It's official... I'm a terrible mother!

It's been over two weeks since Daniel's birthday and I JUST realized that I forgot to post the pictures from his party. I can't believe that I got so caught up in Jacob starting school that I forgot this! Can you tell he's a second child???


The cake - you know, Daniel and the lion??? :)
I was actually supposed to make this cake for his 1st birthday, but we ended up going on vacation to the beach the week of his birthday, so that didn't happen.


Daniel smiles as he opens his card from Jacob. It sang the song "Who Let the Dogs Out?" He's still dancing around to that card more than two weeks later.


Emma helps Daniel read one of his cards.


Daniel shows off one of his presents from Jacob.


At the time that he opened this, I truly think this was his favorite gift... SNACKS!!! Now, I would have to say his favorite gift is probably a tie between the aquadoodle and the knee hockey set (both gifts from the Wilsons.) They always come up with the best gift ideas!


All the kids sit around while Daniel opens more of his presents.


Daniel on his "new to him" rocking horse. AKA Jacob's old rocking horse. Again... second child syndrome. What can I say? I love to go "shopping" in our attic. Well, now I do my shopping in our basement, but you get the point. :)


Blowing out the candles. I was amazed that he remembered what to do. I put the cake down in front of him and had to light the candles three times (and I had to move the cake further away from him each time) because he kept blowing out the candles as soon as I lit them.


Mmmm... cake!


Party's over! Time to take out the trash. As one of Jacob's chores, he helps Dylan take out the trash. As usual, Daniel has to do everything his brother does and insists on helping, too.

Ladies and Gentlemen... the binkie has left the building!

That's right. Most of you already know that Daniel has been attached to his binkie from day one. But, now... he has officially been binkie-free since Thursday. He only used the binkie in his bed and in the car, but I thought we would never get that thing away from him. Especially when he started to have a favorite binkie. Sure, it was cute - each night, he would reach into the drawer and pull out his favorite binkie. But, what wasn't so cute was when he would wake up in the middle of the night because he couldn't find it. I've known for a while that he needed to get rid of it, but he's just so stubborn that I was literally terrified of going cold turkey.

But, once again, my children amaze me. He hasn't screamed at all and has done great. We let him throw them away himself so that he would see it for himself and know that they were gone. (I pulled them out of the trash when he wasn't looking in case of emergency!) And since then, he's only asked for it twice and both times we just told them they were all gone and that was the end of it. We did have a close call today when he found my hiding place for the "in case of emergency" binkies. He pulled one of them out and put it straight in his mouth (yes, for all you germ freaks out there, they were cleaned after I pulled them out of the trash can!). I went (ok, ran...) straight over and pulled it out of his mouth. I then grabbed the bunch of binkies and proceeded to sneak upstairs and hide them in Dylan's sock drawer. Again, amazingly, Daniel didn't even cry.

Here's to no more binkies!!!!!! Now, if only I could get him to stop beating up on his older brother. Oh, well - baby steps, right? :)

What happens when you ask a 2 year old to smile?

Well, apparently, THIS is what happens:




Now, that's better.


Not sure what this look is all about...


Getting silly again.


Oh, Daniel - you are such a ham! I love it!

Settling in

Jacob is at his 4th day of school right now. I can't believe it, but we have already fallen into a pretty good routine.

Day one was a little strange. I drove him to school and when we pulled up to the drop-off line I realized one huge difference in preschool and elementary school. In elementary school, there is only one teacher outside watching the kids get out of the cars. I was surprised that there weren't more teachers outside to help the kids get inside to find their classrooms. Jacob said that when he went inside, the lady from the library helped him find his class. I'm pretty sure that means that Jacob walked down the hall and wandered into the library, at which point she helped him find his way. Oh, well - at least he made it there!

Day two - he came home and told me that... wait for it... he found his class ALL BY HIMSELF!!!! I asked him what his classroom number was. He said, "211". High-five! I asked him what his bus number was. He glanced down at the tag hanging around his neck that has his bus number on it. OK - so he doesn't know it all, yet, but it is only day two.

Day three - he found his classroom again and now also knows his bus number (without looking!). Phew! It's a relief to know that he knows what he is doing. Not that I was really worried to begin with. After all, Jacob is a pretty self-sufficient child. He always has been. (And, yes - he totally gets that from me!) And as an added bonus, he also has learned his student ID number. Each child has a student number and this is what they use if they buy their lunch (which we don't do), but it is also used if they want to check out books from the library. I didn't know that until we went for his orientation. The paperwork that they sent home just said it was for the cafeteria and it had a picture of a keypad so that your child could practice pushing the buttons with their numbers and then pressing enter. I came 'this' close to throwing that sheet of paper away. You would think they could have mentioned something about them needing to learn this for the library. I'm just thankful that Jacob is a quick learner. Since Monday, he has had to learn his classroom, bus & student ID numbers. I guess we will have to move on to learning our new home phone (well, my new cell phone) number next week. He already knows our new address and I taught him my cell phone number (my old one from Midlothian) so that he would know it for his Brigance screening, but now that I have a new number, he'll have to learn that, too. Poor kid.

