*Start of the Madness*

Consolidating our possessions when we moved in with each other was not a difficult task.  Consolidating our possessions when we bought our first house, was not a difficult task.  Consolidating our possessions as a family of 4 getting ready to move across the country, DIFFICULT!!

We are planning on getting rid of most of our possessions~ like the couch, washer & dryer, the composter, train table, and other big plastic kid items.  We are also planning on getting rid of all the yard tools which we know we won't need~ lawn mower, blower, edger, etc.

One item, I will not allow Brent to get rid of is the large green "Love Sac" beanbag we have!  It was the ONLY piece of furniture Brent owned when I met him just under 7 years ago!  This is the only picture I could find of it semi fluffed up.  We went round and round on how to pack/transport this thing!  

Well, here you go...

We researched on-line how to move the thing!  And here you go~ we did it!  It only took about 20-30 minutes and wa-la!  We could have spent about $50 for a kit to help us get the thing to fit back into its original sac in about 15 minutes, but, instead, we invested $4 and 20-30 minutes to get the job done!  We were completely proud of ourselves!

The other boxes in this pic.... well, one of them is going with us, and the others are to be picked up by someone else!  YaY!  We are on a start to get this "Project Arizona" on it's way!

***My Countdown is on.... 31 days until we leave my lovely state of North Carolina***

*Scared and Prayer*

I've been thinking a lot about saying good bye to all my friends and family here in Charlotte~ I will be back, and I know I will be!  My entire family is here, with the exception of my little brother and his lovely wife!  I have tried to spend more time with Sy's playgroup buddies. Their mom's have become some of my closest friends.  I'm not good at long distance relationships!  Friendships in this matter!  I'm scared because I don't want to know they are still getting together for play dates & MNO's without me!  I'm scared because I found them (or did they find me) when I needed them most~ as a new mom with no local friends with babies the same age as mine!  I'm scared I won't find other buddies & mommies who will fill their shoes and have hearts of gold like they do!   I am scared for Sylas!!  Scared for him being confused!  He has had such a BIG year (well, I had a big year too!!)!  I quite my job, I had a baby, and we are MOVING across the country!  When I quite my job back in April, he was great for a couple weeks but then started asking to go to my office, started asking for his teachers BY NAME, started asking for his buddies at school BY NAME!  It has been almost 4 months since then, and he still asks about them BY NAME!  He had a baby brother come into his life and ruffle up his parade!  He was the center of our lives, and always had our attention 100% of the time.  Now, we are packing up EVERYTHING he has EVER known into boxes which he/we might not see for the next 4 or 5 months, and live in an RV!!

Yes, an RV!!  Who does that??  Stereotype: old retired people!  Are we really going to live amongst older retired people??  Will we really be the youngest people in the RV Resort??

I am so scared, i don't have clear thoughts in my head about this adventure!  The only thing that is clear to me, is that I made a promise to God, to Brent, to myself, and all of my family & friends almost 5 years ago!  I will support my husband in his decision to love and support me & our 2 boys.  I trust he will will take care of us and keep us safe.  I trust we will make wise decisions for our family and make this next chapter of our lives something great that everyone will wish they had!  Please pray for me and my family in this adventure!  Pray for my heart that it will stay strong and will continue to trust in God.  Pray for my head that the thoughts will stay strong and positive.  Pray for me mentally and physically.  Pray for me, that I will get out and met new friends with children the ages of mine!  Pray for my marriage, that we will grow stronger and closer.  Pray for my children, that they will adjust well.  Pray for my family & friends here in Charlotte~ I will miss them all terribly!

I love that my husband recognizes this is not going to be easy for me to do!

   

*Addition and Adventure*

Well, I've been waiting to make this post for when i had the time.  But, I have now realized, I may NEVER have the time!  So, here we go!

In April, we were blessed with the birth of a healthy (so far) little boy, which we named Turner Alexander!  This was truly a surprise as we didn't find out the sex of our baby before he was born!  Our first child was a boy, and since this pregnancy was 110% different than the first, we just KNEW we were having a girl!  However, right after birth, the doctor plopped the baby up on my belly for my husband and I to see the sex of the child, and we were COMPLETELY SHOCKED!!  Even tho I thought we wanted a girl so bad, we are totally in love and would not want anything different at all!!  I just have to prepare myself to lose every battle to my 3 boys!

