amazing sign at the entrance! NEW HOMES were being built there!!! So, it didn't take long for me to start researching this.... checking out the models, checking out the prices, contacting the sales agent, etc. We went out to talk to the sales agent, totally expecting the house we needed (enou

gh bedrooms, etc.) to be way out of our price range. In order for this move to be worth our while, we needed at least 5 bedrooms, a bigger kitchen, and more space. After talking to the agent for awhile, I began getting completely giddy inside. Mike and I drove separately that day, so I couldn't even talk with him until we arrived home. I about exploded when I found out that Mike was as excited as I was.

And so... the adventure begins. After days and weeks of total stress and tears, trying to talk to real estate agents and loan officers and building sales agents and parents and children, we finally agreed it was worthwhile to take the plunge.

We have now officially signed the contract on a new home.

It will sit on the lot of our choice, on 5.1 acres. (The lot-choosing alone was stressful enough... and we still aren't positive we made the right choice. Ha... too late now, gotta be satisfied now!) Our kids will finally each have their own, decent-sized bedroom, and our kitchen will never run out of storage space. Our pantry will finally hold all of the food necessary to keep on hand for a family of four growing kids. We even added a third garage to store all of our bikes, lawn mowers, moonbounce, sports equipment and more.

The house is a little unique in that the stairs are tucked back in the side of the house (not in the middle of the house), there is an attached third garage at a d

ifferent angle than the other two, an attic/loft rec room and extra bath and extra den/bedroom on the third level, plus a Jack-and-Jill suite in the back of the house. The boys will share a bath, but the girls will essentially each have their own bathrooms. Ahhh.... preparing for those teen years. Yet, the square footage isn't insane and the house looks like a modest-size home (not those "McMansions" people gawk over). Basically it's as if the builder knew our needs and made a house to give us just enough extra space to fit our needs, yet not going bonkers on price or size!

We are obviously not finishing the basement just yet, and the

kids are actually excited about having space once again to rollerskate without getting cold in the garage and without getting yelled at on the hardwood!

Now comes the fun in picking out all the goodies. Unfortunately most of those goodies means $$$. Bummer. So, we did pick the exterior colors... Pebblestone Clay (tan) w/ Spanish Moss (dark green) door/shutters and Almond trim/garage door and a stone watertable and speckled black shingles. I wanted very natural colors to go well with the woodsy neighborhood and this scheme fit the bill.

I don't know the exact amount, but I'm guessing about 1 acre i

s sodded/seeded and the rest is wooded. It's a really WEIRD shaped lot, but oh well... it's woods! Chances are if you run in a straight line into the woods, you'll probably stay in our property for a little while... but that's not necessarily a sure thing. There are definitely some weird little angles in there, too. Ha! I guess my dad is more like me than I thought. The fact that the lot isn't a straight line shape (aka... triangle or rectangle) is bugging him. He keeps saying "why?" I'm the sort of weirdo that would walk into a room and totally obsess over the fact that they didn't put the desks/tables/altar/windows/furniture in a perfectly symmetrical arrangement in the room... even if that meant that I didn't watc

h the performance, or listen to the professor or pastor while I tried to internally reason why they wouldn't make the room symmetrical. Things like that just BUG me. I even squint from my hallway to eyeball my living room furniture daily to make sure the middle of the sofa lines up perfectly with the middle of the coffee table, the middle of the rug and the middle of the TV armoire. I guess Dad is like that too. Is that OCD... or just the sign of a mathematical mind? I like to think the latter. Ha! Oh well... it's woods... who cares where the lines are?

Well... off to clean a little. Gotta house to sell soon... anyone need a four bedroom cute little house in Northern VA?