Friday, April 22, 2022

First Half of April

April first started off with a trip to the vet for Harpo, as I posted about here he hadn't been eating. I finally got him to eat but still wanted to get him checked out. They weren't able to draw blood as his annual visit so he was due for that anyway. They tested blood, urnie, and took an X-ray just to check things out. I know he's getting old and results did just point to old age, but it was good to know if we were up against something or how we can improve his quality of life. The X-rays did show lots of bone spurs on his back and some herniated discs :-( which I bed is not very comfortable. But everything else looked good and on par for being a 15.5 year old pup. It did show his liver is starting to fail and we had the option for some medicine but went with the appetite stimulant first. He's already getting three meds every morning. The good thing about liver failure is that it isn't painful, that is to find a positive. Still not fun, Harpo has been such a good dog, he's hanging in there and could fool you on his age some days when he's hopping around like a puppy. 


Both Thomas and Emma started YMCA soccer this month. It runs right up until the weekend before we move. Thomas's team didn't have a coach so I stepped up to coach the 4 year old team. It's nice because it's not two days a week but only one. On Saturdays we have a 30 minutes practice then a 30 minute game to follow. They are so funny and already making improvements, tomorrow is our third week doing it since we were off for Easter. This was the first week: 

 

We haven't listed our house on the market and don't plan to until we move out. But with the market the way it is we had three different people personally reach out to us from word of mouth and were interested in seeing the house. So we spend a good week cleaning, organizing, and cleaning some more to prepare for a viewing. I had attempted to call around to find some cleaners to help me, but no one was available on short notice, so it fell on us. 

The weekend before we spent time cleaning out the shed and garage, it felt so good. Also in this process we are preparing for a garage sale in just two weeks (from the time I'm posting this)


Kids were rewarded for all their hard work with s'mores


Photos of the house all nice and clean! Doesn't last long. Everyone was for sure we'd get an offer in ASAP, but turns out none of the three were interseted. One was a single lady, an OBGYN - this house is WAY too big for just her and her fiancĂ©. Another was a family that moved here from Chicago, I thought for sure they'd want it, but Kyle said when the husband saw the boiler he could tell he was very intimidated by it. A third couple was very interested, well the husband was, he was ready to buy it right there, but the wife was hesitant about being so close to Central. Oh well. Felt nice to have the house clean. 













The Tuesday that they viewed the house, Kyle stayed home to be here with the people. I skipped run club that day and while Isaac and Emma were running, I had Harpo, Mary and Thomas and we made a trip to bubble tea and the popcorner. 


Harpo's been doing better, gets finite about his food every once in a while but overall is eating much better. 


April 6th, Thomas and I went to play at exploration place after preschool. The flowers are in bloom by our front door and smell so nice. 






Emma's soccer practice is getting real! They have practice jerseys and are starting to learn positions. She really enjoys it. 


That was Wednesday night above. Wednesday during the day the kids had a school wide field trip to a hockey game! Here were some of the photos shared to our parent FB page. 


Mary is in the top left corner of this photo:


A friend from BSF is going to take the chickens and the coop. She has 17 acres and has chickens already. I sent her pictures to know what we're dealing with and then her husband and her came over to measure. He's confident we can get it in his truck, that will be another post when it happens. ::crying face:: 





Love my dates with Thomas. Thursday morning coffee date before his CDO and then trips to Costco!

 

Thursday April 7th the kids' school had a STEAM family night (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math). It was fun, there were stations and we did activities together. 


 



That next weekend we spent some time working around the house. I laid some mulch... only two beds then decided that was enough and I hired out the ginormous front and side beds. 

Isaac has started baseball for the season and has practices on Saturday.


The kids helped in the yard and earned some ice cream, followed by a car wash :-P

April 10th was Palm Sunday, the kids did a little production during service, first time for that and it was so cute! 


We got the bikes out to bike to an Easter egg hunt (I'll post about that next) but it was clearly time for Thomas to graduate from the baby seat on my cargo bike. He's way over the weight limit, haha. 

One school morning Thomas ran down in this shirt and said "I'm wearing this shirt because this is where I'm going to go to school next year!" It was sweet and glad he's excited for the move. 


Thomas didn't have school Wednesday or Friday the week before Easter because of conferences. Wednesday it was so nice to have the whole day. We had a great day together, we made lemon blondies, played playdoh and games. We don't get many moments like this, so I soaked it in. 

 


April 17th marked the end of a 4 week program Kyle and I are doing (he's a week behind me) It's one of the programs I sell through my company and I love when I'm able to follow these programs full through cuz I get to see amazing results! My weight had been creeping up over the course of our two years here and had steadily been over 135, close to 140 where my comfort zone has been 130ish the prior 3-5 years. So it was def time for a reset and a refocus. And although my goal wasn't weight loss, I ate in maintenance plan, the weight loss was clearly my body ridding what it didn't need. This program focused on gut health and eliminating a handful of food groups known to disturb gut health and then slowly add back in. A week later I've added back in gluten and whey... not quite sure about dairy as it didn't sit well today but I thought I'd do fine since I handled the whey okay. Anyway, it was simple, easy to follow, not EASY because it was work not eating easter candy and staying at only 10g of added sugar or less a day, I did give up my daily coffee and switched to tea, which I find I prefer these days. Energy is better and sleeping better (except last night it was so hot here!) My clothes are fitting better, probably those ten inches I lost! You can def see from the photos the difference 9.8 pounds make. The other thing I love about these nutrition programs is that it's a LOT of food, it's more food than I eat when I'm not following a plan. It's clean, whole, real food, just like the way God intended us to nourish our body. Of course if you're reading this and interested in trying it out, reach out to me I'd love to get you set up! 

I ran out of contacts so bumped up my eye doc appointment. Also decided since it's been two decades since I've had new glasses that maybe it's time I get a new pair, lol. 

Emma is so excited when she's in my group at run club... then when I try to get a photo afterwards I get this... haha. Oh well I have really enjoyed running with them two times a week. We only have one week left of run club then our Prairie Fire 5K on May 1st. I might have to try and start at run club in Minneapolis at Kenwood. 


Isaac's baseball games have started. He's only going to make it to about half before we move, this is such a great program I'm excited he's doing it again. However the first game was Tuesday April 19th at 8 PM! Yikes that's late, we're usually getting ready for bed about that time. It was also chilly, not super cold as it was upper 50's but I was cold just sitting there. I enjoyed watching him. He was up at bat three times, made contact the middle time. He played first for 3 of the 4 innings, they won big time 21-6. 


 

In the process of organizing and packing, comes purging. We have a lot of furniture we don't want to pay to move, so we've slowly been getting rid of it. I'm listing it on FB Marketplace. Sold the table in one day, the desk in 4 hours. The grill took a little longer as well as the two dressers, but not long. The white dresser I have had for a WHILE, it's moved multiple times, I know we had it at the Georgia Ave house, so at least two big moves. The table was nice, but we weren't a fan of the grooves on top and we are wanting to get away from the black furniture and do brown at the new house. And since the new house has a TON of built-ins we no longer need dressers in the kids room. We'll keep the one in our room that Kyle made and probably put it in Isaac's room cuz he'll get the queen bed Kyle made at the new house.  


 



 


 

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