Turner Alexander was born on Friday April 27th at 2:47pm weighing in at 7lbs 15oz!!!


Next on my list... is *Adventure*!!!  Yep, this *Adventure* is NOT FaceBook material yet, but I have to talk about it somewhere, or I will go NUTS!!  We recently put our house on the market, with hopes to move out west around the first of September!  If our house doesn't sell before we move, then we will just rent it (i guess).  We will be headed out to the Phoenix, Arizona area.  And this will be our home for the first few months we are there!

Not the house, the RV!  That house was the first house Brent and I lived in when we got married!  The RV, well, it's belongs to Brent's parents, and they are generous enough to allow us to borrow it for a bit when we get to AZ!  We just need to figure out what part of AZ we want to live!  If you have any suggestions of where about's to live in AZ, please let me know! 

Some people have expressed their concern about living in an RV for a bit with 2 little ones (2.5 yrs and 12 wks; as of now).  My response: Everyone A lot of people dream about traveling around the country in an RV.  Well, I have never dreamed about doing it, until now!  I am fairly excited about this adventure, but not excited about moving away from my parents and the family I grew up with!  I am excited about packing up our "American Dream" and living in an RV for a bit, and realizing I CAN LIVE without all these "things" in my life!

With all this being said, It means I will have something to blog about!  I will just have to learn and figure out what how to blog from my phone.  Stay Tuned for more about the "Buntyn Adventures"!!!

*One of My Most Favorite Family Outtings*

Jimmy Buffett 2012

Earlier this year my awesome parents took 2 of my siblings, myself, and all of our spouses to a Jimmy  Buffett concert!!

I do believe this was one of the first times, I have had a blast with this girl!!  This would be my older brothers wife.  I just *love* her!!  (I couldn't say that 15 years ago)


We made our way over to the amphitheater and did a little hanging out in the parking lot.  I'm sad this was the only picture I took, but if you have never been to a Buffett concert, it is just ONE HUGE PARTY!!!


Once we were inside, my camera died, so I don't have any more pictures, however, I believe we all had a great time!  I can't wait to go again!

*Field Trips*

Since I became a SAHM, we (my son and I) have decided that we will take 1 fun field trip a week!  This "1 fun field trip" is not written in stone, but is something we do together which we both enjoy, and is out side the normal weekly outings (grocery store, play dates at a friends house, the gym, T@rget, Wal-M@rt, etc).  Whether it be to the bouncy place (a place similar to M@nkey Joes), to the local farm to pick Strawberries, M@nkey Joes, an indoor play place, etc, and sometimes lunch follows our Field Trips.

Honestly, my favorite field trip we go on is to the local farm!   Right now is Strawberry season, and Sylas has completely enjoyed picking them!  We have had to work on not eating them right away and even not eating them off the ground!  Also at this farm there is a little area where they have a couple of pigs, a goat, a sheep, a donkey, and sometimes they have a couple of ducks which swim around in a wheelbarrow!! 


Another Field Trip we have enjoyed is going to the "bouncy place".  This is a picture on the right is of me going down the slide with one of our little buddies!  She wasn't so sure about going down the BIG slide herself, so I went down with her!  There were a few other mom's there with us on this field trip; but I was the one who got in and went down the slide with the kiddos!  And I have to add, this was right less than 2 weeks after having a baby!

These two pictures on the left, are of Sylas and his little cousin MA.  I use the terms "little cousin" lightly, she is only 4 months younger than him, but might be a teeny tiny bit taller than he is~ anyway, these two are going to be trouble together!  They both are little dare devils!  She is the youngest of 4 children, where as Sylas is the oldest of 2!  They

just followed each other everywhere!  The bottom picture is them actually in a bouncy thingy which is for children at least 5 years old!  There was a sign that said something to the extent of "if you can't climb in here by yourself, then you shouldn't get in here".  Well, some other completely random mom PICKED THEM UP and PUT THEM IN!!  Umm.. HELLO... can she read??  Apparently NOT!  Reason being, is that is was like an obstacle course.  I had to climb in after them to help them through a portion of it, and then came to this climb~at the top of there is a huge slide down!  It was much steeper than the slide in the above picture on the right!

