We Made It!

We are here!!! We got to Adel three weeks ago. We drove straight to the house, not even stopping to get John's things from the hotel. We were too excited to get in and let the kids run around the house. Well, I take that back. We did not drive straight to the house, we drove straight to the school administrative offices to register Breanna for school. If we didn't get a few papers filled out and signed before 4:30, she wouldn't be able to start until later the next week. We got there at 3 or 3:30...I can't remember now. THEN we drove straight to the house (two minute drive from the school).

Yes, Adel is very small--population around 7,800. There is one very small, very expensive grocery store, one hardware store, one gym, three gas stations, a Subway restaurant, and two pizza places (one if which is in a gas station). There are more businesses, and all the county offices are in Adel, but I don't really want to list them all. Those businesses basically cover two blocks. We are lucky to have a library too!

The grocery store that we have deemed best to shop at is 15 minutes away. The Walmart is 25 minutes away, but it is next to the Lowe's, Costco, and mall with accompanying strip shop stores. So, when we plan to go shop, we make sure we plan to do everything that we need to do at all the major stores. We have done this every weekend so far. I need to learn how to shop for a month, and not just a week at a time.

Breanna loves loves loves living here. She jumped right in to school with no problem. She made friends with no problem. She is very happy. She has three friends that live very near us. One next door, one across the street and two houses down, and one on the corner on the next street over.

Brett has adopted Breanna's friends as well. He just had a birthday last week. The first thing he said that morning was, "Do I get to go to school today?" He was so excited to turn five and be school age. I felt so bad to have to tell him he has to wait until next school year. He got over it, but he is having a hard time being in new situation and not having his big sister around all the time.

Kaylee is still her happy go lucky self. She really likes their new play room. I do as well. The house has four bedrooms, a living room, family room, and a one room finished basement. Oh ya, and it has two bathrooms (no master though) and a tiny kitchen. It's been quite the challenge to fit all our stuff in this house. We put the three older kids together in one room, Lincoln in the smallest room with all his baby furniture, and then made the downstairs bedroom an office/guest room. The good thing is that we put all the toys in the basement and made that a play room. We put a small T.V. on the wall down there, along with a DVD player for their movies. There is also a laundry space in the basement and plenty of space behind the play room for storage. We are going to use that space for food storage and to keep the kitchen things that don't fit in the kitchen.

Our LDS church ward here is great. Our ward boundaries are huge, and yet the ward is only about the same size as our Bedford ward. John is the ward mission leader, and I don't have a calling yet. (I'm sure that will be remedied soon though.) Only one other family in the ward lives in Adel, and they live down the street. They have three kids, all the same ages as our younger three kids. We haven't been able to get together yet, but we are still busy getting settled in here.

We are getting a new roof next week, and plan to get all new carpet very soon thereafter, but after that, we are very happy with this house. We are very happy here.

Brett's birthday cake

Backyard

Laundry

Playroom

Master

Upstairs bathroom

Living room

Family room

Downstairs bathroom

It was hard to get good pictures of anything, but especially the kitchen and bedrooms. If you want to see them, come visit us!!!

SOLD!

We made some more changes to the house (mainly new carpet), and within four days of being re-listed, we had an offer. It was such a great Christmas present. Unfortunately, the lady buying the house got too overwhelmed with what was found at the inspection, and she backed out. We don't know exactly what was said in that inspection, but we think that the inspector thought we had termites...which we did have three years ago. We had them treated and a protection plan in place, but failed to fix the damaged areas in the closets. SO, my dad was good enough to spend two days at my house patching my walls. They look good as new now. Good thing, too...we got another offer the day after the project was finished. This time, the contract stuck. Everything has been gone fairly smooth, and now we are just 12 days from closing!

Before

After

Before

After

During that chaos, we have also been dealing with an offer of our own on a house in Adel, Iowa. The time that John has had in Iowa by himself has allowed (or forced, depending on how you look at it) him to really get to know the area and choose the best place for us to live. I had also researched Adel before he even discovered it. I was up there three weekends ago house hunting with him. We already had an idea of what house we wanted, but we needed to see it together and really get a feel for things together. We went under contract that weekend, and although we have had a lot of stress getting our information all together for the new mortgage, everything has run pretty smoothly with that as well. We are only 12 days from closing on that home as well!

Adel house

Luckily, John's company has really been kind to us and will be paying for full service movers. I theoretically don't have to lift a finger. I will be going through the house over the next week to clean things out, organize, and pack up the things we will be taking with us in the car. We will have to live in a hotel for a few days...the moving truck may not show up for anywhere from 2-5 days after we get there. I'm going to try to take as many things as I can to try to live in the house, even without all our stuff, but we'll see.

The kids are really excited. I know Breanna says she is excited, but I think she either isn't saying she's a little sad, or she doesn't quite understand the dramatic change this will bring. She says she understands that she will be changing schools and getting new friends, but she still talks about playing with her best friend, Wyatt. I am hoping to make this as fun and smooth a transition as possible for all the kids.

Now, we are just spending as much time with my family as possible, and we are looking forward to not having to be separated from John anymore. Eight months is long enough.

