N’s first four letter word...

I went into N’s room to get him up from his nap this afternoon. He was so precious with his sweet little face as he rattled off every word he could think of: lights (yights), car, baby, Chevy (Cheby), fan…. He said it with such innocence and pride. I put my hands on his little face, kissed his forehead and said ‘You are sooo sweet! I’m so lucky that you are all mine…” Ugh, the dreaded word that I’ve worked so hard to guard him from. I have been saying “Mommy’s, N’s, Daddy’s” all this time so that he wouldn’t learn the word “Mine!” I said it. I did it. It’s all my fault. Almost ten minutes later D walked in the back door after running some errands. He was carrying one of N’s toys into the house from the garage and N said “Mine!” …. Uh-oh (another of N's favorites).
We’ll see what comes of this. :)

House For Sale

One thing I failed to mention in my previous post is that our current house is now for sale. It's been on the market for nine days. We've been showing the house for seven days and have had six showings in those seven days! We're excited for all of the showings we've had, but now that we're living through the process of selling a house we realize how much work it is to keep the house showing ready. Wow! That is a new full time job for me right now. The best things I've figured out are below:

1.) Do the dish washer every night,
2.) Keep a set of "show towels" in a basket for each bathroom. Only use them for showing so you dont' have to keep washing them.
3.) Keep decorative accessories in a basket behind a closed door so the baby cannot get to them.
Storing the accessories in a basket makes it easier to carry them.
4.) And finally... invest in a nice smelling diffuser for the baby's room in case he has a stinky diaper right before someone is scheduled to see the house!

If you have any friends interested in buying a three bedroom ranch please let us know.

Take care,
C

Jan 22

Things are moving pretty quickly with the house right now. About a week and a half ago the brick layers started working on the house. They started on the far right side of the house and worked their way to the left. They have most of the work done on both garages and are 3/4 of the way done on the porch. We decided to have them add some decorative keystones over each garage door, the dining room window and the front door. When the keystones are put into place the brick running on either side of the keystones act as a border. We're really pleased with the way they turned out and are glad we added that feature.

We also had the builder add what is called an "eyebrow" over the two car garage. The eye brow is a small roof line that extends from one side of the garage to the other. It seperates the brick from siding very nicely. We're glad we did that upgrade. Not only does it compliment the trasition from brick to siding, but it also carries the roof line all the way across the front of the house.

All of the dry wall is hung throughout the house. They hung the dry wall in three days. Does anyone remember how long it took us to hang our dry wall in our basement?? Ugh! D couldn't believe it when they said they'd have the entire house done in three days. They are returning to the house tomorrow to start mudding. I give props to anyone who does mudding as their full time job! D and I mudded our basement on our own (with the help of family and friends) and it was not fun!

The address marker was added to the front of our house the other day. For some reason that one little block of stone makes the house seem official. We've been telling people our new address for a while, but nobody could find the house because there wasn't a street sign or an address on the front of our house. We still don't have a street sign, but the address marker on the front of the house is a big help.

The other pictures show how the first floor of the house with dry wall done. I don't have any pictures posted of the upstairs because they're just bedrooms... Honestly it's hard to look at the bedroom pictures and make anything of them because it's hard to photograph bedrooms.

On a completely different note. N's language skills have really picked up in the last couples weeks. He is saying: cookie, cheese, hot dog, cup, guy and.... Chevy!

Enjoy,
C, D, N

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Is anyone else relieved that it's over, though?
We had a wonderful time seeing family, going to Christmas parties and celebrating the season, but I can feel the weight of Christmas lifted off of my shoulders. D, N, and I were at Wal Mart tonight and it was so nice to walk through the aisles and just look at things w/o having to think about what gifts/food I should be buying. Anyway, our holidays were great and we thank everyone for everything, but we're glad to get back to normal!

Our new house has progressed significantly since my last entry. As I was preparing the photos for the blog I realized they are a little outdated. The siding on the house is about 45% complete, almost all of the elctric and plumbing are done and the passive Radon system is installed. A few of those things are not exciting to photograph, so I decided to post the newest exterior pictures I have. Our builder said that the dry walling crew is supposed to start on the interior of the house middle to later next week! Yeah!!! That will be super exciting.

D and I are now kicking things into full gear to get our current house ready to sell. We are trying to get it "open house ready", so we're pitching and sorting once again. We keep our house pretty clean, but we'll need to put in a little extra elbow grease to get it ready to show.... I may call in some professional help for that. I figure someone else can help me with the cleaning, but they can't pitch, sort and pack for me, so I have rationalized hiring my cleaning lady again. I hope she's available!! :)

Until next time,
C