Stolldorf Cousins!

My attempt at a cousinly photo...obviously the lighting wasn't great, but we took what we got. Melia is being the perfect little angel, Isaac is cheesing, and Claire is just being her goofball self.

Isn't she adorable?!

I always remember having so much fun going through the toys at my grandparents' houses; I guess it was the mystique of playing with my parents' childhood toys. It's fun to watch my kids enjoy a few of the things we played with growing up!

family photos

We tried to get a few family photos done one morning ("tried" being operative). We did get a few! Here are my 3 favorite people in the world...

aren't they cute?

this was my favorite family photo failure: in response to, "Isaac, look at the camera!" :) Gotta love it!

Yet more Thanksgiving...

the kids got some much needed R&R on the back porch while we prepared delicious victuals for their gastrointestinal enjoyment

Mamie (Claudia's mom) gets a few smiles out of Baby Evan

the kids are ready to dig in to some goodness

so is Vance, as a matter of fact!

More Thanksgiving...

awww, cousins....aren't they the cutest?

Cousin Seth, enjoying the shared childhood passion: the Oliver tractor

out joyriding with Papa

all the Whitaker cousins!

Home for Thanksgiving

We got to spend Thanksgiving in NC, and we had a rockin good time! We got lots of cute pictures with all the photo ops available....

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Lke.....

September!

Well, it doesn't feel like Christmas yet, but at least we're enjoying what FL has to offer :)

Milk Bubbles

almost enough to make you wish you were a kid again, isn't it?

Even Claire's catching on...

HIllsborough County Fair

Tonight we made it to the Hillsborough County Fair. We had no idea what to expect, but it was Can Day, so we got in free. It felt like a county fair in it's infancy: a dozen rides, a small midway, a few livestock tents, but not much buzz going on. It worked out just fine for us, though, because the sparse crowd made it easy to keep track of the kids.

Almost immediately after I told Isaac that we were going to the fair, he asked if he could ride on the merry-go-round. Apparently that was his overriding memory from the MN State Fair last year: riding the carousel with Caleb. He got his wish, and he was trembling with excitement and adrenaline. He was too worked up to even smile the first time. But as soon as he got off, he was shouting the praises of his beloved ride.

Vance initiated Isaac in that most important of excitements: his first roller coaster ride. (You can see his little hand waving between the antennae). He was less nervous about the (little) roller coaster than he was the merry-go-round.

Claire was too short to ride, but she had fun watching! This was one of the rare smiles, though...most of the time she had a look of complete and fixed concentration on her face. No smiles, no expressions, just focus. While we were in the livestock tent, Isaac was ecstatically petting a cooperative cow, and I asked Claire if she wanted to pet it too. "Nope," was her emphatic response. No question there. She was NOT getting out of her stroller to touch any of the foreign objects surrounding her. It makes me realize how different Isaac and Claire are. At this age, you couldn't have kept Isaac in the stroller for love or money.

Lucky for the little guy, we had enough tickets for one last carousel ride! What a night!

Autumn Festival

On Saturday we went to a nearby Autumn Festival with our friends the Huttons. We almost didn't make it, since we were hurrying up on putting an offer on the house, but we managed to throw together a couple of quick costumes and make it in time for most of the fun. Claire, as most people were able to recognize (amazingly!) was our little movie star.

Isaac started out as a fireman, but switched over to being a pirate after he got a facepaint mustache and goatee and balloon sword. Such is the fickleness of man. :)

Claire had such a great time! She's more of a scaredy cat than Isaac, and she was happy to sit in her stroller sucking on a lollipop for about half the time. She screamed when I tried to get her to play the fishing game! But oddly enough, she was an angel with the facepainting, and it was her willingness to do it that got Isaac in the chair afterwards. That little competitive edge can come in handy, sometimes :).

They had some great moon bounces, even some for laser tags and zip lines...pretty fun for older kids. Isaac mostly jumped in the more tame moon bounces, but he did really enjoy the big slides. It was fun to go with friends, and the kids got more than their required amount of candy for the season. We had a great time!

Just Kidding: it IS our house (we think)!

The housing saga continues, but is hopefully nearing its' end. On Saturday, I was blown away to see that the first house we had offered on (and had been accepted, then dropped), went back on the market. We offered again, and this time they signed the contract and got back to us before the deadline. The inspection is tomorrow, and the appraisal is on Thursday, so Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we're on our way to home ownership!

It's one of those things where hindsight really enables you to see God's wisdom. We were excited about the house in the first place, and I remember saying to Vance, "I'm not worried about it falling through. I feel like this is our house." That made it more disappointing when the sellers jilted us. But not getting what we wanted (and thought we were on our way to having) did force us to check our hearts a little more, and be reminded that God's goodness isn't dependent on whether or not we get our preferred housing arrangement. More than ever, we are reminded that we aren't entitled to this house (or any other), but that it is just a gift. (And you experienced homeowners are now saying, Just wait till you see that first expensive repair bill! :)

Vance prayed that if we were supposed to have that house, that the other offer would fall through. I never thought it would, but it did. And the second time around, we're even more grateful.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today my sweet mother would have been 50 years old. I'm sure, if she had ever attained such advanced age, no one would have ever believed she was that old. People look at my wedding pictures and ask where my mother is--and then say they thought Mom was my sister. Hopefully she passed on some of those good genes...

I know that time is supposed to heal all wounds, but I can't imagine that I will ever miss her less. I know it was a privelige to live in her home and be called her daughter, and I'm grateful for all the happy memories I have of her. One day, Lord willing, we'll make more together.

