Goodbye A & L

Alright, so I haven't blogged in awhile but I blame that on the fact that we moved... again.  But I am here to proudly say that it will be the last move of ours.  We bought a house!  And I am never packing again.... or atleast for a very long time!  haha  I think living in seven houses in two years is plenty.  We moved out of the house we own in IA in Feb 2010.  Since then we have lived in 2 houses in NC, one temporary house (at nana's), an apartment in KS, a townhouse in KS, and now in Feb 2012 we finally bought our forever home! 

Our "forever home", as we have nicknamed it, is on the other side of town though; so it means losing A & L, the two little ones I have been watching for a year now.  They didn't have nicknames while they were here but for the purpose of the post I will call them Bouncy and Grunty; very fitting names I promise.  Once we found out they were leaving for sure I tried to get in a lot of playdates with the friends they have made and take them to all our favorite places.  We went to the library, the children's museum, the park, and GB a couple times.  Of course, I forgot to take my camera to these places so I have some pictures of us playing outside both the old house and the new house. 

Here are a couple pics of Troublemaking pulling Grunty around in the wagon.  They all were doing it but he liked Troublemaker the best.... I think because she didn't go wild and crazy. 

Eventually they stole the wagon from him and turned it into a cat bed.  I'm not sure what it is with them and cats (maybe it is because they will never be allowed to have one) but they love playing cats. 

So since they stole him mode of transportation I tried to get Grunty to smile for the camera.  He smiled like this ten times......

I finally had to tickle him to get him to actually smile. 

And finally a couple really cute pictures of Bouncy and Mimi. 

Our last day with Bouncy and Grunty was spent having one giant playdate.  We have moved across the street from some good friends who have three daughters.  Then Bumpkin had the day off of school so she was home.  Plus one of Bumpkin's classmates is going to be a big sister any day now but her mama thought she would have the baby already and didn't have a babysitter lined up.... so she came to our house as well.  Having a million kids running around the house is actually easier than it sounds.  They all take care of each other..... I'm not sure I heard a tattle or whine the whole day.  They just kept running back and forth between houses and outside.  It was a great day for them and the mama's. 

I have been enjoying this first week off, it has been easy to only care for three kids instead of five but I think I am going to get bored of it.  On one hand there is way less stress and noise in the house.  On the other hand poor Troublemaker is bored out of her mind without her playmates and Mimi enjoys watching all the kids play.  So right now it feels like a vacation but I know when it really hits me that they aren't coming back I will be sad.