Part IV: Life resumes with summer fun and chaos and all that jazz.

And now life resumes as usual although this summer, nothing feels typical.  I still feel a little out of sorts.  I'm sure we'll find our new groove in the next little while, just in time for school to start in five and a half weeks!!  In the meantime we will keep playing with cousins and watching copious amounts of TV interspersed with craft days and reading days and lots of outings when its not a torrential downpour.
We love summertime.  Here's to the last five weeks!

Part III: A new home, and a new little boy.

OK, let's forget about the new digs for a while and just focus on the fact that my baby boy turned 1.  Because it happened just a couple of weeks after moving in, the documentation has gotten a little buried under other things.  But you only turn 1 once!! and he is way cuter than any pictures of our house, so here I go.

My goal was to have our home set up and comfortable enough by his birthday to host the Sunday family dinner that week.  I have moved way too many times to let moving in and feeling settled take forever.  I just can't stand it so I have adopted a few strategies and tricks for getting settled fast - one of them is just being a little stressed and sleep deprived.  The others include unpacking boxes and getting those boxes out out out.  At a certain point though you just have to stop with the boxes, get the stuff into it's place, put the other boxes aside and hang some pictures and curtains.  Those curtains can make all the difference.  We have had fun customizing our home in a way that we haven't been able to in the rentals along the way and it is feeling like ours.  We love it.
But back to the not-so-baby boy.  The family joined us for dinner, a little present opening and a little cake.  The boy, who is quite accustomed to lots of people clapping and cheering for him spontaneously on a regular basis, quite liked it.  (Remind me to teach Haley how to sit more "lady like" while wearing a skirt.)

Poor little guy goes to bed so early that by then end of dinner he was done but we made him open presents and then get back in his high chair again for cake.  He took care of that thing in 5 minutes flat and we had him off to bath and bed.

 He didn't care what was underneath and spent most of his time devouring the frosting by the fistful.

Clark finally cut it open so he could dig in further, and that's when the older kids descended with their forks.  He didn't seem to mind all that much - he would spontaneously break into tears but we weren't sure if it was more from the vultures eating his birthday cake or him being overly tired.  But he made it to the end and attacked it with a satisfying amount of enthusiasm.

This boy is truly a joy to everyone in the family.  The have loved him from the moment they met him.

The feeling appears to be mutual.

He got his very own little backpack for his birthday.  I love this little face and that wide mouthed smile that is pretty much his reaction to everything.
He started taking a step here and there leading up to his birthday and just two weeks ago decided that walking was the way to go - hasn't crawled since.  I also need to note that he went from crawling to running.  He is still as wobbly as a new walker, but goes at a speed unparalleled to my other babies.  Just a month ago Jonah was still a fairly calm, sweet, still baby that loved sitting on laps and being quiet.  Overnight he has morphed into the loud, fast, busy little boy that everyone warned me he would become.  I'm glad I have four other people at home with me during the day right now to keep up with him.

I know he could hardly care a bit but I wanted his birthday to be kind of fun, so we did what we do almost every other day, and went to the pool.  Jonah really prefers the mulch to the water but at least we felt like we were doing something kind of special.

I wasn't organized enough to give this a try with any of the other kids so at least as number 5 he will have something uniquely special to his life's documentation - I give you, his monthly portrait.

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY JONAH CLARK, you sweet little thing!!!

PART II: A Move that had us in stitches. (I couldn't resist.)

I wish we could say that we kept things short and sweet by starting our good-byes the week we left but the truth of the matter is, we were saying good-bye for months! Every time we did something or went somewhere it was with a heavy hearted "this is the last time".  We really loved our time in Virginia so much and there is so much we will miss.  Heck, I was even nostalgic about leaving behind all of Hazel's little acts of naughtiness that we found on doors and closet walls all over the place.  I mean, look at how cute that little drawing is! I didn't erase them.  Maybe the next tenant will find them endearing as well.

It wasn't our dream house but it sure housed us well for the time we were there.  We loved our neighborhood and our yard.  It was a good house.

Our last day at the bus stop with our cute neighborhood friends.

Saying "Thanks" and "Good bye" to our super sweet and friendly bus driver.

And one final lunch with these gals.  I don't know about them, but I was on the verge of tears the entire time until the end when it was really time to say good bye for the very last time and all those tears just spilled out all over the place.

And if the adults lunch hadn't been emotional enough, we then had to go pick up the girls from their last day of school.  We brought cupcakes to lessen the blow of saying their goodbyes.  I'm not sure it worked.  Well, maybe a little.  They were all waiting in the kiss and ride lane with tears streaming down their faces.  It wasn't super nice of me to make them all pose for pictures but we will be glad to have them.  Bonnie Brae was a terrific school and we loved being Scottie Dogs along with some of our favorite friends!

I knew that once we got back from the beach house, life would just scream by until it was time to pull away for the last time.  But there were some noteworthy things that kept us busier still.
We survived the cicada apocalypse that happens once every 17 years.  I took pictures each day of the pile growing outside the garage.  Nasty little buggers.  Totally harmless, just crazy looking.

