Eli - 7 months

As every mother says, it's so hard to believe that my baby is 7 months old already.  Just in the last two months, he has started to develop such a personality.  He's still a pretty chill baby and will usually sit and play or just watch what is around him unless he is tired, hungry, or getting teeth.

Speaking of teething, he has had such a hard time with these top teeth.  His two bottom teeth came through relatively quickly, but he has been battling with these top ones for over a month.  One finally broke through last week but the other one is still bothering him.  Poor baby.  

He is definitely on the move now.  He does this move that we call the froggy where he gets up on all fours but can't quite figure out how to move his arms and legs at the same time to move forward.  That doesn't really stop him at this point though as he can roll/scoot wherever he wants to go.  He so badly wants to pull himself up and will insist on standing (holding my hands) when we are playing. Caleb didn't walk until right around a year but I'm wondering if this little guy is going to be on the move much, much earlier.

                                         

He's made some pretty big advancements in sleeping since my last update 2 months ago.  He has started sleeping through the night pretty regularly and when he does wake, usually if Josh goes in there he will go right back to sleep.  If I come near him though?  He decides he is actually ravenous and MUST eat.  

He's wearing 6 and 9 month summer clothes right now.  There is no way a 6 month sleeper would fit because he has pretty long legs like his Momma, but 6 month summer clothes are just right.  It wouldn't surprise me though in the fall if we have to bring out the 12 month pants.

He babbles like there is no tomorrow and he and Caleb have developed a really special bond.  He will just sit and watch as Caleb talks to him, hands him toys, kisses on him, and tries to follow him around the room.  It is so sweet for my Mommy heart to watch.  

Back to that personality though.  When he is unhappy enough that he wants me to know it, he squeezes his eyes shut and screams like the picture below.  It is so, so funny to watch.  There are no tears, he just wants me to know that he wanted that toy that Caleb has, or he thinks he might still be hungry, or he doesn't feel like he has my undivided attention.  It just cracks me up.

 

  

He's still nursing great and has started solids.  We've had homemade squash, sweet potatoes, peas, pears, peaches, plums, bananas, and applesauce so far.  He does really well with everything but the peas (which I do not blame him at all).

Overall, he's a sweet, carefree, and fun baby and we are so blessed.  He gets cuter everyday and I can't wait to see him grow.

Weekends

Happy Monday!  Is there such a thing?  It doesn't seem like it in my house.  Mondays blow, no matter how you slice it.  As I would imagine everybody feels, weekends go way too fast.  There is never enough time to do everything we plan and I always stay up way too late on Sundays trying to prolong the inevitable.  It's a serious problem.

Our typical weekend involves trying to catch up on house work, playing with the boys, and sometimes visiting our families.  The past few weekends have been focused on the move and we have barely been home. This weekend we actually were able to focus on unpacking... finally.

Saturday morning, we grabbed our coffee and headed to Lowe's to pick up some things that we wanted to work on for the house.  Both our walk-in closet in our master bedroom and our linen closet in the bathroom, have oddly placed shelving.  For example, in the entire floor to ceiling linen closet there are only 3 shelves spaced very far apart.  So you either have to put hardly anything in it, or stack up your towels and sheets so tall that it looks messy and haphazard (in my opinion).  Same thing with our closet.  We wanted to move the existing shelving closer together and add more shelving to make it usable, plus add more hanging space.  Holy cow, the price of shelving adds up!  I also got a bunch of baskets/containers for more kitchen organization.  I'm thinking the Lowe's trips on Saturday mornings is going to be a very common occurrence over the next few months as we update the house.

We played with the boys for awhile and while they napped, I actually napped too.  (Shock, gasp! I know!)  We've been getting to bed so late every night, trying to do some unpacking that I was/am just exhausted.   We headed to Church Saturday evening and grilled burgers for dinner.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early and headed to the grocery store.  I love getting there early in general to get it out of the way, but I also love getting there early because usually the special kid carts with the car attached are available and Caleb is overjoyed to be at the grocery store.  As anyone with a 2 year old knows, that is more than worth it.

We spent the morning outside playing while Josh mowed the lawn and trimmed some of the trees.  We realized that along with work inside the house we have to do, we also have a lot to do outside.  The front porch needs some paint along with the door and trim.  The trees, bushes, and plants are totally overgrown and really need to be cut back.  In fact, we probably will remove a lot of the plants.  Some of them have grown over the edge of the sidewalk and get walked on everyday.  It just looks messy and I hate it.  Seems like not a lot of maintenance has been done over the last ten years.  The house is in great condition but it is in desperate need of some simple maintenance.

The rest of our Sunday was spent installing shelving unpacking boxes, and playing at the park.  I'm proud to say that we have made a dent but still have a long way to go.  I hope in the next few days we will have enough boxes unpacked that we can at least park our car in the garage, crazy thought isn't it? I mean who actually parks their car in the garage? 

All in all, a successful weekend.  Too short though.  They are always way too short.

We're in

The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of crazy and Josh and I are pretty much walking zombies at this point.  Stumbling over boxes as we walk around with our eyes closed.  We're in the new house and 'in' is sort of a relative term at this point because almost everything we own is still in boxes in the garage.  Most of the furniture is inside now and beds are set up (finally!) but drawers and cabinets are still empty. 

