Bye Bye Cedar Bluff

The past few weeks have been really bittersweet for the Reeves V family. On the one hand, I am so thrilled to tell you that we are now once again homeowners!! Yes, we were crazy enough to attempt moving with two small children at Christmastime. First order of business in the new house - get everyone's beds set up. Second order of business - get the tree/stockings up! We managed to get the important stuff put away in the past two weeks, but it's been interesting. The kitchen's pretty well in tact, as are the girls' rooms (sorry Anna, I have a few more boxes hanging out in your room right now, but you can't go through them like your big sister, so that's why they are in your room!) Our room is definitely on its way - I get distracted going through all these boxes because I literally haven't seen some of this stuff in two years since we left Gainesville. Part of me says that's a big clue that we could get rid of it if I've been able to live without it for two years, but the other part of me feels like I'm re-opening all my wedding presents again! :)

Of course, with the move comes leaving Cedar Bluff. We've been there for almost right at two years. There's been a LOT that went on in those past two years as well:
-Leave Gainesville, which was way harder than I ever thought, seeing as how I pretty much hated the place when I moved there
-Move in with Jerry's parents (literally - we were in his childhood bedroom for the first 7 months!)
-Start a new job
-Have surgery for Crohn's
-Carrie started her school and has really thrived there
-Jerry got a new job that we knew would require him being in Portugal for EIGHT months
-Moved from Jerry's room to the cottage on the Reeves' property
-Went to China for two weeks
-Was back from China for about a week and a half and found out I was pregnant!
-11 days after finding out about Baby #2, Jerry leaves for Portugal
-Sold our house in GNV! My poor father in law - he had to go with me (on Valentine's weekend, no less, and help pack up the remainder of the stuff in GNV)
-Had to go to ER because of my Crohn's acting up (and my wonderful inlaws came to rescue me since I couldn't drive!)
-Had to go to ER because I fell down chasing Carrie in the Bluffton post office (she accompanied me that time and still to this day says "Mommy fell down and had to go to the doctor")
-Went to Portugal to visit Jerry while 28 weeks pregnant
-Jerry returned home; 8 days later Anna Sophia made her early arrival!
-Finally bought a house of our own
-Got into a car accident (that actually just happened this morning and I had to throw that in there - it's an attempt to laugh to keep from crying about it, folks)

Whew! That's a lot of stuff for two years. I don't think Jerry and I will ever be able to repay Whizzy and Pop-Pop for all the support they've offered throughout this entire experience. When we were first considering a move we knew the only way we could do it was to either sell the house in GNV immediately (yeah, right) or move in with them in the interim. They never once hesitated and have driven car pool, babysat, and the list goes on. I know part of them loves to do this since it means more time with the grandchildren, but still - that was a huge commitment to take on when they were about to reclaim their house as their own when Rhett went off to college!

My parents have been amazing as well. I know my mother has to be tired of me calling with real estate questions. Too bad she didn't get a commission off every single call I made to her asking fifty thousand questions :) They made trips to SC during the time when Jerry was gone to entertain me. I always called my dad whenever I had an IT question since my usual IT department was 6 hours ahead of me. They really supported our decision, even if attempting to sell a house in the current market wasn't the wisest decision ever (hindsight and all that).

So we will soon have all of our stuff out of the cottage at Cedar Bluff and be busy finding a place for it all (or sending it to Goodwill!) in our new home. We'll clean out the cottage one last time and close that chapter of our lives. I know Jerry will never believe this, but the other day when I was over there and I walked into the cottage I was surprised to find myself a little sad. It represents a pretty significant point in our lives, and I will miss being able to walk out the back door and go have a glass of wine with Whizzy & Pop Pop and chat about the day or borrow their roasting pan to make BBQ.

Bye bye little cottage!

In Love...

I think I am in love with our new nanny. She is A-MAZ-ING. Literally. We were a little wary of trying to get another nanny because we had such a great experience in FL with Hayley for Carrie that we weren't sure that could be topped. Not to mention the pool of nanny possibilities here is considerably less than it was in a college town of over 40k students (mostly women from the looks of it). But Kayla has met and exceeded each and every expectation. It's only been two weeks, but what a great two weeks.

She takes excellent care of Anna. I have yet to come home to a crying baby, and that is saying something because usually by 4:30 she's on the verge of what my mother in law appropriately calls "hurricane hour" for kids, meaning that they've just had enough of the day, thank you very much, and are gonna be cranky! When Anna sees her she just lights up and smiles and giggles, and that does my heart good.

Carrie loves her too. I've always considered Carrie a pretty good judge of character, as are most little kids. She's very social and will say hi and smile to just about anyone, but she won't immediately jump into someone's arms unless she's sure about them. When we interviewed Kayla we could hardly get a word in edgewise because Little Miss Bossy wanted to play Ring Around the Rosie the entire time. Kayla took it in stride, answering questions while twirling Carrie and taking care to make sure she didn't slam her head into the corner of the table.

She gets Carrie ready for school in the morning so we don't have to wake her up at an ungodly hour to get her out the door (this may of course change once we move!). She asks me if there's anything I need/want her to do around the house while Anna naps. She volunteered to help pack up the cottage in anticipation of the move. She does the girls' laundry. Yesterday she put some semblance of order into our pantry which, if you had seen it, was quite the job. Did I mention that these are all things she's just seen that need to be done and she does them without me giving her any sort of task list? The only things I've explicitly asked for are items related to child care....the other stuff is just a bonus.

It's hard being a working mom of two - every day when I walk out the door I have this little twinge of mommy guilt which, as any mother knows, is the most powerful stuff in the world. But I know Carrie loves her school (and yes, it really is more of a school than a daycare....the kid is writing her ABCs already people!) and the people there love her and take care of her as I would, so that makes a huge difference. And now I know that Anna is well taken care of and loved while I'm not there as well. Not only does it put my mind at ease, but it feels like a physical weight has been lifted. Whew.

Happy Anniversary!!

Today marks 7 years of being married - can you believe it?!? Who would have thought that an innocent study abroad trip the summer between my junior and senior year at GT would lead to all that we've experienced in the past 11 years? Between the two of us we've experienced 5 degrees, one very tiny apartment in Gainesville FL, (almost) three homes, 5 moves, 5 jobs, 3 really cool vacations, 1 dog, and 2 kids. I can't imagine a better person for me to have experienced all of that with either :)

So what does one buy one's spouse for their 7th anniversary? Hopefully, fingers crossed, this:

Back to work

So I'm back at work now. Boo hiss. I actually did better this time around than I did when I returned to work after having Carrie. I seem to remember being reduced to an absolute puddle of tears several times that first day back. This time I had some tears as I left in the morning since I don't get to see either Anna or Carrie in the morning before leaving for work (I'm now working 7-4 instead of 8-5), but managed to make it through the day without any further meltdowns. Anna was so excited to see me when she woke up from her nap and I was there last night, so that was great. Carrie goes to sleep around 7:30-8 so I unfortunately don't get to see her too much after work, but Anna still doesn't go to sleep till about 11 so I have plenty of quality time with her :)

It was so weird last night....we had ZERO meltdowns from either girl last night. Which was nice, don't get me wrong, since Jerry was at a function in Savannah so I had them both last night. But it was a little like "who are you and what did you do with my children?" Perhaps it was as one of my friends put it on my facebook page, that it was just a lot of fun when I got home and so they weren't interested in mucking it up by pitching a fit! It is nice and quiet at work as compared to home, but I already find myself waiting for the weekend so we can have all day together. Wonder if I'll still feel the same by 8pm on Sunday evenings :)