Ah, Military Moves....

....they aren't as fun as you might think.....

We got a call from the housing office in Jacksonville today letting us know that they had given our house to another family who had an exceptional family member and therefore trumped us and our desire to live on base.  Luckily they offered us the house next door but couldn't tell us for sure when we'll be able to move in-maybe a week later, maybe September.....to that I just say...fantastic.....

I've got to come up with a new plan for what to do in the meantime and I guess we'll just put our things into storage in Florida until we have a home to deliver them to which I really don't want to do because it's always a hassle to get your household goods back out of storage.  If there's one thing I've learned from all of these moves is that you just have to be flexible and learn to roll with all of the....hmmm....I'll be positive and just call them.....challenges....or maybe opportunities to practice patience.....


In the more exciting moving news category we had an amazing wheeling and dealing day today.

I sold our playset on Craigslist about an hour after I posted it for exactly what I paid for it two years ago (also on Craigslist)--of course we ended up with a little less than that as my tender-hearted husband knocked $20 off the price telling me that that dad needed it more than we did :)

We also bought our very first washer and dryer at a local shop that sells GE appliances.  The owner (who was helping us) was wonderful and helped us pick out exactly what we needed--the same set he and his wife has which funnily enough was not the fancy set you'd imagine the owner of an appliance store owning but the just plain-ol'-regular set.  He also congratulated us for paying in cash--I believe Chris actually got a "good boy!"  We got a great deal, supported a local business, and they're delivering the appliances in the boxes so they'll be well protected during the move and we'll have two giant boxes for the boys to play with once we arrive--a win win win all around.

David did his part to help us get a good deal by tugging on the owner's sleeve, pointing at his rather rotund stomach and saying:

"Excuse me, excuse me.  You have a really big belly."

Luckily he had a great sense of humor and just laughed.  I didn't know what to do so I took a cue from him and gave my own nervous/awkward laugh and tried to change the subject.  We found out later that the man was not only the owner of the appliance store but also the mayor--so to recap, David called the mayor of our little city fat and the lovely mayor responded by giving him lollypops and bottles of water.

I love not buying things from big box stores--so many more interesting things happen when you check out what the locals have to offer.

PS.  We did give David a lecture when we got home about how it's not nice to tell people that they have large bellies.  I'm sure he's taken it to heart and will never embarrass us in public again....he's easy to teach like that :)

More Ultrasounds....

Well, I guess the perk of having doctors that feel sorry for you is that you get extra ultrasounds.  

Someone wants to say hi......

.....you'll have to excuse the semi-creepy 3-D face.....

I took a dear friend with me this time since Chris was taking the bar in NC, you know, just in case.  Happily it turned out that everything is fine, this little guy's exactly as big as he's supposed to be, and he danced through the whole ultrasound.

So, I guess I've officially made it into my second trimester but I can't seem to breathe that second trimester sigh of relief, maybe I'll have more of a third trimester sigh of relief this time......

Thunderstorming

We've been having a rash of thunderstorms here and while I think they are amazing, the boys are of a different opinion......take for example this conversation David and I shared after nap time......

Me:  "Isn't this rain beautiful!  I wonder if God knew we were hot and sent it down to cool us off?"

David, looking down and pointing an accusatory finger at his own stomach (you know, because I told him God lives in his heart and apparently we need to revisit that particular lesson):  "God, you put out this rain.  It is not beautiful. And I am not hot!"  


Of course the boys are of another opinion entirely once the rain clears and all that's left are excellent jumping puddles.....

And of course it wouldn't be a Reintjes adventure if Henry didn't fall in and get completely soaked......

or if *rocks* (i.e. broken off pieces of asphalt) weren't collected and subsequently thrown so as to see who could make the biggest splash.....

I managed to convince them that we only needed to bring back two of the *rocks* as opposed to the four David was attempting to carry in his shirt......They're currently drying off on our back porch, for some reason I didn't think we needed to bring all of our nature treasures up to the bath with us once we got home.......mommies can be so unfair....

Blueberries are for Licking....

The boys love popsicles....I know, you're shocked by this amazing revelation into the minds of my children....well I finally broke down and bought the popsicle mold I've been eyeing since last summer and the boys and I got to work. Apparently anything frozen in popsicle form counts as a popsicle to them so our first few batches were just smoothies that I froze in the molds which have the bonus of being healthy (unlike the Dora popsicles David begs for every time we go to the commissary).

