Struggling

This week has been so hard for our little family despite the renewal of hope that we experienced over the weekend. Yesterday we lowered the price of our home again in hopes that we can get it under contract before the end of the next two weeks. If this happens then we can all go down to AZ together. The children are having a very hard time, especially Ivan. He is acting out in so many ways and I just don't know how to make things better for him. It is so hard to clean this house daily because I clean it not once, not twice but at least three times before the end of the day. I do this in order to keep it under control on the off chance that the realtor will call and say that someone wants to go through. I told myself that I was not going to do this and that I was only going to worry about it when I actually got the call but all too often people have wanted to go through last minute. I did get a call today though saying that someone, a realtor in fact, wants to go through tomorrow from 9am-10am. Instead of being very happy about this, I am a nervous wreck. I want everything to look perfect but there is just no way when you have 4 small children in the house all day. I spent the entire evening cleaning up the house and folding 5 loads of laundry to make sure that it looks the best that it can. The hardest part is that Ivan will get up at 5 am tomorrow and undo half of what I did tonight. So I have set my alarm to try to get up at the same time he does in order to play damage control. Our realtor here has been such a blessing to us. She takes care of us in so many ways. She brought by new fliers tonight and they are all in color. She also brought us an in house display of the listing complete with her card and it looks very nice. Her awesome husband who has been helping out a lot as well gave me encouraging words when they came, saying that we were going to get tons of activity this next week. There are several houses that are basically the same floor plan as ours that came on the market this week and we priced ourselves $100 cheaper than those. You would be surprised how much $100 makes in realty. It's not the actual price, it's just the way it looks on paper. Apparently it's a psychological thing. I am praying literally all day that things will be okay which in all actuality I know they will but it's still so scary. Whether Matt and I go together or weeks apart, I have people here that will help me and friends and family that I absolutely love close by. The kids and I will be taken care of. It did not calm my fears any when I went to my friends house tonight who is leaving a month earlier than we are and the moving company that is moving both our families was there. It was all very unorganized and they even tried to tell her that some of their stuff had to stay because it would not fit in the truck. I was so proud of her when she told them "tough" and that it all had to go. I just don't want to have to be dealing with all of that with my husband gone, especially because these movers did not speak English but Spanish ( I think ) and my husband is the one who is fluent in Spanish, not me. From what my friend told me it would be best if we had everything possible packed up before they came so that it would all be accounted for. Especially our dishes because they came without any bubble wrap, merely boxes and tape. Well, that is something I can do for myself. It is all so overwhelming but I just feel like if we can get down there as a family things will be okay. I am even looking forward to being in a hotel for a month because it will be a long-term hotel stay at a residence type inn. I just feel like that will give the kids and I some down time where we can spend our afternoons at the pool and just unwind. I would like to get Claire into a preschool in AZ as soon as possible but if I have to home school her for a while until we know exactly where we are going, I will just make sure that I am prepared for that. I know that the Lord is taking care of us because we have seen some real miracles in all of this. It is just hard to be going through it. One of the hardest things for me is knowing that if we all go down this month, the kids and I will not be able to say goodbye to my parents in person. They are at their cabin in Idaho and won't be home until the second week in October. That hurts because my kids are so close to my parents and Claire has already expressed concern about not seeing Grandma Jann. I guess I will just have to plan a trip back as soon as there is a break in School. We do have some great friends from across the world that are planning on coming for Christmas in AZ if at all possible. It is amazing the friends that you find in your lives that quickly become your family. I am going to have the hardest time leaving my friends here but I know that we will keep in touch because they have all been there through some of the hardest times in my life. I imagine the next few weeks will be full of a lot of tears.

This is the last family picture that was taken of us at Ivan's birthday party. It may be the last picture of us all together before we get to the new home. We will try to get another one in front of this home that has been the place that has brought us so much happiness but if not, at least we will all end up together in the end.