last few days

We are counting the days (2 days to be exact) untill we move from our house! There is abundant stress in the air! And some sadness too, at least from me. It is interesting to see how your feelings about places change as the situation changes. Neil chose the house we are about to leave and moved into it before I even saw it! We have always viewed it as a temporary residence and were actually really ready to sell it! Now as we remove our things and go through all of the "last time to's" in the house, I am getting kind of sad! Tonight was the last bath for the boys in the house. Stupid to be sad about I know, but for some reason it was! On a funny/ironic note, I had saved some of Mitchell's bath color-fizzy things for the tub and was going to let him use them all up tonight. Well, he got in trouble for disobeying while in the bath and we had to get out with out playing tonight! I had to fight the urge to rub it in and tell him about the bath coloring and how this is our last bath in the house etc. He was already crying so I just left him to his own saddness! I think I feel sad because it is the 1st house that we began raising our family in! It is small, it leaks, it has bugs, it is by a noisy street, almost every inch of the floors squeak, it smells musty when it rains, the back yard is just a large hill good for good looks only, but for some reason I am sad about leaving it today!
It has also been challenging telling a 3 year old about moving. It sounds pretty terrible to say we are putting all of our stuff in a big yellow truck and daddy is driving it to Oklahoma! Mitchell had a few break downs when we started packing his toys a few weeks ago. He said, "But I don't want my toys to go to Oklahoma. I want them to stay here in our Alabama house!" Then I had to say, "But we are not going to stay in the Alabama house anymore." Oh, there is no telling what he was thinking. To add to the drama, Mark has been sick for over a week. 1st he had a stomach virus and I was cleaning out leaky diapers and clothes. Then he got a fever virus. He actually acts better with the fever, but he is still pretty high maintenence. The doctor says it should run about 3 days, putting us at the end of it on Thrusday which is moving day! Huh! So after we move, we begin a series of residences, 4 but who's counting, over the next 3 weeks. The part I am most worried about is driving by myself with the boys the 11 hours from Alabama to Texas. The longest I have driven by myself and one child is 3 1/2 hours. Mitchell was under one year old and I drove to Keri Tindle's in Atlanta! Driving almost 3 times that with two children will be an adventure! The next big adventure after the move is living in OK with Neil in AL for a month! OH- what is God doing to us? Speaking of God, a cool thing happened with the Gees and us. Kaden's heart surgeon is moving to Birmingham. If they go to AL for his next surgery next summer we will be able to get them in touch with our "extended family" here to take care of them! It feels really good to see good things comming from our moving! We keep wondering what God wants to do with us in Edmond, and it is really encouraging to already see ways we can bless others! Pray for us as we pack and move and live as gypsies for the next 3 weeks. Pray for God to bless the loving families who have opened their homes to us!