Life Update

Addelyn was interesting... I thought she was going to have a hard time gaining familiarity to our home however during the day she was fine, she just wanted a lot of attention and play time, nothing unexpected. However at night whew that was a different story. The first night, we didn't have any furniture yet so we set up the pack n play but she wanted nothing to do with it. We were exhausted so the co-sleeping began. Let me first add I swore up, down, left and right that I would NEVER co-sleep. And there we were two exhausted parents with baby in the middle. BUT when we laid our heads down to sleep we slept. I mentioned earlier the only time I could really make progress was when Addelyn was asleep so from 8:00pm-4:00am were my productive hours, so from 8:00 pm-4:00 am Addelyn would sleep in the swing, the motion would put her back and we got so much done, we ROCKED it. So at 4:00am I would scoop up Addelyn and give her a bottle for her nightly feeding and put her in the bed with us, so I wouldn't have to get up with her in the night. We slept from 4:00am-8:00am and juggled from 8:00am-8:00pm. A move with a baby is something I never thought we would do but we did and we survived again thanks to friends and family. Addelyn's sleeping habits were way messed up but thats life, we are finally almost back to where we were before we moved, if not better and I am beyond grateful for that. We are finally starting to understand what sleep feels like again!

Tucker on the other hand. WHEW he sure was good at making things harder- not intentionally of course but talk about a handful. Tucker has always had issues with separation anxiety and because of that he has learned to open doors... the doors in which we leave out of. He is an ESCAPE ARTIST. At the other house before he had figured out how to open the door, he would scratch and scratch and scratch, and chew his paws till they bled. So when he figured out how to open the door we were good with that, no blood or damage to the door GREAT! I knew moving would be hard for him so I made sure to have a transitional period. For a week we took him everywhere with us and reassured him that this was our new home etc... WELL, Kevin installed a dog door for us we had always wanted one but our patio door was all glass. Our neighbor had one and Tucker would escape out of our house into her yard, through the dog door and into her house he went. So the dog door thing was new to us and it wasn't instinctive for us to make sure it was shut etc... I did however go around the back yard and put bricks where there were gaps under the fence because he's like a little rat and can squeeze through anything to get out. So I left for the first time for an HOUR AND A HALF. I came home not to a dog but a mop full of mud... PAW PRINTS EVERY WHERE... all over our brand new home... the carpets, the tile, the walls, the window sills, the couch, the doors, the bed. IT WAS AWFUL, I actually broke down and yelled in front of Addelyn for the first time. I let the situation take over me. All I could think of was DEFEAT... we finally got things unpacked, set up etc... and there our brand new house was... (in my eyes at the time) RUINED. It took me twenty minutes to stop and tell my husband what had happened. It was of course a saturday and most carpet cleaning companies were closed we had just spent ALL this money moving and on the house, more than what we had planned. There were so many unexpected expenses and I just wanted to cry. I hadn't planned or envisioned the process being so hard, stressful, time-consuming, and financially wearing. So I got in touch with a after hours carpet cleaner and had the entire brand new carpets steam cleaned along with our couch. The mud was so bad due to all the freezes we had recently had since the ice was melting Not only did he do this once, not twice but three times. You'd think my mommy brain after this would remember to close the dog door. Luckily the last two times the mud wasn't wet enough to track paw prints everywhere. In the first two weeks we had been living in our new home Tucker had been bathed more than I had. We put rock down where he was digging and remembered to shut the dog door, he adjusted and now we can leave the house stress free, dog door open and come home to no mud. Tucker no longer feels the need to dig to china to try and find his way to us or his old home.

Unfortunately due to the lighting, the dark carpet and my iphone you can't see the ample amount of  mud but below... the patio looked identical as far as all the tracks of paw prints that were in the house. IT WAS BAD!

It has been a transition for all of us- Hutto is so different than Round Rock and Austin. There are NO trees, which means the wind is crazy. Our flowers, trees and easter decorations are definitely feeling the wind. We miss the trees so bad, of course all of the homes have trees in their yards but they are small and are only in the neighborhoods. There is no HEB?! I have to drive to Round Rock to do our grocery stopping. At times when I've forgotten something at the store, we've had to skip out on what I had started cooking due to the 20 minute drive there and back. It's honestly like going to "town" LOL. I will say that it has taught me to be more intentional with my time and to be more detail oriented when shopping- aka Hutto vs the Mommy Brain, I'm getting better at it. Luckily the toll is nearby so it's usually a straight shot if I need to run to somewhere like Hobby Lobby. The train goes by OFTEN, I really didn't think we would be able to hear it.... well during the day we can't but in the evenings we can hear the lull of the train. At night the train goes by every 30 minutes if not more. At first we thought it was because it was the weekend, and we joked about "Friday night train night" but now every night is "______ night train night". We also joked that you should be able to "test drive" a home before you buy... but after getting everything moved set up and hung on the walls, it's very faint and almost unnoticeable orrr maybe we tune it out? I was so worried about being able to meet people and make friends in our community, thankfully we have! HONESTLY, I had only driven down the back county roads to visit my husband at work and only knew of two neighborhoods, the rest that I had seen were trailers and farmland. I thought everyone out here was going to be redneck, retired, or a farmer. But it is not at all-that way. The people here are just like anywhere else I've lived. Way to go Gina, for stereotyping and being naive but hey I did promise to be real here. We left some AMAZING neighbors and we wish we could have brought them with us. Luckily we are finding out that our new neighbors are pretty awesome as well. To say the least I've learned to slow down and enjoy life in a new way. My FAVORITE thing about Hutto is Jimmy is SEVEN minutes from work. I'm sorry did you read that? SEVEN!!!!!!! It use to take Jimmy 40-45 minutes to get home and most nights he wouldn't get off until 7:00 or often even later. Now we have dinner at a normal hour, and have family time in the evening. Jimmy is able to come home on his breaks occasionally to spend time with us over lunch. Since he no longer commutes we either get more rest or more time to sit over coffee together. I wouldn't trade anything in the world for the extra time we now have to be a family. 

The move was hard for all of us, as well as the timing. Nothing really went as planned and it's been a huge change but we're all better because of it. Transition isn't easy but now that we are settled we are all mostly adjusted.

Specifically in times of stress and chaos I try to stop myself and ask what is God trying to teach me right now. God is constantly working on our hearts and testing our faith and in all of this, the word patience just keeps popping up in my head. Something that I'm great at in some ways and in others it's non existent. With other people I consider myself patient and understanding. With myself not so much. I've always said I love change but not transition. I struggle finding patience in the projects I start and cannot finish right away. I struggle with the process. I struggle with starting something and not finishing it. I am proud to say that this experience God has revealed himself at large and is pushing me to be patient with myself. It's so easy to be hard on ourselves and I'm learning to take one step at a time.

I have ranted quite a bit here but it was needed. It feels good to tell my story of change and trials and to announce what God is doing our lives.

Stay tuned for our new home tour!