Anyways, he's doing great, I'm doing great and I think Daniel has really been enjoying the alone time. (And no, I did not cry on his first day of school. I know - I'm a bad mother!)

Here are the pictures:


Orientation Day - Friday, August 22nd


Here comes the bus!


So excited to be riding the bus!


The most handsome Kindergartner I've ever seen! First Day of School - Monday, August 25th.


Daniel wanted to be in the picture, too. It was also his birthday today and you can't say no to the birthday boy!


In the car on the way to school.


He made it home! Yeah!!!!!


I think he was happy to be home after a long day.


The "after" picture. Someone needs to give this kid a "I survived my first day of Kindergarten" shirt.


My parents came into town for the day and brought Emma and Laura with them. Jacob was so surprised to see them when he came home.

Stay tuned...

Yeah... so I was getting ready to post some pictures of Jacob's first day of school and Daniel's birthday. I then realized that I have taken 125+ pictures of those two days. Excuse me while I go sort through all the cuteness... :)

Tomorrow is a big day for us. Jacob has his orientation day for Kindergarten (I almost just wrote preschool there instead of Kindergarten. I still can't believe he's going to Kindergarten!!!) Basically, tomorrow morning, Jacob and I are going to be getting on the bus and going to school. Yes, you read that right - I am riding the bus to and from school with him. We're only supposed to be there for 2 hours. He will go spend some time with his teacher and meet his classmates while I am bored to death/overwhelmed with all the information they can throw on me in a 2 hour period. I mean seriously, do I really need to meet the school nurse??? It's like this - if he needs to go to the school nurse, I'm sure they will call me, at which time I will go up to the school and pick him up and... hello!!! There. Now I will have met the school nurse.

At least tomorrow will be a good way to ease him into school. I think he is most excited about riding the bus. Especially since I told him how they don't have seat belts. He said, "So... I'll just have to find something to hold onto?" Too funny. I can't wait to see how he does if we go over a bump. Does anyone else remember feeling like you were going to be tossed halfway across the world when the bus went over a bump? When my sister and I were in elementary school, there was this one hill with a bump at the bottom of it. Whenever we would go over it, I would sit in my sister's lap so that I wouldn't go flying out of my seat. And I usually always ended up hitting my head on the ceiling anyways. No kidding. Those were good times. :)

I have already decided that he will not be riding the bus into school. The school bus comes at 7:35/7:40 and school doesn't start until 8:40. I was told we need to be out at the bus stop by 7:30. 7:30!!!!!!!!!! That just will not work for either of us. We only live about 2 miles from the school, so I have decided all of us could benefit from the extra sleep and I will just drop him off at school in the mornings. I originally was not going to let him ride the bus home, either, but Daniel still takes an afternoon nap (Praise the Lord!!!) and he is usually asleep during the time that I would have to go to pick up Jacob.

Ok, time to finish laundry and go to bed. I've got an early day ahead of me!

Wish us luck!

I give up!

I keep waiting to update the family blog for a time when I can upload all the pictures, but that just is not happening and it has been far too long. So, the pictures will just have to come later...

Let's see, things are truckin' right along here in Lynchburg. We've been driving around trying to pick out a few good neighborhoods so that we can look out for houses when they go up for sale. So far, we have found quite a few good prospects. Most of them are older neighborhoods, but they are all pretty well-maintained and seem to be nice and quiet. Most of them are also split-level houses (even the new ones). Back in Midlothian, the only split-levels I ever saw were in neighborhoods that were built in the 70's, but they seem to like them around here. Which I guess is not a bad thing since a lot of square footage usually comes with a split-level. I'm just praying that the interest rates don't go crazy before we can pick out a house.

We don't have any definite plans for moving, but all I know is this renting stuff is for the birds!!! It's quiet here during the day, but there is no yard for the boys to play in and no good parks in this area (except for one in the city). Then, every night when I am trying to go to sleep, the lovely people next door decide it is time for their smoke break on their front porch (which is almost directly below our bedroom window). This also usually involves their dog out there with them barking (probably at all the bats flying around - seriously, what is up with all the bats out here??? Eeewww!!!) And don't even get me started on the girl next door whose fan belt desperately needs to be replaced. (I'm this close to going across the street - that's right - just ACROSS the street - to the Saturn dealership and making an appointment for her car to be fixed.) I know, I sound like a cry-baby, but I guess I just really forgot how much different being a homeowner is from being in a townhouse/apartment. It's doable, but as soon as we can get out of our lease and find a nice house with a nice yard, we are SO out of here!

