work day and big news

And so the day sets on our exciting family work day, and the yard is bathed in the light of the new fixture on the garage.

Friends, it's been a journey. We haven't posted about it, but more than six months ago, we decided to list out house for sale. We've been here 11 years. The boys don't remember living in any other home. But we've run out of space, and the boys just keep getting bigger. We've been talking for years about getting a house with one more bedroom and a basement where they could have a rec room ... and the time has finally come.

It took 183 days between the time we listed our house and the time we accepted an offer. Possibly these were the longest, most stressful 183 days of my life. They were filled with cleaning, staging, more cleaning, more staging, frantically leaving the house with the dog at the last minute in the middle of my work shift and hanging out at my cousin Amelia's house or Gramps's house or basically anywhere with an internet connection and people who didn't mind hosting us. On the weekends, every time we had a showing (and there were a LOT of showings), we loaded up kids and dog and drove around town if it wasn't nice or went to the park if it was nice (and since the house was up for sale for the entire winter, there were a lot of not-nice days). And for six months, we heard that our house wasn't "just right," that the rooms were too small, or the basement ceilings were too low, or we needed to change this thing or that thing. It was hard on all of us, but most especially the boys. Each of us was ready to throw in the towel more than once.

But lo! One day we had a showing in the morning, and I went over to Amelia's house and hung out with her husband, Todd, and Pluto for a couple of hours while I worked and Todd did his schoolwork. As I was heading home, our realtor texted that the same people wanted to see the house again that afternoon. Weird, right? As it turns out, the people were a couple in a long-distance relationship. The woman lives and works nearby, but the man had flown in from Arizona for the week to look at houses and go to job interviews. So the man came in the morning, and the woman got off work at noon and came back with him for the second showing. And they liked our house! A few days later, we came to an agreement to sell, and we entered the next anxiety-making phase of the process: inspection.

And that's where the work day comes in. The buyers are getting an FHA loan, which means there are some extra conditions to be met (like the stairways have to have railings, and there can't be any chipped paint anywhere, stuff like that). So today my family came over for the day to help us tackle all the projects. My dad put up the garage light (thus ending the eight-year saga of the unfinished garage light!), and he and Joe worked on the railings. Mike did a bunch of projects around the house, including some wiring things and working on the outside. Bethany and I took down all the exterior doors, sanded and patched them, and repainted them. And J and Carleen helped with various projects, including painting that last section of the awful basement wall. So now everything looks fresh and clean and welcoming ... just in time for us to head out the door.

So now the search is on (well, ongoing) for a new place. Let the fun begin!

submitted without comment

I got a text from my Aunt Dana that read: "OMG, what’s Henry’s face doing on you?!"

(This was my first communion, so I would have been about the same age Henry is now. It's really uncanny to my eye.)

miles thomas!

Saturday afternoon we loaded up the fancy loaner van (mine is in the shop) and headed to Naperville to meet our new nephew/cousin, Miles Thomas. What a sweet boy! You'll be shocked (shocked!) to learn that Max was the only one of the boys who was actually interested in holding the baby. Side note: Max still says he wants to be a teacher, but man that's a hard job. I think he'd be *much* better off as a pediatrician, even with the extra schooling. But that's a talk for another day.

I got to spend plenty of time cuddling my sweet new nephew during dinner so Erin could have both hands free to eat and direct the other kids (I remember those hectic days with a newborn ... just barely). Among the older kids, there was much playing outside, which resulted in mud everywhere, including all over Liam's phone, but everything cleaned up fairly well (except for Henry's shoes and pants, which ended up not being salvageable at all). And as always, we tried to get a picture of all the cousins, with very limited success.

spring saturday

We had to get out of the house for a couple of hours today, so we picked up the younger Kruyer kids and headed to Freedom Park, which is the newest park in town. It has all sorts of unusual equipment compared to the other parks. While we were on our way there, my brother called to see what we were doing, then he and Carleen met us at the park for a couple hours of playtime. And of course, J got in on the action, pushing the kids on the merry-go-round and trying out all the equipment along the way. So much fun!

After the park, J reminded me that Liam had a piece selected for the student art show at the local gallery. I'm glad he reminded me, or I might have forgotten to go see it! Anyway, we dropped off the cousins, then J and Carleen accompanied us to the art gallery, where we got to see Liam's rendition of a comic book ... villain? hero? ambiguously moral but utterly compelling antihero? I'm not sure, but I like his artwork!

two out of three is very bad

Friends, we haven't had an outing like this one in a while. It finally warmed up enough to get out and about, so we decided a family hike at Potato Creek was in order. Unfortunately, Henry decided he wasn't on board with the plan. So for the whole mile (that's right, one single mile), he complained bitterly and called us all sorts of names and generally made the whole day unpleasant. He might have been having what my dad calls a MEAN PAIN. In fact, I think that's a pretty accurate diagnosis. So there are no pictures of Mr. MEAN PAIN Henry, but Liam, Max, and Pluto seemed to enjoy being outdoors, mean brother notwithstanding.