Our time here is ending

My pictures aren't in order. This is a ton of pictures from our last few days here, visiting with friends while we can. This is our last week here! We are going to miss everyone so much!

Aiden giving Joey a hug bye.^

Joey and Ryleigh are only a couple weeks apart in age.

Aiden was holding onto Kyle, so Joey took Mackenzie's hand to hold while racing. :)

Earl and Jason

Earl

Joey loved climbing this tree at Erin's house. None of our trees have limbs low enough for him.

Christina, her sister Kim, and Erin, having some yummy homemade pizza Erin made for us.

The kids during one of 2 calm moments, watching TV and eating.

This was their other calm moment--playing in one group, quietly, with no fighting!

I guess Joey and Ryleigh needed some alone time, away from the crowd.

Joey fell asleep on the car ride to our friends, the Port's house, and his fingers were in the sign for "I Love You." When I opened his door to get him out, I saw that and grabbed my camera really quick, but he loosened his fingers just a little before I took the picture. If I would have been able to take the shot 5 seconds sooner, you would have seen his hands and fingers in a very tight I Love You sign. It was so cute. One hand wrapped around his Rescue pack, and the other signing I Love You.

This was the 2nd day in a row Joey fell alseep on the couch for an afternoon nap.

Christina and Landon

Joey crying on the way to church one Sunday.

Our friends brought us over a cookie cake wishing us good luck on the move. We are really going to miss all our friends, the ones who've already moved and the ones we are leaving behind. :(

This was the first day he fell asleep watching TV--which he has never done in his entire life. In fact, if a TV is on, it's a good sign he won't go to sleep. He can't tune it out, he gets so into it, especially his favorites. I'm sooo happy he now lets himself crash sometimes to rest! It's much easier than trying to force him into a nap! Of course, it does make it hard to get him to bed at a decent hour at night...

New carpet!

I love the new vinyl. Wish I had it the whole time I lived here!

We've been working hard on our house still. I painted half of the exterior today all by myself. Earl raked and mowed and raked some more, and weedeated and raked and burned pineneedles today. We have a massive amount of pine trees in our back and side yards. Tomorrow we are going to try to get everything finished up so that me and Joey and the pets can head to Asheville, and Earl can do some final touches before he heads to school in VA. We still don't know for sure if his orders got changed to GA yet, but it looks good. Earl should find out when he reports in, or soon thereafter.

Working Weekend

Last weekend we got some great help in from Georgia, to help us fix up our house and get it ready to sell. Unfortunately, we had to give them room & board while they were here.
(he he, teasing). Some of these are out of order, but I don't feel like rearranging them tonight.

Charlie helped out in the flower bed.

Earl's mom sat around looking pretty. :)

Earl's dad kept the kids in line and held down my chair for me.

Joey and Earl did yard work ^ well, kinda.

After that hard riding around on the mower (with the blade up), Earl decided he'd slave over a hot grill for us.

They don't even pretend to be working when I pull out the camera.

Joey and Bradley tried to ride the big wheel down the slide.

On Saturday, Bradley went down for an afternoon nap and stayed out the whole night. He was bushed!

Joey taking a drink break, and Louise supervising Grover, who was cutting our new baseboards for us.

The pop up camper we rented from base for the big boys to sleep in. I've never seen one like that before. Cute.

The finished product.

I'm pretty sure Joey never ate one single substantial thing the whole time they were here. They brought him 2 buckets of Easter candy. :)

Even Bradley and Joey worked hard...hammering the garage floor.

They wave like they're in a parade or something, don't they?

Goodbye hugs. Joey cried half the day after Bradley left.

Swinging time before the family left on their long ride home.

This was Saturday. Louise and Donna heard that Earl was coming home from work, so they jumped out of their lawn chairs and grabbed Joey's toy garden tools and pretended to be hard at work. They didn't fool anybody.

Donna making Joey plant all the flowers with his new Diego gardening tools.

Staining some of the new interior doors and painting cabinet doors. And that's me, pointing at something important, I'm sure.

Thanks Louise, Donna, Chris, Charlie, Grover, Bradley, Mamaw and Grandpa for coming that long way just to work for us. We really, really appreciate it! All the work you did looks great. Thank you so much!

Stop and Smell the Flowers

Or just look at them and pretend you smell them:

We have many little lizards running around our house and yard. I found a surprise while taking pictures of flowers: a little guy watching me.

I tried to get a cool photo of a bee hovering over a flower, but I couldn't time it right.

My little lizard friend posed for me to take his picture.

Unfortunately, there are not other flower bushes in my yard that produce different color flowers, so all you get to see are the pretty pink ones. :)

Angie came up last weekend, for what was probably her last visit to our home in Jacksonville, since we are preparing to move.

She brought Kiwi back to us, and Joey was so thrilled.

He loves swinging outside when the weather's nice. I have to push him for hours at a time. I should have some pretty awesome looking arms right now from all that exercise, but I don't think he weighs enough.

When me or Earl is printing anything, Joey hears it start going and runs to sit in front of the printer, patiently waiting for the page to come out so he can get it for us.

He has been also practicing splits lately, for some odd reason.

Another of his recent quirks: he likes to wear one, and only one, red mitten. I think it may be laziness: he found one laying around somewhere one day and never took the time to try to find the match. So he just wears one. All the time.

He says he's happy to get a new house. I guess because all his friends moved away to new houses. Right now, we're in the process of getting this house ready to sell. We've already gotten all the pictures off the walls, are getting new carpet put in on Monday, packing up clothes and clutter so the house is presentable for potential buyers, touching up the paint, laying new vinyl in the main bathroom, getting new living room windows, putting on door knobs and hardware and staining the new interior doors we got to replace some of our old ones, and doing the same for the new exterior door we got for our garage/dining room door, and the list goes on and on. We're leaving here at the end of the month, Earl to school in VA, and me and Joey to Asheville, to give our house a chance to stay neat and presentable and hopefully sell faster.