Secret Service

I was going to write a blog yesterday about how much I love my new neighborhood, house and yard...and then the door bell rang.

I went to open the door and I saw two men in suits, my first thought was Mormon missionaries... but I didn't recognize them, and didn't see any name tags. Then I saw a badge and noticed the second man seemed to be guarding the house. The man at the door said he was with the Secret Service asked for 'John Doe' and when I said he didn't live here he asked to come in.

I asked the other man for his ID and he rudely said to me that I had already seen one and didn't need to see his. Refusing to let them in with that attitude, I asked what it was about. They continued to interrogate me about 'John Doe' or 'John Doe 2'. Finally, I asked if it helped at all if they knew that I had just moved in last week. They stopped being so rude and went and got a picture to see if I recognized John Doe, and then asked to search the house--I let them, one guy stood outside and waited for someone to run out and the other walked around the house, looking in every room.


Welcome to the neighborhood!


But really, we do like it. The back yard is fabulous. The house is great. And, there are lots of kids!
Hopefully the Secret Service and John Doe both will stay away.

Saturday...

Saturday was a big day in our house.
Katie had two birthday parties to attend--one at 1pm and the other at 3pm. I had planned on being her chauffeur, but my friend called Friday to see if Mark and I wanted to join her and her husband at the Charlotte/Orlando playoff game-- box seats. Of course we found a babysitter for Marcus and Addy and found Katie a ride from one party to the other.

The game was great and so much fun. It was weird to be out in the middle of the day without the kids.
I picked Katie up from her second party when we got home. I had sent her to the fairy and princess parties in her Halloween tutu and found her in this.

Katie and the birthday girl, Ally, had exchanged clothes. Silly little girls. Katie was so excited, and so happy about her day. She had the hardest time falling asleep that night.

Moving again...

Yes, you read it right...

We are moving again...
with 3 little kids!

Our landlord told us last month that he had friends that wanted to move in (and pay more rent), our choices were; 1. we could wait until our lease was up in May to move out , 2. move a month early or 3. buy that house at a ridiculous price.

So, we found a new place and signed a lease (we don't want to buy until Mark actually starts at Dechert--and when we do we want to snag one of these fabulous short-sells going around).
We move on Thursday.

The real kicker...
The people that were moving in bailed and this house is going to be empty when we leave.

Oh well, at least we are excited about our new house--there is a fenced back yard!

We should be packing--we are little overwhelmed

Addy was pretty upset that she didn't know about these before

Katie wanted to try on all the things we found in the closet that we haven't seen in a while

Why we moved here...

Last winter in Pittsburgh I used to dream about this...I was getting a little worried when it snowed for the 3rd time, but Spring has kicked in. We have spent the last month or so outside enjoying the amazing weather--my kids are addicted and have the hardest time being inside.

Ok, he isn't outside but this is cute, and he has a football so it has to go on the blog.

Yesterday and today it hit the mid 80s and we were hot; so we pulled out the bathing suits and the baby pool and got wet.

In the midst of all this warm weather we did have one crazy night. It had been raining and then something started pounding on our roof; we looked out and found hail coming down--HARD!!! And lots of it.

They are huge right?

The next morning I saw blankets and towels on cars that were parked outside.

Happy Easter

We started Easter weekend with an Easter egg hunt on Friday. Some of Katie's friends from school were there; she was so excited to be with them outside of school.Katie and Ally

Nicolas, Ally and Katie

Katie and Ally with all their loot
This egg hunt was a little different then we have done before--there wasn't candy in the eggs--there was a number in each egg and to determine a winner they added all the numbers together and the highest number won. It was so funny when it started because Katie started running when all the other kids did--right past all the eggs. With a little encouragement (me pointing) she figured it out and started getting some eggs. As the last of the eggs where picked up a little girl came up with her empty basket looking pretty sad. She had missed the hunt. I asked Katie if she would give the little girl some of her eggs , Katie kindly handed over two of her eggs. I was so proud of her.

To top it off, even with giving away some of her eggs, Katie won the 3 yr old prize for most points! (She tells everyone that she won because she gave a little girl some of her eggs.)


We decided that this year we would have the Easter Bunny come on Sat morning vs Sun morning. I'm not sure if we will keep doing this but we will wanted to separate the celebration of Christ's resurrection from the Easter Bunny.

Saturday morning the kids woke up and started looking for their baskets and the eggs. All the eggs had a jelly bean in them, Addy got so distracted that she couldn't focus on anything but finding her next jelly bean.

Gift highlights: bug books--Thanks Grammy and Grandpa S

Wagon--Thanks Grandma and Grandpa D

After finding everything and eating muffins for breakfast, we headed to the park.

our little climber

Then after nap time, we had another egg hunt outside, this time we didn't put jelly beans in the eggs, but we did put a little surprise in 3 of the eggs.

looking for a jelly bean

Addy didn't want the little surprise (marshmallow chicks) she only wanted more jelly beans. She kept trying to take Marcus' eggs to see if there were any jelly beans in his eggs (she didn't have any eggs bc she got stuck on the first egg she picked up trying to find her candy). Marcus was having none of that.

Sunday morning we woke and had a specail breakfast. And Sarah, Adam, Talia and Will came over for a yummy Easter dinner.

The weekend was even more special because our church had their Semi Annual General Conference which we watched online Sat and Sun; we are so very grateful for Christ and His living prophet.