For now, I just roll over and over in my mind the little conversations and pictures I have in my mind. Like hearing the sound of her heels in the kitchen after church when I was little, and wanting so much to be beautiful and elegant and grown up, just like her. Seeing her come into the kitchen and reach into the cabinet for her favorite snack--a spoonful of peanut butter with chocolate chips on top (try it!). Coming home from school and seeing her talking with Tinea and Penelope every Tuesday. Watching her in the kitchen--always in the kitchen--making whatever her guests liked best. She kept a list of everyone's favorites and dislikes on the back of the address cards of her friends (No onions, etc. :). Seeing her little doodles of grapes and curlicues when she'd been in another long phone conversation with someone who needed counsel. Coming downstairs on Valentine's Day to a plate of cookies, just for me. Seeing her standing on the step to kiss Dad. Painting the dining room with her, watching her agonize over paint colors, and laughing at her thwarted perfectionist tendencies as she struggled to cut in such a dark red. Admiring her when she succeeded :). Hearing her laugh until the tears came when all her family was in town for the holidays. Standing next to her as we prayed for friends. Seeing her Bible, covered with notes. Changing sheets for back-to-back guests. Never complaining. Always serving above and beyond. Always giving wise counsel based on Scripture, not just her opinion.

If God grants me another 19 years, I hope I may be a little more like her; as faithful a friend, as constant in prayer, as loving a wife and mother. And I pray that her granddaughters, who will not know her this side of heaven, will grow to be like her just the same. I can't wait to see you again, Mom.

Isaac's Honey Hole

Like Papa, like father, like son...

Isaac caught 4 good-sized brim all by himself last Saturday! (well, Daddy did help him cast, but that was it).

Claire was too skittish to touch the fish, but she wasn't afraid of the worms (like mama, like daughter :)

We're loving the cooler weather, and having Daddy back from out of town!

Strike Two (or, A Bizarre Tale)

another photo of a house we won't be living in...

All right, everyone, I have a funny story to tell you (if I can keep it from being confusing). On Thursday the above house went on the market (while Vance was in Colorado for the week). I saw it on Friday with the kids. I liked it--didn't love it like the other one--but it was a good house that met our list. Big yard, great climbing trees, open layout, new kitchen with granite countertops. It showed great, and I knew it wasn't likely to make it to the weekend without an offer. Vance was supposed to fly in Saturday, so we planned to look at it on Sunday before lunch. His flight was delayed, so we didn't see it until Sunday evening. He really liked the house.

But, as I suspected, there was another offer on the table. The sellers were waiting, however, for our offer, since we had told them we were serious. Our realtor said, "you need to give them your highest and best offer." We had learned our lesson from last time, so we agreed. It was hard to come up with a number, because I was still uneasy about the comps. It's pretty much one of the nicest houses in the neighborhood, and I was concerned about pricing ourselves out of the neighborhood. Ultimately, however, we gave them an offer slightly above their asking price. Deadline: today at noon.

So when my realtor calls me today, she gives me the crazy scoop. There were 3 showings on the house, and 3 offers. The first offer was about $12,000 lower than ours, and they wanted their closing costs covered as well. They were apparently concerned about the appraisal as well, so they put a big paragraph about being able to get out if it didn't appraise. The second offer had a similar clause. So did ours.

Apparently, this freaked out the owners so much that, afraid of the house not appraising at the list value, they took the lower offer. How crazy is that?!

I had to laugh. The first time we had an accepted offer which was unethically dumped. This second time we offered a bid too high for the seller's taste. Third time's the charm, right?

This time has been a lot easier than the first...I wasn't as attatched to the house, and it was so ludicrous that I couldn't really take it hard. Obviously, God has something else in mind. And I think it has something to do with us not worshipping the house we'd like to live in :)

back to the drawing board...

Sorry I've left everyone hanging about the housing stuff...Vance and I went out of town for a conference for a couple of days, so we're just now getting back into the swing of things.

We didn't get the house. It's a long story, as you can imagine, but the very unethical realtor we were dealing with, after refusing to sign our paperwork, considered two identical offers, and chose the other one.

It's been really disappointing. That was the only house that we saw that we had liked, and we really liked it. It had so many of the little details that I had wanted but hadn't even put on our "wish list" that we'd given to the realtor. It seemed so perfect for us. But it's not going to be ours. In a way, it almost makes me feel better that the door was slammed so hard in our face--it makes me realize so clearly that God is saying no. If we had just put an offer in and had been outbid, I could have agonized over whether we should have offered more, etc. But we had done everything "right", and our offer was accepted...until it wasn't.

In the midst of my disappointment, though, God has really been so merciful. We went to a small group leaders conference with our church (no, we're not small group leaders at our new church, but like one of our fnew riends here said, they sometimes open up the conference to people who are really, well...troubled :). It was exactly what we both needed: to get away from the stress of new work/new city/new schedule/epic house fail and just focus on Christ, and the joy that it is to live for him alone. In that frame of reference, I was able to remember again that it is a joy to experience little disappointments like this because it means that God is after my heart, teaching and shaping me to be more like him. In this case, I think he's working on my patience, perserverance, and chronic whinyness (hmm, sounds like what I'm teaching my kids too! Go figure :)

So anyway, we're bummed. Especially when we have to slog through more listings of houses that aren't very appealing. And at the same time, we're happy to experience a little disappointment if it means we can become a little more like Christ.

Now if I can only remember that when I walk through the 23,490,824th house that I don't like :)