Then we got fancy.....and in our house fancy popsicles are eaten on the patio....while riding tricycles......

I think we've found our new favorite summer pastime......

Seven Years and Four Babies.....

Yesterday was our anniversary. That's right, seven years ago Chris and I were saying our I dos and, in retrospect, I don't think we had any idea exactly what we were getting ourselves into--what idealistic newlyweds do?  The moves, the deployments, the babies, the losses--I could never have imagined the storms we would face or the graces we would receive to stand against them, or maybe more accurately to hold each other up through them.  Marriage transforms you into a better person--if you let it--and that transformation can be very painful.  It's not easy to put someone else's needs ahead of your own day in and day out.   It's not easy to love someone more than you love yourself--that takes real work--and much prayer.  Lucky for me I'm married to the most wonderful husband I could ever have imagined and oftentimes it feels like he's the one who's putting me first, putting our family first, and never (okay, rarely) complaining.  He takes care of us in that you know everything is going to be okay because he's there sort of way.  

And, no, we aren't fifteen in this picture.....I can see how you could be confused........

Yesterday was also Katharine's due date.  It was one of those crazy emotional days where you just aren't sure what you're feeling.  I was grateful for my husband and my marriage, grateful for this new little life within me, but also grieving for the life we lost, the little girl I barely had time to know but whom I'll always love.


Seven years and four babies.....I know I've been blessed beyond what I deserve.  I could go on and on about the beauty of marriage and babies but I could never put it as eloquently as Pope John Paul II so I'll just leave it to him:

"According to the plan of God, marriage is the foundation of the wider family, since the very institution of marriage and conjugal love are ordained to the procreation and education of children, in whom they find their crowning.

In its most profound reality, love is essentially a gift; and conjugal love, while leading the spouses  to the reciprocal knowledge which makes them one flesh, does not end with the couple, because it makes them capable of the greatest possible gift, the gift by which they become cooperators with God for giving life to a new human person.  Thus the couple, while giving themselves to one another, give not just themselves but also the reality of children who are a living reflection of their love, a permanent sign of conjugal unity and  a living and inseparable sythesis of their being a father and a mother.  

When they become parents, spouses receive from God the gift of a new responsibility.  Their parental love is  called to become for the children the visible sign of the very love of God, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named."

Familiaris Consortio

You should probably just go ahead and read the whole thing :)

Even More News......

......we aren't going to be homeless after all!  In a miraculous turn of events the three to six month wait to get into base housing has turned out to be a mere one and a half months instead and our new home will be ready in time to move our stuff straight there (as opposed to the movers putting everything into storage which is where things have a habit of disappearing....).  Did I mention we were moving to Jacksonville, FL?  We are.  It's official :)

Apparently most of the people on the housing waitlist want the brand new, big, beautiful, two car garage townhouses (go ahead check out the videos) as opposed to the small 1940's bungalows which I have been unable to find a single picture of anywhere and everyone in front of us passed on our new house.  I don't know if that bodes well for us but I'm not so picky as all that.....I mostly just wanted a house.  On base.  That I could move into now.   So I wouldn't be homeless and doctor-less.  So this one seems to fit the bill.......  

Our new dreamhome apparently sits right next door to a playground on a little culdesac with a handful of other single family homes and lots of trees, so that sounds nice.  And I can apparently cut through the backyard and....ta da!....pop out right in front of the naval hospital.  You can't get much more convenient than that!  

I wonder if they let you stroll your new baby home as opposed to performing the mandatory car seat installation check when you live right around the corner?

Here's the floorplan....it's the only thing I have to go on aside from an aerial google maps shot---apparently you can't do street views on military bases :)

It's actually larger than our current house--if you can believe it--but it doesn't have a fenced in yard which is a bummer.  The main downside of the house is that it appears to be seriously lacking in the storage department.  I've been spoiled in our current house (old as it may be) with all of the built in storage/cabinets/basement/giant walk in closets that run the length of the second floor.  I think I'm definitely going to need to purchase some extra cabinets to create some kind of makeshift pantry/place to store extra kitchen and utility room type things.  Maybe like these....and then assemble them myself--which might be an interesting adventure......I'm pretty sure if I don't invest in extra storage right away I won't be able to actually unpack our stuff as there won't be anywhere to put it!  

