Mr. Potato Heads

Are these kids hilarious or what!? Tonight they made me laugh so hard. I don't know what was funnier, Elliot's surprising me with Mr. Potato Head's glasses smooshed on his fat cheeks or Oliver's anatomically correct placement of  Mr. Potato Head's "bottom".  

Boring But Important

So some of my devoted readers (hi Mom and Abby!) have noticed that I have taken a little hiatus from blogging. It's not because there's nothing going on around here. Actually we have had some really noteworthy events in the last month and a half: we spent a long weekend on the Outer Banks with seven other couples and our combined 16 kids, Ryan ran the OBX half-marathon; we got a visit from Scott and Jennie, two of our favorite people from Cornell; a few hours after Scott and Jennie left we welcomed Saydi and Jeff, who stopped by our house on their way from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore (we were honored that they took the small detour to hit Raleigh on their Thanksgiving break East Coast tour); soon after the Shumways left Ryan's parents and Blake arrived for Thanksgiving. All of this and more I hope to blog about soon, complete with captivating photography and vivid prose...it'll make you feel like you were right there. 

But in the meantime, I'll let you all in on why we have been a bit preoccupied. 

We are moving. To Nashville, Tennessee. We don't know when. 

At the beginning of November Ryan was offered a promotion to a new position in his company's Nashville office. It caught us totally off-guard. We didn't really want to relocate. The company sent us out to Nashville to check things out. We came home from that trip feeling like we REALLY didn't want to relocate (Nashville, despite its awesome reputation, is not THAT different from Raleigh, with the glaringly obvious distinction that none of our friends lives in Nashville). The company figured out that we didn't really want to move so they made us "an offer we couldn't refuse." Not in The Godfather sense (no horse heads in our bed) but they made it pretty clear that they really wanted Ryan to fill this position and so they made him a generous offer. So, that's nice. I really am proud of Ryan that he has done such a good job at work and that he is being recognized. We think this move is probably a good step for Ryan's career. Yep. And we are committed to not look back once we move. We will really dive in and make the most of our time in Nashville. Once we get there. 

But until then we are feeling really in limbo. We are trying to figure out what we are going to do with our house here (sell or rent it out), what we are going to do about housing there, whether I will live here with the boys until the house sells or move out there and hope something magical happens so we won't have two house payments. The company will buy us out if the house doesn't sell in 5 months, so it's not like there's no end in sight. But we could be here until May, since we aren't even going to list the house until January. 

Ryan started working in Nashville last week. He is staying in a hotel during the week and coming home on Friday evening. We are trying to maximize our time on the weekends, reconnecting with each other and spending time with the many dear and AMAZING friends we have here. So far (a week and a half into what may be a many-month ordeal) it is actually quite nice. We are both amazed at how productive we are with our free time, and how connected we feel when we read the scriptures together on the phone in the mornings and discuss the day's events in the evenings. One of the reasons I have been able to hold it together as a single mother is that I am getting to bed earlier that I usually do when Ryan's at home. Tonight is an exception so I better sign off because tomorrow evening, when I am feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, there will be no reinforcements arriving to help with the bedtime battle. 

Backyard Mudbox

These are some pictures from early November of the boys in what used to be my garden. I pulled out all the overgrown tomatoes and basil and now almost every afternoon they go to town digging for worms, building volcanoes and generally making a big muddy mess.