We dog sat for some friends.  He was large.  He was sweet.  The girls loved having him (all but the part where they had to pick up after him, if you know what I mean.  You don't? Oh, that's because he conveniently did his business every day right after they got on the bus and I got to do it.)

I had started the crazy task of going through each and every drawer and closet in the months leading up to the move, trying to unload and organize anything and everything to make the transition a little easier.  I was in disbelief the day I found this in a backpack.  How did we not have flies? Rats? or a house that smelled like rotten banana?  I count ourselves extremely lucky.
Nasty banana.

Then the movers showed up and the packing began.  It felt kinda real.

And then they pulled away with all of our stuff.  Time to say goodbye to friends, some more.

Our friend had invited anyone that wanted to say goodbye to the park and wouldn't you know, rainstorm.  It was validating to still see people trickle in and hang out getting wet and chatting.  These are good people and it sure made it memorable.

And the next day we headed out.  That was a lot of people trucking through the airport with their stuff.  It's surreal to get on a plane with a one way ticket. 

So here is where the moving gets really fun.  This was actually the end of the day that we had lunch with friends and the girls had said goodbye at school.  So a loooong day, remember?  We were at the gate waiting on a delayed plane for over an hour and a half.  It was after Jonah's bedtime.  We were tired.  Kids were on the verge of totally losing it.  So we did hair and other activities to distract them and keep them happy.

The plane FINALLY showed up to the gate and as we were gathering our things to get in line to board, Hazel fell into a stool and busted her chin open.  I knew the moment she started to cry that it was not just a bump and when I approached her and saw her bloody hand cupping her chin, I knew it was bad.  I scooped her up with only a nod at Clark and ran her to the bathroom.  Immediately I had two TSA agents in there asking how they could help.  They helped clean her up until the paramedics arrived.  Wouldn't you know, they wouldn't let us get on the plane like that?  I had one of those TSA agents running messages back and forth between me and Clark who was still at the gate trying to decide if he should get on or not.  The plane would not wait.  We couldn't get on.  So I sent him a message that said "go on without us, we will be there in the morning."

The paramedics were super nice and sweet with poor Hazel who wouldn't make eye contact with anyone.  One of the cops that was helping also went out of his way to make sure we had tickets on a flight the next morning.  We had to get there early so we wouldn't miss my sister in law, Sadie's high school graduation.  So I dialed up a friend that I had already said goodbye to and said, "remember that time we were moving?  Just kidding.  Can you come pick me up at the airport and take us to the hospital?"  She was more than obliging and I was truly grateful!  Not only did she taxi us to the hospital and wait, she also gave me a toothbrush and a new t shirt, blood free.

We made our way to the hospital where Hazel received 5 stitches - 4 on the outside and one on the inside.  Her bottom teeth had gone all the way through her chin.  Poor girl was so beside herself tired and the first attempt to numb was not successful.  She did not like it one bit but she got through it and even accepted a popsicle and made a request for ice cold water.  One nurse also had mercy on us knowing that we had missed a flight and had nothing with us but my purse and the clothes on our back so she rifled through the hospital's donation pile and found her a cute little t shirt to take with us (her little elephant shirt sadly, did not make it.)

The next morning she was in a much better mood to travel.  We made our flight and got to Houston in time to go straight to graduation.  Clark was kind enough to bring my suitcase so I could put on some deodorant and throw a dress on over my newly borrowed t shirt from my friend.

I was quite impressed with Clark's and my ability to stay so calm through this ordeal but really I had the better end of the deal.  Yes, I was up late and had to hold my child down while she screamed through stitches but Clark was also up late, on an airplane, with four children by himself, one of which was a very, very tired baby.

(She was her pleasant little self a week later when we had them removed.  I tried to do it myself but I realized that among many things that I am capable of, suture removal on my child is not one of them.)
In any case, it was kind of fun to have some one on one time with this crazy little chicken.

We arrived mostly safe and sound and headed off to the graduation where we met up with the rest of the Scharman clan.  I really do love these people.  And we were so happy to be there cheering for Sadie, the little Scharman caboose of the family, graduating from the same high school that every one her five other siblings graduated from (albeit many, many years ago.) Go bearkats!

Clark's new building.  You are looking at his office right now, that one seven floors down from the top, right in the middle. 
It's shiny.

We were reminded right away, that Houston, is, hot.  Really hot.

And we are discovering that the humidity does crazy things to people's hair...especially Clark who is finding joy in his non-military regulation hair length.

So now we are here.  And despite how hard it was to leave our last home, we are happy to be here.  This is home too.  We have so many people we love here.  We adore our cousins which is good because we are swimming in them! We are just a walk or bike ride away from most of them and glad to live near a Grandma and Grandpa that we love!

The house is leaps and bounds beyond these pictures that I took the week we moved in. There is a lot we still want to do but it is ours.  In our 13 years of marriage I have only been able to say that once before.  We feel settled and happy.  I love our home.  It will be a work in progress for a little while but it is wonderful and we are grateful for it.