The Big Reveal

So maybe it was a little too obvious but....
WE ARE MOVING TO WISCONSIN!!!
In less than a month.
We sold our house.
We don't have a place to live yet.
Like I've said before, we are hardcore.

That's the short story. But here is the long story...

Our house in TX is not ideal for triplets because of a number of reasons so we really knew that once we were pregnant with multiples that a move was going to be imminent. But once the reality of multiples hit us over the last year we decided that we needed to make some major changes between the RSV restrictions, nanny costs, our pediatrician requested that I stop working at the hospital, Rich traveling for work- the list goes on. I'm the primary caregiver for our children and my primary support system is in Wisconsin so after much discussion we decided to move to Milwaukee, WI and I would quit working for a while, I mean working for pay, and I would stay home and focus my energy on raising our children the best way I knew how.

This was all decided in April and we put our house on the market hoping for a quick sale. Just in case anyone hasn't looked at the news in about a year, this is THE WORST time to be selling a home, especially a home that was purchased at the height of the housing bubble. Since April we have done over 50 showings of our house. I'm not going to get into the dirty gritty details of how difficult it was to have the house "show ready" for 4 months because I'm sure you can just imagine. Does this now make more sense about why I was always complaining about my white tile floors? I hand-scrubbed the floors 2-3 times a day, every day for 4 months.

Then we would have an hour or hour and a half window that we would have to be out of the house. So most of the time we would drive around with the kids and the pugs in the minivan in the unbearable heat. Depending on the time of the showing we would have to rearrange their schedule such as wake them up from naps to get into the car or delay lunch or eat early so we could be out of the house. There were so many times we would be driving around in wonder of awesome the kids were during this time There were also times that I would be by myself with the kids and pugs and it would not go so smooth and I'd have crying kids or the people would run late so we would drive around for an hour and then I would unpack everyone go inside and start lunch and then the clients would show up. I learned my lesson to stop cooking salmon on those days.

I lived in fear of Rich's phone ringing saying we had a showing request. Rich lived in fear of my weekly announcements of going to Whole Foods to buy more flowers for the house. The one benefit to having our house on the market for so long was that I had lovely flowers in several rooms. Just the other day I walked into the house and it smelled like lilies. How glorious is that? That was the only fun part about this process so far.

We made a decision that we were going to move even if we didn't sell our house because we will go back on RSV restriction in October and after that date we can't travel with the kids and wouldn't be able to show our house again until the spring. It was a risky decision but after going through what we did for 4 months I couldn't bear to take the house off the market and start over again in the spring.

The day they announced that existing home sales were down 27% was the day we got an offer on our house. That is a huge relief but we will most certainly be relieved when we finally close. Our next step is to find a place that is affordable, takes dogs, appropriate for the triplets, covered parking, short term lease and in an area that I can walk outside so I don't go nuts with the RSV restrictions over the winter. Why would that be hard to find? In a few weeks? If you haven't noticed, Rich and I don't always do things the easy way. Sometimes I think we are both adrenaline junkies. It is almost like a contest to see how complicated we can make our lives.

Bambi and my Dad have been knocking on doors, peeking in windows and basically scouring the city on a daily basis for us. We have a couple leads so we are keeping our fingers crossed and with us that is a lot of fingers.

So that would explain why there have been lapses in the blog lately. I was really busy scrubbing the floor, counters, showers, sinks and hiding laundry in closets.

Now after all of that nonsense, the good stuff.
Uncle Isaac was here visiting us for the last time in Dallas.
Can't wait to see what he looks like when he gets in his new supply of moustache wax.

It was only about 95 degrees rather than the normal triple digits so we took the triplets to play on swings for the first time.
Eloise loved it.

Addy thought it was tolerable but could think of things that are more exciting. Compared to accidentally rolling down a hill like she did later, this was a little tame for her.

Little dolly couldn't get enough.

I think this is why there are leg holes in both sides. Someone tell me if this was not what we were supposed to do with 2 kids...

It is rare that we have a picture with all 5 of us much less an action shot.

Beckett was not terribly fond of the swings. He preferred to hang with Uncle Isaac and talk about going to Lego camp and robot camp and computer camp and dinosaur camp.

A mother can dream. I guess they were talking about baseball.

They were getting a little hot. Check out those pink cheeks and Eloise's sweaty mullet.

Little daredevil Addy. Waving goodbye shortly before tumbling down the hill. She picked herself up and keep walking.
What a tough little thang. Gotta throw in some Texas slang before I go all "you betcha hey" on y'all.