Things are going great… two hours behind driving schedule… hope to make up for it the next couple of days.

Although I’m starting to regret being on a timeline!! But it’ll be fine. :)

Well,the wheels are in motion.We have agreed on a price for the house, and just have to do all the technical stuff to get to closing. Yay! Here are a few more photos of the outside, and a video tour of the inside (narrated by my awesome husband).

In other news, I had my postpartum appointment, and Paige had her two month checkup. I apparently pulled my groin when I gave birth to Paige, only I didn’t know that’s what the cause of my pain was, so I kept stretching and trying to exercise, and add to that carrying Paige around, sometimes in her carseat, lifting Jacob up, etcetera… and yeah, it wasn’t healing. Even since I figured out what the pain was, I keep aggravating it. Because hello - I can’t stop walking around, you know?!?! But at least now I know not to stretch it and stuff. lol!!

Paige is doing great. She weighs 9 pounds, 12 ounces, and is 22.4″ long. She’s around the 70th percentile for her height, and the 40th for her weight. Tall and thin. She hated getting her shots, and I hated her getting them. But she got over it quickly. She rolled over from her back to her belly twice around six or seven weeks old, but hasn’t done it since. She has been smiling real eye-contact smiles since she was two days old, and is very easily amused. She seems to be in a huge hurry to go somewhere, and I’m just like “slow down!! you are my last one!!”

The kids and I are getting ready for the move. We leave town in 10 days.

Photos of Darby’s new ‘do coming soon!

And without further ado, I give you the photos and video of our future home. Let me go ahead and state that we WILL be changing the wall colors because WOW with that red and yellow… LOL! And we’ll also be doing some landscaping. I cannot WAIT to get there and make this house our home. Oh, and that big nearly finished room in the basement will be split up into Brittany’s room and my office/craft area. The concrete room will be turned into a gym. Did I mention I’m excited?!?! We have never owned a home before.

• It’s in Sanford, NC.
• Currently, my kid’s have these picked out as their occupation…
  Brittany - Biblical archaeologist, Justice - Infantryman, Jarvis - geologist, Darby - entomologist
• Jacob and Paige are still deciding. ;)
• Paige goes for her 2 month check-up and shots today.
• I miss my husband like crazy!!!!  2 1/2 more weeks until we meet in Nashville!
• I chopped off Darby’s hair per her request [read: incessant begging!].
• And she is no longer into pink and purple! Blue is the color of the moment.
• I’m behind on emails, and the space bar thing has made it worse… oh well.
• Did you notice the password is gone? But links seem to be messed up. Not sure why. I hope you can leave comments!

Photos of Paige & of landscapes by Brittany

Countdown:

• 25 days – last day of school
  
• 25 & 26 days – the packers will be here
• 27 days – the movers will load up the truck
• 29 days – the kids & I officially hit the road

Meanwhile, aside from single parenting six kids, doing all the last-month-of-school stuff with four kids, and various doctor appointments, I am trying to get this house ready for my walk-thru with the landlord (should I replace the broken doors or have him take it out of the deposit?  should I try to get by with cleaning the carpets myself?  what about those chunks of drywall missing in Darby’s room?, etc, etc, etc,).  Andrew and I are working on getting a house in NC.  We got pre-approved for a loan today, and I’ve been talking to a realtor… so the wheels are in motion there.  I’m SO glad the kids have a four-day weekend (they are out of school Monday and Tuesday), so we can get some things done around here – it’s hard during school because taking care of Paige and Jacob is a full time job in and of itself, add normal chores to that (which I can’t even keep up with), and ‘move stuff’ plus anything extra gets put on the back burner.  So I’m glad to have helpers for four days.  Yay.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining, I’m just explaining that I’m BUSY!  :)

Other updates:

We are all feeling better from our cold/flu junk we passed around, so please pray that we continue to have good health.

Jarvis went to the doctor yesterday and had an x-ray.  We won’t know anything “official” until after the long weekend, but he is able to move around with no pain now, and the x-ray technician said he looks good, but the doctor will look at his x-rays on Wednesday and call if there are any abnormalities.  He is out of his sling with instructions to still be super careful until Wednesday, but he is able to lightly use his arm again.  His arm was sore last night from not using it for a month and then using it a little yesterday afternoon and evening.  Gotta build those muscles back up.

