First weeks here

After our move in on Saturday,  things have been plugging along.

Sunday, we had breakfast at the Klopfenstein's  and then Nathan stayed home with the kids.  I went to church with my parents. They came over to our house for a while after church. Then said their goodbyes and left.  It was sad, but again, easier than I expected. 

grandpa reading to the kids

I don't think it will really hit for a while. I still text family a lot, we facetime, and call.  It probably will hit this summer when we just want to walk around the farm, look at the cows, and go swimming. 

The kids have gotten better each day. And finally, by the end of the first week, they were pretty much better. 

breathing treatments in the new room.

We spent the fist week settling in and quickly got ready for Christmas. 

Wednesday, we did paper work and went and got our finger prints done.

Thursday we had a half day of training. Thankfully, the kids did well for the sitter. Friday we had our first full day and again, thankfully,  the kids actually did really well. They normally don't do well with people they don't know, so I was pretty stress. Especially since all the craziness of the past few weeks. 

playing in the toy room :)

If only they loved each other this much all of the time....ha.

Around the house fun...

little missy is very into climbing these days.

bedtime reading :)

the coziest place

helping me with dishes. 

I like to get things in order. And the more things are where they go, the more it feels like home.  Also, when we came to paint, I painted the two rooms colors that were on the walls in Goodfield. It makes it feel more like my own then.  It didn't take long actually, there were maybe a few late nights, but we got things pulled together quickly. And, while it was clean I took pictures:

:) I love this by the way...

Brave Gideon and Brave Aurelia

(If you  can't see, the words around the knights are the armor of  God.)

kids' room

living room

bedroom

Kitchen

Toy room/office

In very short time, it feels like home.  In part to things being in their places and I'm sure greatly due to prayers. 

Saturday evening, Kacie invited us over to her parent's house with a couple from church to play games. We had a great time and the kids had fun playing in Rita's new basement. 

Boden and Parker were there too!

We had our first Sunday in Leo all together.  There was nothing of great note. 

That afternoon, the power suddenly went off.  And, since we can't cook without power, we decide to head out to Walmart and grab something to eat. Apparently, that was our whole neighborhood's idea too. (Our neighborhood is three other houses of Alternate HP families.) When we got out to the van everyone else was outside starting to load up their kids. So, we all went to Culvers together. 

The kids had fun together.

That is one thing I'm already seeing that I will love. Gateway is like a 1950s small town where everyone knows everyone and the kids just run wild with friends.

Gideon helped me bake muffins 

Warmish day called for breaking in the driveway

Maple Vanilla Chia Latte...

Reality... hahaha.

Gideon needed his too.

Little missy commandeered mine.

hahaha.... crazy little child.

This last week was a ton of training every day and we spent a few evenings at Pine house trying to learn the ropes. 

She was so frustrated she couldn't reach. I thought I had the perfect solution.

sigh. 

 I took some time to wrap presents this week. Sorry Bergners, JC Penny, brick and mortar small businesses, Amazon sent me a few big boxes and I'm pretty much done shopping. 

Wrapping is very stressful....

haha why do I try?

EEee :) 

Cheeeeeeze!!! :)

So yup. We are settled in and our training mostly done. We'll have a couple weeks of more intense observation/supervised-on-duty and then we'll officially go at it alone at the end of December. 

Pine house right now isn't completely full and the residents are fairly good kids (I mean they are definitely here for a reason).  So, it seems like it will be on the easier side of things for our transition into the house. 

One of the residents had lice. She was holding Aurelia on the evening they found it.  Ick... We've been very vigilant and have been washing clothes and sheets. Last night I thought I found nits in mine and Aurelia's hair  (Nathan thinks I'm just over reacting) but, we all did hair treatments anyway, and did a ton more laundry. 

We are doing well and looking forward to being back in Illinois for family Christmases.

In Christ

~Michelle

The Big Move

We moved. If you didn't know. ;)

That last week leading up to the move was crazy. 

We tracked down Faire Coffee for one last stop. 

Gideon was very pleased to see both Emily and Carli :)

Emily even let Gideon push the button for my coffee.

On Saturday, November 23rd, I practiced for the Messiah in the morning. That afternoon some of Nathan's friends and a few of my cousins came over to help organize, finish projects, and start packing. 

Tate showing off his handyman skills- He put in a basement stair railing for us. 

Kandace came and helped pack but also kept Gideon occupied for a long time with her cool ideas. 

packing up the kitchen

boxes!

Sunday, we went to Washington Church for the last time.  We were there just for the morning and then I left for the Messiah. 

The performance went great. I love singing it. The music is fantastic and singing with an orchestra is just amazing. I'm so thankful I got to sing in it one more time. 

After the Messiah, we went over to Bob and Jenny's for supper. 

Miriel and Logan

Monday began yet more packing.  And the kids got sick. Aurelia had a small cough since Sunday. Monday evening, Gideon puked.  I got a little worried after he couldn't keep water down. But, he didn't puke the rest of the night. 

Tuesday we had help in and out all day. Which was great since the kids were both getting fevers. 

Jean and my mom.

 And then Jenny and Miriel came and brought amazing cupcakes. 