Dylan will be hired on as a permanent employee as of the 25th (the same day as Jacob's first full day of school.) Everything seems to be falling right into place. I can just feel that this is right where God wants us to be for the moment and I don't think there is a better feeling in the world than that. I'm still very homesick, but I did find a MOPS group to join, so once I meet a few people, I think it will get better. Although, I have really enjoyed this downtime with the boys. No plans, no schedules, just us!

And yes, I will eventually get some pictures up here. We've actually done quite a few fun things with the boys. We took them to a Hillcats game (baseball), putt-putt (no pictures of that, but just thinking of Daniel swinging his golf club around like a hockey stick makes me laugh!) and lots of trips to Mr. Goodies (the best little ice cream stand up the road.)

Ok - it's off to bed now. I'm praying that while I was writing this, Dylan got all of his snoring out of him. :)

We made it!

Well, we made it to Lynchburg. Us and all of our stuff!!! We were able to get everything in one trip. It only took us stuffing a 26' truck, my van, Dylan's car, my Mom's car and my Dad's truck - but we did it in one trip!!! The boys stayed with Dylan's Mom all day on Saturday, so when we were done unloading, it was back to Richmond for me to pick up the boys. By the time we got back home it was 10:30, but that didn't stop Jacob from being excited about the new place. He said our family room is "huger" than our old one and everything else is so much better than our last house. Phew! I was so worried that he was going to say he didn't like it (or notice that his room is way smaller than the one at our old house!) The one thing he doesn't like is that we can't really go outside and play. There' is no yard and other than riding his bike on the sidewalk, there really isn't much more he can do outside. I'm going to try to find a park and take the boys there one day this week. If I can't find a good park, I'll just take them up to the elementary school. Either way, these kids need to play!!!

So far, I'd say it's OK living out here. It stinks that I don't know anyone, but that will come in time. Everything is just so different from back home. It's just a different way of life. Nothing bad, just different. I will say that I have enjoyed the fact that when I run an errand, I only have to go to one shopping area to get it all done. In one area, there is a Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Target, Barnes & Noble, Dick's Sporting Goods, Best Buy, Michael's, Kohl's, Old Navy, Pier 1 and more. Basically, if it's not in that shopping center (or off of Timberlake Road near us), then it probably is not in Lynchburg.

I don't have any pictures for you right now because that would require me to find the cord to download them off of my camera... I promise I'll put some up soon!!!

Ahhhhh!!!

I can hardly believe it myself, but our thermostat is set to 73 degrees and it is actually 73 degrees in our house. Wow!!! The new a/c repairman was here for about 3-1/2 hours, but he figured out the problem and is coming back later to replace the broken part.

OK - back to packing. We are picking up the truck at 2:00. It's crunch time, baby!

Hot, hot, hot!!!

Well, our a/c has been kaput since Tuesday of last week. Yes, you read that right. No a/c for NINE days. Needless to say, we are all sweating to death. (Or what I like to refer to as, "The white people are melting!!!" No, that's not a racial thing - go watch "Fools Rush In" and you will totally be laughing right along.) We had one company come out six times and they still couldn't fix it. Right now (yes, at 10:00 pm) we have a different company out here trying to work their magic.

Here's hoping that I can finish my packing in a house that is less than 80 degrees!!!

A few pics of things over the past few months...

Jacob, with his very own wheelbarrow. He helped Dylan put down the new mulch to help make our house look great.


Running to bring me my Mother's Day presents at preschool.


Singing "Peace Like a River". This was their pose for when they sang, "I've got joy like a fountain."




Daniel learning how to eat a banana like a big boy.


Preschool graduation - Kindergarten, here we come!


Jacob with his teacher, Mrs. Casstevens.


With Mrs. McKay (his class' helper.)


Turning the big 5! Decorations waiting for him when he opened his door the morning of his birthday.


Playing with the balloons. They had a blast!


On the webcam with Daddy showing off his birthday loot he picked out from ToysRUs.


The birthday mobile was in full swing just for Jacob!


Decorating his birthday cupcakes.


The finished product.


Jacob with my Mom.


We took Jacob to his favorite Mexican restaurant when Dylan came home for the weekend. He always asked to come because they make you wear this sombrero while they sing to you. They also take your picture and put it up on a wall for everyone to see. He is dying to go back to find his picture!


My dear friend, Kristen, and I in DC for her bachelorette party.

