Updates

Here is what we have been up to since the last post:

1.  LOTS AND LOTS of MUD!  The boys love having a woods 2 feet from their front door and a big lawn to play golf in.  Sadly we had a lot of rainy weather so basically they love their personal mud pit.  They purposely hit the ball into the mud so they can smack it out.  Alex loves to hit the ball in the woods and see if he can hit it out in one swing without having to take a penalty shot ;).

 Mud spatter.....

Fun in the woods....amazing how much fun they have just picking up different sticks and whacking the trees with sticks....

A few of the outings we have been on:

Cabellas Sports Store with Cousins:


Miniature Golf and Go Kart riding (he earned this reward for doing a good job going to bed quietly in the same room with Brodie for 7 nights, unfortunately Brodie never caught on to the going to bed quietly part).


Doc Days at the Children's Museum: I am loving that we got a membership here.
Taking staples out:

 Doing some surgery - he had to get a roll of smarties out of the dummy'stomach:

 Ready for surgery!

 Taking care of newborn baby -

 Getting CAT Scans...

We have a nature trail by us and the boys like to go explore and love to feed the ducks/geese:

We have been keeping busy.  A lot of library visits, nature walks, feeding ducks, playgrounds to explore, etc.  And of course a lot of fun with grandparents and cousins, including a sleepover at Papa and Grandmas.  Alex and I went to the Tulip Time parade this week so I could tell him about his Dutch heritage ;).  Today we were actually outside in shorts and we were hot!  It will be a high of 50 next week - yes we are back in MI.

Michigan!

WARNING - SUPER long blog ahead!

Where to start?  We are officially residents of Michigan!  Unfortunately we are renters, but we are happy to be here and as settled as we can be for now.  I will document a few details of the actual move since I plan to turn these blogs into books someday.

THE MOVE:
Sadly I do not have any pictures of the actual move day.  We were a little busy :)  My mom flew down on Wednesday night to help with the final details and drive up to MI with us.  I closed on the house on Thursday.  The buyers were very nice and easy going and the whole process went smoothly.  There is one side story about a shady contractor we hired to do some work for us, but that is too long of story for today.

The movers arrived on Friday morning at 9:00 am.  They estimated to be finished packing us by 4:00-5:00.  However, our contact person failed to let the driver know that we had stuff going to an apartment and storage, so the whole process took longer.  We had to label everything by where it was going and do two different inventories.  We had reservations to stay in Bowling Green that night, but at 6:00 when they were just starting to take apart the beds we knew that wasn't going to happen.  After calling about 30+ hotels we finally found one in Franklin, TN with one room left.  The movers finished packing at 8:00 pm and we headed out to Franklin.  The moving truck could literally not fit one more item.  They had to put our vacuum up in the cab with the driver because the truck was so full.  (We need a huge garage sale!) The kids did really well all day all things considered- with having no toys or anything to do in our house.  Brodie was really clingy and wouldn't leave me the whole day, he didn't understand what was going on and wouldn't let me out of his sight.  He was so over tired by the time we hit the hotel he would not settle down.  I had to basically pace with him like when he was a baby and I ended up sleeping with both boys in the king bed and my mom was on a roll away.  It was quite the night ;).

We made it to my parents house on Saturday night. Alex was SO SO happy to see Eric after 3 weeks, he just hugged him and would not let go!  Brodie was a little standoffish with Eric at first, like "you left me so whatever" ;).

We stayed with my parents until the movers arrived on Tuesday, April 8.  The unpacking went much faster, but we ran out of room.  We filled the storage unit to the MAX!  So, for a little cash under the table the driver and movers agreed to make one more stop at my brother and sister-in-laws where they so graciously allowed us to use their extra garage to store the rest of our stuff.

We are as settled as we are going to be in an apartment.  We are so happy to be close to family and friends again, but are definitely looking forward to being settled in a house.  Top reasons why apartment life is not fun:
1.  The walls are paper thin.  We have a young family above us and while we are understanding about having children in an apartment, it seriously sounds like there are elephants wrestling above us all the time. No idea what they do all day but they are LOUD!
2.  Our boys are sharing a room.  Alex is doing awesome - Brodie thinks it is an all night party

Pros:
A lot less to clean!!!

The boys love playing in the walk in closet in their room. They pretend that it is their work.  For a couple of days they apparently worked at a beer factory and played with the beer cans for literally hours:

It still feels like we are just visiting sometimes and is surreal that we are here to stay.  The boys and I have been playing tourists a little bit and hitting up the zoo and some museums.  Here are some pictures from the dinosaur exhibit we went to at the GR Public Museum.  These were so life like and they moved and roared.  Alex was really nervous at first, but after I had him touch one and see that they were pretend he really liked it.

 Searching for fossils...

 They also had a lego exhibit there...

 The regular part of the museum had old dolls/doll house...

 An old car...

We are loving being so close to family.  We had a beautiful and busy Easter weekend.  The weather was perfect and we spent all weekend outside. Eric and Alex got a round of golf in.  Alex has already golfed two courses in Michigan.  We spent Saturday night celebrating with Eric's family. The kid's had fun doing an Easter Egg Hunt and playing outside with cousins.  I literally got teary eyed watching Alex with his cousins, because he was SO HAPPY and I am so thrilled that he will be able to grow up close to them.

On Sunday we went to the Easter service at Eric's parent's church then headed out to my parent's house in Grand Haven.  The kids got to do another Easter Egg hunt.

Moving and Soccer

Pretty much the most random post ever- but I wanted to document what has been going on with us lately.

The lack of blogging has been due to our BIG news = we are moving back to MICHIGAN!  We are really excited to be moving close to our families again.  We really want the boys to grow up close to their grandparents and cousins, and we are obviously happy to be near our families again too.  We have been in Alabama for 9 years and will truly miss all the great friends that we have made.  We will also miss the warm weather ;)!

Our families had no idea that we were considering moving back to Michigan or that Eric was interviewing for a job there.  We did not tell them the big news until Eric had accepted the job and we knew that we would be moving.  We told them that Alex had made a picture that he wanted to show them and he held up this picture to break the news:


We had a crazy week from the moment Eric accepted the job to when we put our house on the market. Thankfully the boys were quite entertained by all the boxes!



This is my favorite picture on the blog!  We sold our house the first day it was on the market.  We had two showings the first day and they both put in offers!  We are praying inspection and everything goes smoothly now, but are so relieved to have the house sold and I am so happy to not have to keep it clean for showings anymore!!!


On another note, Alex started playing soccer this year.  He is so so excited and thinks it is so much fun.  I have to constantly remind myself that he is 4 and just sit back and laugh because he truly has no idea what he is doing once he is on the field.  Back to the basics= what goal to kick it in, which players are on your team so you don't try to take the ball from them, etc. ;).  It is quite entertaining for sure!