Why you ask since we have been technically living there for 4 days already?  I'll give you three reasons.  One, I have two children under 3 which leaves me with approximately 60 minutes with which to spend unpacking each day.  Two, we only took 3 days off work for this, 1.5 of which were spent physically moving boxes.  And last but not least, I did not realize that when we moved in the house was going to be a GROSS, DISGUSTING MESS which would require me spending countless hours to first, clean and disinfect before I put anything of mine into this place. 

Let me start by saying that our closing day was less than stress free.  In our contract, we had requested that the carpets and the house be professionally cleaned before closing day.  In the last two hours after we closed on our old house (so we were technically homeless), we found out that the carpets had indeed been cleaned but the old owners had refused to pay the bill.  Technically, that means that there was a 'lean' on the property and we couldn't close unless we wanted to be responsible for the bill.  Also, the wrong legal description of the property had been submitted and they had our names wrong that also had to be corrected.  I swear, it was like Murphy's Law.  Our realtor was wonderful and worked it all out for us.  Because of all that, I didn't ask for a receipt for the professional cleaning because I was worried that it was all going to fall through.  Plus, I figured who doesn't leave their house in clean condition?  I just cleaned our old one from top to bottom, so surely they did too.  Well... that was not the case.

Tuesday morning I spent 70 minutes,  (Yes. 7-0 minutes.) cleaning out the washing machine because it was coated/caked with orange liquid fabric softener.  Built up fabric softener apparently does not come off easily and literally has to be scraped off.  Which takes forever.  That was not the half of it.  Kitchen walls were splattered with food, floors hadn't been mopped or swept, there was dust everywhere, cabinets were full of crumbs and stains, and the appliances were ick.  So that's what I did with my entire time off work and started unpacking boxes late Wednesday night.  The house is a disaster. 

Oh and one last thing before I stop bitching.  They decided to paint over marks left on the walls which I suppose was maybe nice in theory, even though I could have easily taken those things off with magic eraser.  The walls are flat white and they painted over these spots with glossy white.  So all of those areas are total eye sores.  Yes, we were going to paint anyway but not everywhere all at once.  So every time I look at the walls, I get a teensy bit more angry. 

Enough of that.  On the positive side?  I love that we have more space.  I love that we are going to be able to paint/redecorate/add touches to make it our own.  I love the neighborhood and the neighbors seem nice.  It will be great in time. 

This weekend we are headed down to my hometown for my ten-year reunion.  I'm looking forward to seeing all my friends and can't wait to catch up with everyone.  The house stuff will have to wait until Sunday. 

Making a house into a home

As we are packing and preparing to move, the thought that we have one last week in this house- our home- makes me so unbelievably sad.  Am I excited to move into our new house?  Absolutely.  I know we need the space for our growing family and our current lack thereof is driving me batty, but I can't help but feel so, so sad about leaving this one behind.  

Part of it is that this was the first house we bought.  We painted the walls, picked out the furniture, made it ours.  The other part of it is that this is where we brought my babies home to.  This is the only house they know and it makes me feel terrible to move them out of it.  I worry about Caleb, who is so fueled by routine and has a hard-time with change (just like his momma).  I worry he is going to be sad about leaving, confused about where his stuff is going, ask to go back to the old house.  I'm not worried about Eli, he's pretty go with the flow at this point. 

Some people may think we are silly to move right now.  This house is in a similar price range to our current one.  We are basically trading a brand-newish house for a slightly older house (2002- not super old) to have more space.  I would have loved to move into our 'forever house' at this point but we just aren't in that place with me part-time which is okay.  The bones of this house are good, some of the trim/colors are not our style.  We plan to paint, replace fixtures, replace some flooring, do some updating, typical stuff to make it ours.  

When we moved in to our current house, we also wanted to paint and decorate but for some reason did so without really any sense of urgency.  We slowly painted a couple weekends here and there, and truthfully never fully finished our master bedroom the way I would have liked to.  Maybe it was because I knew we wouldn't stay very long, or maybe it was that two pregnancies and two babies took up most of my time.  This time however, there is that sense of urgency which I hope sticks with us.  Painting always sounds like such a fun project until you are in it, doesn't it?

So as I think about all this moving stuff, I have to be careful in my mind what terminology I use.  Am I moving my babies to a new house?  Yes.  But their home isn't changing. I look forward to making this new house our home.  As fast as is humanly possible. 

The best four years...

Today is our 4 year wedding anniversary.  If you had told me on our wedding day what the next four years were going to look like, I would have laughed in your face.  Never had I imagined we would have two babies already; let alone different jobs, homes, etc.  These last four years have been the best of my life.  Thanks to this guy....

 

No seriously.  He's a wonderful husband, beyond wonderful at the whole dad thing, and just a great person.  He balances my crazy which is not an easy task.  We were together almost 5 years before getting married and will celebrate 9 years together this fall.  We met in college, in a public speaking class in fact, and were paired together for a group presentation by the professor.  The rest as they say, is history.