I have my postpartum appointment June 5th (first appointment that was available even though I scheduled it weeks ago).  I am still having some issues with getting around easily and without pain, so also please pray I heal completely.   Some of it is the fibromyalgia, so that’ll just take time from the pregnancy and delivery and getting my body into a new routine before some of the pain and stiffness subsides.  Right now, if I go up and down the stairs more than once (which I have to do often) or do too much walking around, I have a LOT of pain.  :-P  All part of the fun, though, I suppose.  Paige was definitely worth it. And I’m hoping to find out how my uterus is doing when I go in, since there was talk that I may need to have a hysterectomy after she was born since things aren’t where they are supposed to be anymore and since my cervix was trying to escape during delivery (gross? yes.).  Anyway – so I’ll keep you posted and I appreciate any prayers there.

Paige will have her two month appointment before we move, on June 8th.

Brittany will have her final orthodontist appointment before we move, on June 2nd.

Jarvis is going to camp for four days the first week of June, with his 5th grade class.

I doubt I’ll be blogging much until the move (and my goal then is to take you with me via daily stories and photos, like the last time we moved), but if you are on facebook, I will continue with the frequent status updates and occasional mobile photo uploads. I will try to get more photos uploaded on here when I can – as they are already edited.  Oh, and I’m planning on removing the blog password as soon as I get around to it.  There are pros and cons to having it and not having it, but I think I’m preferring NOT having it.

And now, I’m getting back to work!!

• Star Trek (the new movie) is awesome. Two thumbs way up.
• Paige is 5 1/2 weeks now. She’s SO adorable. We are all madly in love with her.
• Everyone seems to be on the upside of the cold/flu we were passing around.  Thank the Lord!
• Finally found some gluten-free bread that tastes good. Been enjoying eating sandwiches again!!
• I’m scrapbooking!!! I haven’t done that in ages it seems. Scrapsupply is having their annual aniversary party, ongoing through June 7th. So fun!
• Brittany took her AP World History test this past week. If she passed, it counts as a college credit.
• Paige is kind of a pig… she nurses constantly.  Which is fine with me – she can eat all she wants, but it doesn’t allow me to get much done since I’m always nursing.  And it is making ME a pig – I’m starving, ALL THE TIME!
• I have ten pounds and about four inches (around my waist) to go to get to the size I want to be.  And I probably wouldn’t even care TOO much if it took a while, but I’d like to have more clothes to wear – and almost all of my clothes are the size that is ten pounds and four inches away! (okay, so I’d be okay with two inches – but my goal is four).
• Paige is currently fighting sleep – she has been doing this since the beginning.  I’m not sure what she thinks she is going to miss, but sometimes falling asleep is the last thing she wants to do – and she gets really angry when it becomes difficult to stay awake. lol
• Since I started typing this like two hours ago, I’m going to just give up now… I’ll leave you with a cute little series of photos of Jacob holding Paige.

Paige had trouble regulating her body temperature at first, so she went under the warmer a couple of times during her first day.  She loved it.  She was still a little swollen here – she was scrawnier a day or two later (she lost 11 ounces during her first two days, but was 9 ounces above her birth weight at her 2 week apointment… she likes to nurse!).

Little newborn feet… (that white mesh thing is holding her security band on – alarms go off and doors lock if she gets close to the exits).

She half rolled over during her vitals and stayed in the cozy position… (all these photos are by Andrew, by the way – I was  probably eating or trying to sleep at this point… I do know that I went a full 24 hours with zero sleep and the sleep on either side of that 24 hours was a two hour nap and a one hour nap… it was 48 hours between an actual decent amount of sleep – whew – I’m exhausted just thinking about it. lol)

Daddy and baby self-portrait

Paige being introduced to her siblings for the first time – at 13 hours of age… They all approved…

…except Jacob… well, he approved, but wanted nothing to do with her at first.  It took him a couple weeks to warm up to her.  Now he gives her hugs and kisses and says she is cute.  At first, he was a bit leery… and a bit shy because he didn’t know her yet.  :)

Brittany holding her new baby sister…

Justice thinks she’s pretty cute too…

Jarvis still goes on about how tiny she is (and is bummed he hasn’t been able to hold her since he broke his collar bone!)…

Darby LOVES having a baby sister… finally!

Paige in her carseat on the way to her two day doctor appointment… They discharged us after 24 hours, so she had to come in to get her weight and vital signs at 48 hours.  I wasn’t fond of the military hospital digs, so going home and then back again was worth it to me to spend the night in my own bed and make use of my own shower.  (they really need to remodel the post-partum section of Madigan!  The labor/delivery part was nice, but the post-partum rooms left much to be desired!!!)

One of the two times she has taken a pacifier… usually she is like “ummm… yeah, there is no fooling me… I want SKIN and MILK!”  lol

And that concludes our tour of Paige’s first two days photos… more coming at some point in time… I’ll get a bulleted list of updates up later today… maybe.

Newborn + toddler = time-consuming? Yes.