Here are a couple pictures from a couple "family field trips"!!

Here are a couple pictures from a trip to the mall!

*Ever Since I Was a Little Girl*

Well, it's been a LONG TIME coming!!  Ever since I was a little girl I have dreamed of growing up and becoming a mom!  Well, I also wanted to be a teacher as well, but my life long dream was to have 6 children and raise them in the way I felt they should be raised!  My parent's always did a great job raising 4 children, and made it look so easy, so I didn't think adding 2 more to that mix would be too difficult!  Until I got to my teenage years~ I still wanted 6 children, but I was going to let my children do the things I wanted to do; when my parents wouldn't let me do them!  But, as I think back, I did A LOT when I was a teenager!  It seems like I was always with my friends~ There were only a few times I don't think my parents let me do something I wanted to do (which was probably something stupid anyway)!

Well, I grew up got older (for the most part), went to college (which took me longer than your average 4 years), got a job teaching (which was great) met a wonderful guy, and finally got married at the age of 28!  My husband and I are both hard headed and strong willed people (which usually don't go hand in hand) so we butted heads a lot on things we felt strongly about.  One of these things was, the number of children we would have!!  Over the years, I had grown to realize that having 6 children truly was out of the question for me (and us as a couple)!  My husband was adamant he wouldn't have more than 2 children!  I HATED this idea!  I was heart broken!  I tried to reason with him and say "you are a third child and I am a third child, so lets have 3!"  I thought it was only a fair idea.... don't you??  Anyway; I think I am losing that battle really fast!

After being married for a year and a few months, I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant with our first child!  Something we wanted to wait another year for, but honestly, I know God had other plans for us!  And it actually was PERFECT timing!  We had our first son, Sylas, in October of 2009!

After Sylas was born, I continued to work.  I wasn't teaching anymore, I was working at a local Gym, in their Aquatics Department.  As an employee I received 4 hours of childcare a day, so it was a "no brainer" on our part for me to continue to work.

Of course, within months of our son being born, I was ready for another child!  I always wanted my children fairly close in age.  However, i had to wait for my husband to be on board with this~ Our son was just a few months shy of turning 2 when my husband said he was ready for another child!  I was SOO EXCITED!!  We got pregnant right away (which was a blessing)!  We found out we were pregnant on my birthday in August, and we waited for several weeks before telling our family and friends.  We would add another bundle of joy to our little family towards the end of April of 2012.


After many conversations with my husband and us going back and forth on a VERY difficult decision which would affect our lives in a major way, I quit my job!  I am now officially a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM)!!!  Ever since I was a little girl I have dreamed of growing up and becoming a mom!  Now, with TONS of thanks to my wonderful husband, who works his bum off, I am very fortunate to be able to stay at home with my babies! 

This is my cleaned out office on my last day of work!  I will blog about about my last few days of work another time; now my blog will consist of posts about our lives of being at home and the fun "field trips" we do!!

*This I WILL NOT miss*

Those of you who have been pregnant know all about this little cup!  I have figured out that a pregnant person pee's in this cup at an average of 14 times in her time of being pregnant~ That is if you don't have the extra visit's because of complications, or just have to go in for some random odd reason~ It's bad enough when you are first pregnant trying to pee in this cup; but, man... once you start to get a belly, it gets to be more and more difficult!  Then, once you hit 32 weeks and you go to the doctor every two weeks, then at 36 weeks when you go every week!!  OH MY... I will speak for myself (even tho it fairly applies to everyone); I can't even see what I'm doing!  I will stop there.... eveyone knows how hard it is to pee in a little inch and a half cup when you are pushing 40 weeks pregnant!

Just to add to this peeing in a cut thing.... Since I have Gestational Diabetes (GD), I had to pee in a cup at the diabetes office as well!  So, I had to do it every week for a few weeks!  Usually, the diabetes people make you come once a week, but I was lucky enough to only have to go twice a week since I had GD last time I was pregnant. 

I counted up that I've had to pee in this little teeny tiny cup about 22 times already (between the OB and the GD).  I could possibly have 2 more times to pee in this little cup!!

As much as I *LOVE* being pregnant, I will NOT miss peeing in this little cup!!