Thankfully, and ironically, we had set aside Wednesday for a no packing family day. We had planned to take the kids to the Playhouse and spend the rest of the day playing with them.  Plans changed.  Wednesday landed us in prompt care instead of at the Playhouse. 

Aurelia's cough had gotten worse and she had gotten a super high fever during the night. Gideon's fever was still there and had picked up a croup-y cough. I knew what was coming. Any time Gideon gets this sick, it always turns to his lungs. We of course had run out of his breathing treatment, it was the day before thanksgiving, and we were moving out of state... so, I called the doctor rather than wait it out.  The pediatrician was too busy,  so we just went in to prompt care. 

(I can't believe they left their masks on)

Happy family day to us. 

It turned out, Aurelia had Bronchiolitis and Gideon was still just a really bad cold. We had a wonderful doctor who prescribed us plenty of medication without a second thought. 

On the way home I was hit by a horrible migraine. I get migraines often. Usually I can catch them before they get bad. This one hit so fast and so hard, I was in the van moaning while Nathan ran in to CVS to pick up their medications. I quick took some Advil and by the time we got home, it was back to being manageable. 

But, then. (So, I quite often get auras with my migraines - loss of vision in one eye or flashing lights that take over my vision- I've gotten used to them but definitely scary the first few times.  Some really bad migraines have given me a feeling of weakness and numbness down my left side, sometimes the left side of my tongue goes numb- pretty freaky again, but I've gotten used to it.)  This time it was everything. The pain, numbness, aura, and on top of that my left cheek went numb.  (Let's also remember my history of blood clots.)  You know what's really scary. There is no difference in these symptoms from those of a stroke. 

Now I was pretty sure it was just migraine related. But, enough unsure to freak out. But, since we found out in prompt care that Nathan's insurance quit the day he quit work, and I had two miserably sick kids, and we were moving, I was not about to go to the ER  get a bunch of testing just to find out it was a migraine. 

Anyway, we ended up spending the evening at my parents so I could lay down. (Because, oh, Nathan was also sick and not feeling very well)

Well, no surprise, but we didn't go to church or do any Thanksgiving plans that next day. We stayed home. 

poor sick kids.

Aurelia getting a treatment.

But, since at the beginning of the week we thought we'd be gone. We had no food and nothing to eat anything off of. I had to go out to the garage just to make myself a cup of cocoa. ha. 

In the afternoon, I ran over to the Wyss gathering and picked up leftover Thanksgiving dinner for our supper. 

I felt bad though. We were supposed to be with Nathan's family, and we rarely see them.  It's just unfortunate that they were all sick on a holiday right before we moved. 

The kids were doing well enough with tylenol that they could play a bit. So, I built them a box tunnel. 

:)

 This is how we planned how to stuff the trailers...

Friday, some of Nathan's family came to help us pack. They also brought us leftovers from Thanksgiving.  I'm glad we got to spend a little bit of time with them.  

We sold our kitchen table that morning, so we ate off of card tables. 

what a mess

I took the kids to the farm after lunch so they could have naps away from the chaos. 

Fred, Bob, and Matt came over to help start loading the trailers. 

The living room started to fill with boxes and furniture

By Friday night, The house was mostly empty. We slept on mattresses in Nathan's office. 

Yah. We didn't sleep well. But, we made it through. 

Saturday morning,  family started showing up to help move. Fred, Troy, Matt, Kirk, Kyle, Kayla, and my parents.  Logan came to pull one of the trailers out for us. The guys played tetris with the trailers, while I mostly tried to keep things organized and keep the kids out of the way. The kids were still pretty sick and wanted to be held most of the time.  Kary brought us breakfast. And then we headed out. 

A donut can cheer anyone up though.

Farewell house. 

Sickness comes with it's benefits. The kids slept most of the way out and we made really good time. 

Aunt Jenny packed the kids the best travel bags ever too. 

The move in process begins

I was not joking about tetris....

Kacie, Kray, Cordin, and Tyler met us at the house.  They made super quick work of it and the trailers were unloaded in no time. Kacie and my dad put the kids' bunk together, Cordin and Kayla worked on the kitchen. I tried to direct traffic and deal with the kids. 

Poor Gideon and Aurelia were miserable. They were sick. They were confused. They were tired. They had spent all day riding in the car. I was way more stressed about how miserable they were than I was about the move in. 

poor sick Gideon trying to be happy about his new bed.

We were mostly moved in by 6:30 pm! and went over to Rita's for supper.  Gideon perked up a bit after supper and was able to play in their cool toy room. 

:)

After supper some of us came back to the house and started organizing and unpacking boxes. 

books went on shelves

kitchen table coming in

Kyle set up our tree.

By bed time, our beds were ready, out kitchen mostly unpacked, and while there were boxes all over, it already was looking like our place.  it was a crazy day. I am so thankful for all of the help we had!

It was a crazy week leading up. People kept saying that I got the migraine because of stress. Honestly I didn't really fell that stressed, maybe overwhelmed at times, but not really that stressed. That whole week all I could think was that we were being attacked.  We were so physically and emotionally run down by everything. Moving with two sick kids is really hard. It was one of those rare times in life where I can honestly say I felt people praying for us.  

In Christ

~Michelle