You can call off the search party now

Yep, we're still alive and kicking! It has been entirely too long since I've updated this thing, but this is the first time I feel like I have been able to come up for air. And that's sad, really, since now is the time that I should be in full-fledged panic mode. Dylan started his job in Lynchburg on May 5th and has been coming home for 3-day weekends since then. It's been rough! The boys have been real troopers, but I know they have really been missing their Daddy. At the beginning, it wasn't bad. I actually didn't really mind it that much, but I think that was mostly because it was something new in our routine instead of the same-old, same-old. Four or five weeks into it was a different story. I was totally over it and ready to get all of us back under the same roof 7 days a week.

Our house went on the market June 2nd and we got a contract offer on June 16th. Everything has been in warp speed since then. We were leaving to go on vacation on the 21st and the buyer's realtor was getting married that same day and leaving to go on his honeymoon. So, in a matter of 5 days, we accepted the offer, they did the inspection and gave us the addendum (which we have since signed off on.) Also, in that same week, we were able to secure an 'as close to perfect as we could hope for' townhouse. It's actually a pretty awesome townhouse. The finished square footage is about 20 sq. ft. more than our house. Plus, it has an unfinished walk-out basement for us to use for storage. Oh, and it's brand new!!!

So, we are closing on July 16th and we are moving the weekend of July 12th/13th. I cannot believe it is really happening. I am relieved that our house sold and that we are finally making the move, but I just know it is going to be a huge adjustment for me. I am sure there are going to be plenty of tears as I am packing over the next 12 days. Every time I am out and about, I look around and think how I am no longer going to live here. I have lived in the Richmond area since I was 4-1/2 and have lived right here in Midlothian since I was 7. I know we will have a great life wherever we are, as long as we are together. But, it isn't going to make this any easier. God Bless my husband for putting up with the emotional train wreck I am about to become! :)

I know it will have been three months by the time we close on the house that we have known we were going to be moving, but I still feel unprepared. I feel like there are so many friends that I have to say good-bye to and not enough time. I am going to have to get with my girls and schedule a farewell dinner. I am not ready to say good-bye and I know I will see all of them down the road, but it's going to be strange not being right down the street or around the corner from them. Heck, we're not even going to be in the same area code anymore!

Well, it's off to bed for me. Lots of packing to do and I will need all the energy I can muster up to get it all done.

Introducing... The New Adventures of the March Family

Well, most of you know that Dylan has been searching for a job for a while now. He likes his current job, but he is a contractor and there appears to be no intent to make it a full-time position. Well, let me clarify - they have said that they want to hire him full-time, but they have yet to approve the position. Anyways, Dylan had an interview a couple of weeks ago with this company. We didn't really expect anything to come of it, but after spending five hours there, both the company and Dylan knew what they wanted. After a few weeks back and forth (and lots of waiting!!!), Dylan has officially accepted the job and will be starting on May 5th.

That's right - WE'RE MOVING!!! To here! Well, actually, we will be living in this county. Dylan is planning on working four, 10-hour days until we close on our house and we can all move out there. That should be interesting to say the least!!! I mean, in our 8-1/2 years of marriage, Dylan has NEVER traveled for work. The most traveling he has ever done while the boys and I stayed behind was when he went on a golf trip with our church. Thankfully, it will only be temporary. We are praying that God is preparing a buyer for our house right now and that we won't have any problems. With any luck (and God's blessing), we are hoping to make the big move at the beginning of July.

Jacob is very excited about going to live in the mountains! (Daniel has no clue, of course!) I'm excited, too. I've lived in the Richmond area now for 24 years so needless to say this will be a HUGE adjustment for me. I will miss my parents and miss being so close to Dylan's parents, but luckily, we will be less than 100 miles away. I have been praying for several years that God would open a job opportunity in SC or GA, but apparently God has different plans for us. (As usual, I'm trying to make sure that my plans align with God's will and not the other way around!) I am very excited about finding out what God has waiting for us in Lynchburg.

Yes, I know I'm late - but, Happy Easter!

Aahhh!!! It seems to be a new habit of mine to fall far behind on writing in our family blog. Luckily, not a lot has happened, so I will hopefully be able to make up for it with our beautiful Easter pictures. Warning: There are a TON of photos to follow! :)





The egg on the left has an Elmo band-aid on it. Apparently, even an egg can be fixed with a band-aid in the eyes of a 4 year old.


Jacob helps hold Daniel's egg while he colors on it.


Daniel's favorite part was putting the stickers on - yep, on himself!

Checking out the Easter baskets.


The loot.


Jacob explains his resurrection eggs to us.


The boys all dressed up for Easter. So handsome!




You know Daniel is excited when the tongue starts to hang out!


Daniel found this one all by himself.




More Easter egg hunting at Nana's house. Dylan did a great job of creatively hiding the eggs, but he was still no match for our boys. They found every last one - well, except for one that even Dylan forgot about!