Update on Life Lately

Well, everything is moving along smoothly here at the Howie House :) I thought it was time for a little update.

-Things have been very slow on the house selling front lately. We haven't had a showing in almost 3 weeks. That's the longest stretch we've gone without a showing since we put our house on the market. I'm really ok with it, though. Sure, I'd love to have showings, and I'd love even more for our house to go ahead and sell. But it does make my life easier to not have showings! I think we've just entered into a pretty slow time as far as the housing market goes, so it's actually helped for me to kind of get it into my mind that, at this point, it will probably be a little while before we sell. It might even be the spring before things pick back up. I'm just thankful that we're not in a situation where we have to sell our house. I can't imagine how stressful that would be! We're still very excited about moving, and we'd love for it to happen soon, but we're just waiting for the Lord to send the right buyers and trying to be content where we are in the meantime :)

-Want to hear something ironic? You may remember that when we decided to move, our main reasons were to be closer to our church, David's work, and Aubrey's school. Well, we knew that Aubrey's school was going to be moving to a new location this year. They looked and looked for a location close to where they were before, but they couldn't find anything. So, after much prayer and consideration, they decided to move to a new area. The new area just happens to be a church in our current neighborhood. Like, literally in our neighborhood. Yes, the neighborhood that we are trying to leave. Grrrr. I couldn't believe it when I heard! Of course I'm thankful that the Lord provided a building for the school, and the drive itself won't even be that big of a deal when we move. It's definitely a drive we're used to, and it's only about 25 minutes. It was just a blow because it just made us me question whether we're even doing the right thing by trying to move. But I quickly realized that it still makes sense to move. Aubrey goes to school 2 days a week. David goes to work everyday, and we go to church for one thing or another almost that often. So, we're still thinking it will be in the best interest of our family to move, but can you even believe that?? I couldn't! :-/

-My sweet oldest baby will be 5 years old in just a couple of weeks!!! I'm in denial. Five just feels like such a milestone birthday to me. I'm not one to really get sad when my kids have birthdays. I truly love watching them grow up, so I've never had a very hard time with any birthday. But 5 just feels so old to me!! I tell you what, I've never been more thankful for Aubrey's September birthday. Thank God she's not starting kindergarten this year! Little babies who were born just a month before her did start kindergarten, and I just can't even imagine being at that point in our parenting journey. I'm so thankful for her school, though. Even when she does start kindergarten, she'll still only be going 2 days a week, which I think will be perfect. (She'll only go to school 2 days a week forever if this school situation ends up being a good fit for our family like we're praying it will be. She'll do 2 days at school and 3 days at home. :) I'm actually glad that kindergarten won't feel like a huge milestone or a major life change. It'll make it easier on Mama at least ;)

-I'm relieved to say that I think we've gotten over the major potty training hurtle with Jude. Whew! As I've mentioned before, he was NOT an easy child to potty train, but he's been in underwear exclusively for over a month now, and he's been doing well. We still have the occasional accident, but for the most part, he uses the potty all by himself. We finally figured out that he has a big fear of flushing the potty, so he would avoid going to the potty because he was scared of the flush. When we realized this, we told him it was perfectly fine if he wanted to leave the room before we flushed. Then we started giving him the option of us flushing it after he left the room or him flushing it. We also gave him the option of standing up or sitting down when he tee tee's ;) Giving him options like that really seemed to help. I'm just so thankful to finally have him potty trained. This experience potty training Jude definitely gave me a lot of empathy for other moms struggling with potty training. NEVER judge if you see a child in a diaper who looks like they "should be" potty trained. That poor mom is probably at her whit's end and ready to pull her hair out. Haha!

-David and I are in the midst of a "cleanse." We're on a very limited diet, and we're taking some whole food supplements to help our bodies detox (we're doing the whole thing through a local chiropractor). It's a 3 week program, and we're on day 10. We're not eating dairy, grains (except brown rice and lentils), beans, nuts, caffeine, sugar, or soy, among other things. Basically, we ARE eating a lot of vegetables and fruits and some lean protein. I kind of naively thought that because we eat healthy anyway, it wouldn't be too hard. I was mistaken. We've actually had a harder time than I expected. When we eat at home, it's not bad. I'm cooking basically the same things I was already cooking with a few modifications. It's just really hard to not be able to "cheat" and eat in social situations. We've had a lot of things to go to lately that involved food, and it's HARD to just sit and watch while everyone eats. Haha! I just keep reminding myself that this is good for us, and it's only temporary (although, I do hope to implement some long-term changes). We can do anything for 3 weeks, right? RIGHT?? ;) I think what I miss most is sweet tea and I really miss my coffee, too. When we finish with our cleanse, I might blog about it in more detail.

-Oh, I don't think I've mentioned this on the blog yet: WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY IN JANUARY!!! Can you tell I'm excited? :) David and I are going to take Aubrey and Jude. Alaina will be staying home with the grandparents. It was a hard decision as to whether we should take her or not, but ultimately, we decided it would be in the best interest of everyone to just plan to take her next time when she's older. We're going to drive, so we know she'd be miserable in the car that long. Plus, she still very much requires a solid nap every afternoon, and Aubrey and Jude do not. Also, Alaina isn't really happy in a stroller anymore for long periods of time. She wants to be all in the action, and the thought her wanting to walk around Disney gives me panic attacks. Ha! Those factors alone made us think that it would be hard to take her this time. Plus, I'd like to have one adult per child with our kids being as young as they are. I know I'll miss her SO much, though!! We're going to take the big kids this time, and we think it'll be such a fun experience for all of us! Aubrey and Jude don't even know about the trip yet, but I can't wait to experience this with them! :)