Sold!! Move!! Sold!! Move!!

Boy Oh Boy!  It has been awhile!!  I love blogging and have not been up to it this year.  Boooo.... I just reread my entire blog and it makes me sad that I didn't keep it up.  It's so fun to see our family grow!!  Makenzie has grown up so much and I can hardly believe that was her in these pics just a year ago... now almost two!! 

Let me fill you in on our lives over the past 15 months or so.  I will flash back and update on the 15 months I missed, but here is a quick summary! 

Last winter we had our house up for sale... it was for sale for 9 months before a buyer came along.  Talk about STRESSFUL!!  Having a baby in the house that needs to be nursed every few hours and keeping the house spick and span and showing the house yourself (we sold for sale by owner) what a pain!  Then when Makenzie got mobile keeping the house clean got even harder.  Early Feb we accepted an offer and had to move out mid March.  So those first few months were busy selling, looking, packing, oh yeah... and being a mom and wife! 

Moving day.  Bittersweet!

 We didn't find a new house to buy so most of our "home" went into a storage unit and in we moved to my husbands parents house!  Poor them... empty nesters and then here comes a fam of 3 with 2 animals!!  (What they were thinking I'll never know!!)  During that time I quit my job at the Toyota dealership, while Matt stayed where he was working.  The commute ended up being pretty much the same, so it did work out!!  The hardest part of moving was leaving behind the worlds greatest babysitters that watched Makenzie when I worked every Friday.  That last day I swear Makenzie knew what was going on and she balled all night.  I cried too... what a horrible feeling.

After a few months of a lot of looking and deciding what exactly we wanted in our next house we put an offer on a new home.  Totally opposite of what we had in mind!!!  The house was fine, but the setting was a far cry from what we had before.  But we felt that that was where we were led to.  We got the keys to the house mid June and spent a whole month updating the house and working on it before we moved in.  Each morning I would get Makenzie up, take her to the house, play a bit, give her lunch and when she slept I would be painting, sanding, priming, tearing down... oh the work was endless.  Matt would come by after work and we'd pass him as we headed back to Mom and Dad's.  Makenzie was not thrilled with the house at all and absolutely hated being there.  Can't say that I blame her since she knew we were there to work. 

New house!

Finally, we moved in mid July!  And realized that life here wasn't so bad. It wasn't what we had in mind, but it works for now.  We are in a subdivision... not our 5 acre or even 1 acre property with woods around us.  We have a grass field behind us and houses next to and in front of us.  Big difference from living on a golf course! 

Makenzie now loves it here (after getting over having Grandma and Grandpa around all the time), there are kids everywhere and she has made a few new friends which she loves to play with.  AND each of our neighbors have a swing set that she can play on too.  There is lots to do here!

So that has taken up the better part of our year.  Makenzie has been growing like a weed.... has her daddy's genes that is for sure!  She has been in the 75th-90th percentile all year!  In March, April she started getting diarrhea.  It was horrible.  Non stop, every diaper change, smell the house up diarrhea.  At first we thought it was a bug, but it just never stopped.  We had dr's appointments lined up and bloodwork done, and nothing came back as signifying that something was wrong.  She still has it!!  Now 7 months later... it's not quite as frequent as it was when it first started, but it's an ongoing problem that we are trying to put a finger on.  I think the conclusion that we are at is that it is a syndrome called Toddler's Diarrhea.

This girl LOVES to dance!!  She was surprised when some lights came on and "danced" with her!!

Even though we spent a lot of time doing "house" stuff we still had a really good year.  Early in June she got to be a flower girl in my cousin's wedding, which was up at the Soo Locks.  We've got to see her cousins and gma's and gpa's a LOT now that we are in town.  We took her camping for the first time a few weeks ago to a Toddler's Halloween Party (what FUN that was!!).  She is a busy busy girl that is learning and talking SOOO much!  It amazes me how much she knows already.

Makenzie had a great weekend, but was scared out of her mind of these guys!!!

2 months from tomorrow and she'll be 2!!