Keep Your Fingers Crossed

The kids are growing up fast. It's amazing how quickly babies grow and develop. But, I guess when you think about how fast they become babies during pregnancy, it's not that big of a surprise.

Lincoln is now 6 1/2 months old. He is sleeping through the night now, thank goodness. And as you can see, he is sitting up all on his own now. He loves to play with toys on the floor, as long as someone is nearby. I think he is going through a little separation anxiety.

Since it's been a few months since I last posted, I thought I would just post some pictures from those lost months.

This one is of Lincoln hanging out in the mother's room at church. I think I had just changed his diaper or something, but he's seems to be happy.

John gets to come home about every six weeks to see us. Lincoln is not too sure about daddy when he comes home, but I think it gets better every time. This was over Thanksgiving, but we do get to see John again for Christmas.

Before Lincoln could sit on his own, we discovered that he really didn't like to lay down to play on his back too much. One day, I was over at my brother's house, and they put their little one in a bumbo. (Their little one is just six weeks younger than Lincoln). I thought that was the greatest thing, so I asked Karie where she got hers, and I went out immediately to get my own. Thank you Kid to Kid.

Elise has been a great help to me over these crazy months. She helped me take the kids to the ward Christmas party. Please note Kaylee in her "Princesses" nightgown. She refused to put on a costume because she is obsessed with wearing her "Princesses".

Elise also gets along with Lincoln quite well. I have quite a few pictures of her and Lincoln looking at each other.

This is just a random picture.

This is something the kids did during the summer to keep busy. It was so hot, they couldn't go out to play. Luckily they found this big box to make a concessions stand. It provided many hours of entertainment.

Our lives are crazy and turned upside down, but we are making it through. We hope to have the house sold soon so we don't have to be separated for much longer. In the meantime, we are having fun with my family here, especially now that James just got home from his mission. We are having a little more work done to try to get more interest on the house, and we will be up and running again in MLS in a couple of days. Keep your fingers crossed.

So Many Changes

I guess I should start with the new baby. How is it that I have forgotten to post pictures of him in the last eight weeks?! He is totally adorable. He was 6 lbs. 4.5 oz. and 19 3/4 in long. Now he's 10 lbs. Here he is--

Lincoln Willem Van Horn

Newborn

2 Weeks

2 weeks

1 month

6 weeks

Now he's smiling and content for longer periods of time. His siblings adore him.

The other crazy stuff going on in our lives started the day Lincoln was born. That same afternoon, John got a phone call about a job that we have been waiting for since February. He applied for the job in January, and went through the whole interviewing process over about three weeks time, only to find that they needed to wait three months before they could hire him. We weren't sure they would actually stick to that, and so our hopes had diminished quite a bit by this time. But, the offer became official three weeks after Lincoln was born and we immediately started preparing for our move to Iowa.

Those preparations meant working on the house to get it ready to sell. We knew we had to do something with our kitchen since we destroyed it and never built it back up. It's more like we started a bunch of projects that never got finished. With the help of my mom and her mad painting skills, my dad and his wood working (plus so much more) skills, and of course the help of several professionals (for texturing, countertops, and tile floors), we got the house and kitchen looking beautiful in just three weeks.

Floors all torn up

New tile

New granite counter tops, tile, and bead board

Dinette area

John has already moved to Iowa to start his job. He has been gone for one week now. We already miss him lots, but we are doing all we can to sell our house so that we can move up there with him and save him from his cracker box living situation.

photo update

Here is the latest photo update on me--don't mind my face, I was feeling quite sick that day.

Only two weeks left!!!

Upon Request

My brother has requested that I share photos of me now that I am about eight months pregnant. But not only do I have a picture of me now, I also have pictures of me with all my previous pregnancies at about the same time. It is quite amazing how huge I can get. I think this time around, I have been a little smaller and been able to keep the extra weight off everything but the midsection. Let's take a look...

Here I am at nine months with Breanna

Here I am at eight months with Brett

Here I am at nine months with Kaylee

Here I am today at eight months with Lincoln

Do you see a difference? I sure do. Yikes for the first three. I should post all sorts of comparison pictures, but I thought this would be good enough. So Sean, there you go. Request granted.

Dining Re-paint

I must be going crazy. I need to keep busy, and one of the things that is fairly easy and cheap to do in our house is paint. So, the past two weeks I had my mom help me attack our dining room. It never was fully finished, so we took a total of 5 days to get the job done. Here is what our dining room has gone through in the last almost 3 years.

This is what our dining room was when we first moved in. We used it as a living room for short time.

Then we thought we would go bold by actually using it as a dining room, and painting it red.

Notice at the very top of the ceiling, the molding is still yellow. We never painted the floor boards either.

Almost 2 1/2 years later, I got out white painted and slopped it all over that red paint.

Plus I finally painted the top crown molding.

We decided to make the room a little more sophisticated.

And we're finished. Well, I still have to re-caulk the windows, and put up the curtains, but that's nothing compared to all the scraping, priming, and painting we did. Thank you mom for all the help!

I'm very proud of this dining room. It needs new carpet, but that will have to come later. Now on to Brett's room!