If these walls could talk

As I sit here tonight, I am surrounded by boxes packed full with our stuff.  In my bedroom there are a few boxes at the very place where the bassinet used to be.  There is a box in the place where the small rocking chair used to be.  My babies Paul and Benjamin where brought home to this house and they laid in the bassinet that was right next to my side of the bed and next to that was the rocking chair.  Those were sweet days with my newborns.

How many times have I walked up and down that hallway during all hours of the day and night, heck in just one month's time let alone four years? Too many to count.

I arrived at this house on July 1, 2008.  Sight unseen.  In April 2008 Tim flew from Phx to Knox, picked out this house for us and bought it.  He came back to me in Phoenix with lots of pictures, but I don't remember seeing them.  Then in June, he left Phoenix for Knoxville and moved in with our stuff while I stayed in Phoenix for a few extra weeks.  I flew out to Knoxville with (at that time) our only children and my mother.  Tim picked us up at the airport and drove us here to where I am now.

I wish I could describe what was going on in my head when we drove down the street that lead me to the place I was to call home.  I was excited, apprehensive, nervous, curious.  But mostly, I was just going.  I knew that I was going to be okay.  I trusted Tim and I knew he was going to get something that we both liked.  So we drive up to the house and there it is..

JUST KIDDING!!!!

This is the best picture I could come up with.  We have better pictures, but they are on the desktop computer downstairs and I am using the laptop upstairs.

The house is banana pudding yellow and I could not have picked out a better place for us.  God most certainly had this house in mind for us when He brought us to Knoxville.

Here are some memories that come to mind...
Dinners on the deck, slip n slide in the yard, chatting in the yard with neighbors, seeing 'welcome baby Paul' and 'welcome baby Benjamin' signs on the front door, parties in the backyard, Eric and Amy learning to ride a two-wheel bike in the church parking lot, picking apples...

Oh that list can go on and on and on.  I am sad with this move, because although we are staying in town and our new home is only about 15 minutes away, I feel as though I am watching a close loved one die.  I guess I feel like that if I leave then house, then I will loose all of the precious memories made here.  These memories are of my children during the early years of thier lives.

I suppose it really doesn't matter what kind of shelter one has to house a family.  It's the family inside the shelter that matter.

That being said, I will hang on to the memories and bid farewell to the house.  Stay tuned for more tales from a new lane on 'Tales from Lavendar Lane'

The cute things they say

Loving these little years!!!  I love it this time.  I really do.  I want to savor these moments and tuck these memories into my mind so as never to be forgotten.  My children are just so precious and I am crazy about them.

They have been saying the cutest things lately and so here I am blogging about them to share with the world wide web.

Eric - "Hey Mom, when are we going to get and SURV?  We can put lots of stuff in it and go camping."
Me - "Don't you mean an SUV?"
Eric - "No Mom an SURV.  Like Eli and Austin have"
(These little boys come from a family that own a fifth wheel RV and thus take it on their family campouts)

Eric - "MOM!!!!!!! Paul is fast forwarding it backwards!" (translation: Paul was touching the rewind button on the DVD player)

Amy - "We have to wash our hair tonight because we went swimming in the pool and so we have to get all of the caffeine out"

Paul - (might I just say that Paul wins hands down for the cutest sayings.  Maybe because he is 3 or maybe because he is just super cute)
"Mommy, I want to be on the 'ready-watch-the-gate' team" (he says this while watching the Olympics)
"I winned.  You lose."
"Theres Yoba in yours phone" (explanation: I have a ringtone that is actually Yoda saying 'do or do not there is no try')
"Bye!  I'm going to college now.  I love you.  I'll call you when I'm at college"
Singing to the tune of Davy Crockett "Baby, baby crockett, king of the wild kratts tear"

Benjamin - "Dadadadadada"

As I sit here in my living room I look around and there are toys, shoes, pencils, clothes all over the floor.  All of this stuff has a home, but it is not in its proper place.  It is all over the counter tops and the floor.  Sigh. I suppose I should get up and clean up, but alas the motivation is not there.  Instead I am sitting, typing, reminiscing.

I just love to cradle their little faces in my hands and look deep into thier young eyes.  I am amazed that these human beings have a little bit of Tim and a little bit of me in them.

I'm going to blink and they will be in college.  And I sure do hope Paul will indeed call me!