                                            


It's only been four years and I'm not going to pretend to have loads of experience in the marriage department but for us?  That time at the end of the day when both boys are asleep and we sometimes have 30 minutes, or an hour, or (when we are really lucky) two hours alone together?  That's when we reconnect.  We snuggle up on the couch, catch up on our DVR, and chat about adult stuff.  Often we are accompanied by a sweet treat or an adult beverage and it's what keeps us sane.  I hope we never lose that time together or somehow find ourselves too busy to find it. 


                                   


We have an annual tradition where we order a small cake from the bakery who made our wedding cake and have them fill and decorate it the same as our wedding cake (except it says Happy __ Anniversary).  Vanilla cake, buttercream frosting, raspberry filling.  It is AMAZING.  Here's to many, many more cakes and years together. 

Happy Anniversary honey.  Can't wait to see what lies ahead.  It's you and me against the world. 


                             

Caleb Update

I wasn't going to say the cliché thing about how time goes so fast...  blah, blah, blah...but seriously, it does.  I cannot believe that I have a two and half year old.  Caleb is SO full of energy, opinions, giggles, and brings joy to every day.  I've obviously never had a 2 year old before, but from what I have gathered from others he is way ahead in the language department.  He talks SO much and I am amazed at all the new things he learns how to say daily.  He's always listening and repeating so Josh and I have to be so careful with the things we talk about and the *cough* language we use.

 

 

The things he comes up with sometimes are so funny (truthfully probably more funny to us than anyone else.. sort of a 'had to be there' type of thing) and I wonder where he possibly came up with it. We've had a bunch of birthdays in the family recently and he now loves to run around randomly and shout 'Happy Birthday!!!' at us.  Sometimes when he wakes up early in the morning on the weekends, we let him watch his favorite tv show.  He'll walk over to me with the biggest smile and whisper in my ear, 'Watch Tiger Mommy?  Pleeassee?' It's so cute that I seriously can't say no. 


                                    

He's so full of spunk and sure knows how to turn on the charm.  For the most part, he will talk to new people he meets and flashes that adorable smile.  He is such a chatterbox and will talk on and on in the backseat about anything and everything.  He loves his little brother so much. We have to watch closely because his nice kisses and hugs are not always as gentle as Eli needs.  He always means well though.


                                             


He's a great eater and most of the time will try new things with some coaxing.  He had an allergic reaction to strawberries at 18 months and we still have stayed away from trying them again until he is a bit older.  Other than that, we haven't noticed any allergies to anything yet.  Josh has a major egg allergy so we have always been careful with those, but Caleb doesn't even like eggs so we haven't had an opportunity to see if he is allergic too.

Let's face it though, he is two and with that of course comes his share of meltdowns and 'differences of opinion'.  We're lucky in that he doesn't really get frustrated because he can't communicate what he wants, we almost always can understand what he is saying, but more so because he prefers his choice over mine.  There are days when he doesn't want to put on his clothes, doesn't want to go to daycare, doesn't want to take a bath/get out of the bath/eat dinner/go to bed, the list goes on and on.  Then there are days when he is an absolute angel which I guess balances those out. 

Overall, he is a happy, healthy, sweet, energetic two year old and honestly, I couldn't ask for anything more.  We are pretty lucky.

Catchin' Up

Happy July everyone!  Where did June go? This is going to be a catch up post on my life right now because while I feel like so much has happened, it's been a whirlwind that I'm only just beginning to process.  I haven't written much lately, honestly because I was afraid if I wrote it down then everything would fall through.  It still may unfortunately but I'm going to take a page from my husband's play book and have a positive outlook. 

As of today, I am now part-time at work and off at 12:30 everyday.  Like anything, I think this is going to take some getting used to - in a good way.  I am very much a routine oriented person and change kind of throws me off for awhile.  I knew the change in routine was going to be hard on Caleb too (he is very much like me in that way, poor kiddo) and that was certainly evident in the difficulty of nap time today.  I figure it will take a week or two for us all to get used to the new schedule and then hopefully we will have more success with nap and more time to have fun. 

Again, as of today, we have accepted an offer on our house and had another accepted on one we want to buy.  The inspections have been done, but no remedy requests have been submitted and as we have come to know anything can still fall through.  I hate that about real estate.  On several occasions, our realtor has said to me "Sometimes in real estate, you just have to take risks" which I completely understand.  However, that is so NOT me and that is definitely not me with two children to worry about.  We had another offer earlier in the month fall through which is probably another reason why I am just so worried about it happening again.  The people who made an offer on our house, also are selling theirs and need to close on the 22nd of this month.  We had only 31 days from the time they made their offer until closing and it has been a whirlwind.  Banks in general, prefer to have a longer time to get the loans together which made this whole situation very tricky as well as the inspections, etc.

Because we now have exactly 3 weeks until we close, we have no choice but to start packing, reserve the U-Haul, and make moving arrangements even though the remedy requests haven't been submitted and all contingencies have not been dropped.  Not the way I would choose for things to go but unfortunately, it is the reality we are faced with.  Keeping my fingers, toes, and everything else crossed and praying for the best.

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