I also have no idea what I'm going to do with the "specialty room" up in the top right corner.  It looks pretty small.  I could maybe put David's old twin bed with the trundle in there for extra sleeping space but that may be pretty much everything that fits in there.....Chris doesn't want to use it as a playroom but that's definitely where I'm leaning....Well if you aren't there to help move and unpack you don't get the final say right?  

I also really want to get a new bookcase so that our book collection isn't just stashed in corners/on top of tables/stuffed in said built in cabinets all over the house.  I think it's time to let our IKEA expedit go--I really don't think you are supposed to disassemble and move it three times....or ever.  I've had my eye on something along the lines of this but we'll see.  Moving is so expensive.....even when the military pays for it....things just come up that the new place requires that the old one didn't.  In addition to giant cabinets for the laundry room we also need a washer and dryer, either a queen size mattress or twin box-frames (depending on which of our various bed frames we decide to actually use this time in our new guest room/nursery), and the obligatory curtain rods, shower rods, closet organizers, rugs, etc that you inevitably realize you need because the sizes you had before won't work in the new house.  Oh, and patio furniture, but I guess that's more of a want than a need......

Oh well, I've seen at least three decent washer/dryer options on craigslist and we're going to check out the local scratch and dent to see what they've got.  I've never bought a washer or a dryer before--they've always just found their way to us of their own accord so I don't really know anything about them, but I do want to buy them now so the movers can move and connect them and I won't have to deal with accomplishing that myself.....not that I'm not capable, I just don't want to :)  

Well, I'd better get back to hypothetically decorating the new house.....you know, the one that I really have no idea what it actually looks like.......I do love a good surprise......

An Update

Well I've had my first official ultrasound and....drum roll please......

....there is only one baby and we are indeed much farther along than we thought.  Like 10 weeks and 5 days along.  Our tentative due date is now January 30, 2013 which means (hopefully) I get to be monstrously pregnant during Christmas which I've always thought would be really wonderful!  

Now, to be fair to me and my ability to use NFP, I did think we were fertile when we conceived this little miracle and I took a pregnancy test after the obligatory wait and it was negative so I just assumed we weren't pregnant.  I guess the moodiness and weight gain should have tipped me off :)  Chris, astute as always, said "so....for the past two months when you said you were getting fat, you were just pregnant?"  Yes honey, I guess I was but I don't think it's nearly as funny as you do......

I guess this doesn't really look like a five week baby bump.....but then it doesn't exactly look like a ten week bump either does it?  I'm just excited to have miraculously skipped the majority of my first trimester!  Now my biggest worry is being homeless and doctor-less in the near future when our things move to Florida and the boys and I start our nomadic adventure.  

An Announcement

Have you ever found out that you were pregnant, decided not to tell anyone because you really didn't want to talk about it yet and then a week and a half later realized that you were no longer fooling anyone because you are either much further along than you thought or carrying quadruplets?

I have......

If I was ignoring my appearance I would tell you that I am not quite five weeks along.  Not ignoring my appearance I will say that I am either much further along than I thought, carrying multiples, or my body is rebelling against me with pregnant--not pregnant--pregnant hormones.   I literally have no idea, but I will fill you all in after I get an ultrasound to date my pregnancy.

In the mean time I'm going to go ahead and ask for everybody's prayers--I'm feeling anxious about this, and cautiously excited, and scared......Chris is mostly just feeling excited.........

........unless we are indeed having quadruplets in which case he will definitely be scared, very, very scared...........

Low Tide

We love the beach, we love catching "tickle crabs" and giant blue crabs that put up a valiant fight, we love getting good and sandy and we especially love low tide.......

Trespassing

The one perk of having the street in front of your grandparents' house completely dug up is the presence of more diggers than you could ever have hoped for in your wildest dreams.  During our visit we may or may not have spent several mornings frolicking near/around/on said diggers........

A Bit of a Carnival

Our neighborhood fire department hosted it's annual carnival last week so we decided to walk over and check it out.  I can't remember the last time I was at a real live traveling carnival complete with interesting carny folk and scantily clad teenagers--I definitely don't remember them being so expensive--the carnival, not the teenagers.  I'm sorry kids, but I just couldn't justify spending $18 for my two year old to have an all you can ride carnival bracelet.  We opted to spend $18 total--enough for Chris and the boys to ride the giant slide and take a spin on the Ferris wheel.  

Well, I guess it wasn't exactly $18 total--we also dropped a fair bit of money on the children's dinner of overpriced  ice cream and french fries......some days you just go to bed knowing you're doing a fantastic job at this whole parenting thing ;)