Shaping Up

Still a work in progress, but some of the rooms are starting to shape up. We spent most of our vacation unpacking and arranging everything. Now the last few weeks have been spent finding some new things to freshen up our style.

Dining Room - this green still scares me a little bit, but it's really nice in person.

Kurt's new pride and joy. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the felt on the pool table is this really pretty olive green. Goes nice with the dark wood and carmel colored walls.

Guest Bedroom

Luke's new cowboy room. The boys' rooms were so much smaller before and easier to fill up!

Blake's room - I sort of miss the stripes painted on the walls in his old room, however I don't really feel up for that project again.

Left - picture of Daddy. Middle - my old glove and ball from the year I played Pee Wee baseball. It was the last gift I ever received from my Pappaw Grady before he passed away. Right - a picture of Blake's Pappaw Grady when he played pee wee baseball. He was a fantastic pitcher and I hope Blake gets his arm and hand/eye coordination! Oh and if you're wondering...the tennis racket was a steal from Ebay. It's a tribute to his Mommy and Daddy's favorite sport, but I wasn't going to put a modern era one up there. :)

One of my new favorite rooms - the Playroom!! Now you see it...

Now you don't!!

Hello 2010!

This year has been off with a bang and we are busy, busy, busy as usual. We actually stayed up until midnight this New Years...it's the first in a long time. We were invited to ring in the New Year with some of our new neighbors and their kids. The boys had a blast and were still going strong at 11:30 when we decided we should probably get them to bed. We have had a couple of opportunities to start meeting our neighbors in the last few weeks. It has been so much fun meeting everyone and there are SO many kids in this neighborhood! We are already counting the days until the pool opens! We keep hearing from our neighbors how much time they spend there in the summer. Hopefully this super cold streak will let up a little and we can head over to the playground soon. The boys have found some interesting ways to occupy themselves in the meantime...

Blake wearing a swim floatie...over his jammies.

The boys rolling around the rug - I don't know why, but they were having fun.

Luke walking around in his rainboots while brushing his teeth.

The rainboots again...clearly he loves them.

We have been busy in the last few weeks playing with old friends and meeting new ones too. Last weekend I went with my friend, Michelle, to see the Titanic exhibit at the Science Museum while Blake, Chloe, Luke and the Dads played at our house. (Minnesotans - it's a really good exhibit and they have extended it to the 24th of this month if you are interested). Today Blake and I headed to the Children's Museum with some co-workers and their children. It was a lot of fun and I got to cuddle with new baby Julia too.

We thoroughly enjoyed our nice long vacation and were both really sad to go back to reality last week. It was so nice to have that time to get unpacked and settled and to spend some quality time with our boys. Work is still as crazy as ever and here in a few weeks I'm off to Vegas again for market. At least it will warmer there. :)

White Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas! I wasn't really dreaming for a white Christmas this year, but we sure got one anyway! Anyone that has watched the news this week has probably heard of the snow storm that has dumped an insane amount of snow on us this week! We are 2 days into this and already have at least a foot! While we haven't gotten outside to enjoy it much (except for Kurt shoveling and blowing if that counts) it sure hasn't dampened our holiday spirit. We have enjoyed being house bound for a few days and especially as the kids are having a blast playing with their new toys!

Last night as I was putting Blake to bed and we were talking about Santa (and his preferred mode of entry into our home...Blake wondered why he would come in through the chimney versus the windows) he told me that Luke told him he wanted a trampoline for Christmas! Well, first off, not much I can do about a 7pm Christmas Eve Santa snafu. And second of all, Luke is not even 18 months old...pretty sure he did not request a trampoline! Too funny! Blake was so excited for "waking up time" today and to see what Santa had brought him. He came and got into our bed at 6 am (no thanks to us putting the boys to bed at 7 pm last night) and huffed/puffed and tossed/turned for an hour and a half! Finally at 7:30 we let him go downstairs where he was SUPER excited to see his new piano and microphone. It was so cute to see him peeking through the stair rails and saying "a piano, a piano" while he was supposed to be waiting for Mama to give him the green light. The boys got quite a few new toys, but none have had quite the power of the piano. That was a homerun. Only issue are all the fights that have ensued today. We might end up with a second one and some sort of dueling piano routine with these boys! There were lots of other fun toys...an airport, school bus, blocks, sorting game and tool bench for Luke. Hot Wheels Track, a Zippity, books, art supplies, blocks and binoculars for Blake.

While the holidays would certainly be better if we could see all of our family more easily, we do love waking up on Christmas morning and having our boys experience the joy and mystique of Santa in their own home. This was the first year that Blake really had fun with it and it just makes us more excited for the next few years!

We hope every one has had a wonderful Christmas and is looking forward to a happy and healthy new year! Travel safe our fellow Minnesotans!!

I Need a Pinch...

or a kick in the behind! I really don't think it has sunk in that we are moving in a couple of days! There is so much to do and yet here I sit typing away! I wanted to get some last pictures online before we move in and junk it up! I'm sure there will not be time later this week. It's really hard to believe that I could have had another baby in the time since we first put our home in the market (for the record, that is not to mean we are having another baby) and went through the whole process of trying to figure out where to move and what to build. I must say, the easiest part for us was actually picking everything out. The hardest part has been these last few weeks trying to orchestrate the closings, the move and just being patient. In case I haven't mentioned lately...it is no easy or stress-free task of trying to sell your house and move out with two small children under foot. It's also hard to leave the home where you brought your babies home. To not see the spot where they took their first steps or crawled ever again is a tough pill to swallow. And to top it all off, work has been insanely busy the last few weeks and it was very sad to lose a wonderful co-worker to cancer last Saturday. But we are doing our best to stay excited and not let the stress or melancholy thoughts of it all dampen our spirit!

So, here are some pictures we took at our walk-thru this morning. I would say the house is 99.9% done. There are a few little things here and there that will be fixed Monday or after we move in. We LOVE the house. Our selections came together so nicely and we really like the colors and flow of the entire house. The space is exactly what we wanted and needed and we really love the bright open feeling of the layout.

View from the foyer

Upstairs landing

Master Bedroom

View from our end of the upstairs hall looking at the boys bathroom. Blake's room is on the left and Luke's is on the right.


Upstairs laundry - can anyone say Hallelujah!

Guest Bedroom

Family Room

Playroom

Basement Bathroom

Upclose of the wetbar

Family Room

Maintenance Free Deck - Yay!

Pocket Office

Dinette

Island - hard to see in pictures, but it has a beautiful antiqued glazed finish.

Kitchen

Great Room - still waiting on hardware for the cabinets

Foyer

Powder Room - also has that neat glazed finish on vanity and what you can't see is a chandelier that matches the other light fixtures on the main level.

Dining Room

Mud Room - there's a spacious walk-in closet here that you can't see, but I am very excited to have a place to put our shoes and not be tripping over them any more!

Rock Star

We always knew he had it in him, but today Blake finally unleashed his inner "rockstar" and FINALLY sang at one of his school concerts. We weren't really sure what to expect this year since he has cried or refused to face the audience for all of his other concerts. But low and behold when the class marched out and he took his place on the risers...his mouth opened and the singing began. I'll be honest, he sort of had this petrified/peed off/concentration type look the entire time, but he did sing! Sadly there are no pictures yet. I am hoping my dear friends Liz or Michelle will send some my way as my hands were full with all 27 pounds of squirmy wormy Luke and Daddy had the video camera. This picture was from Perkins where we took our little musician before the concert to build up energy for his performance!

Big Week for Lou Bug

This week Luke officially transitioned to the Toddler Room. I knew it was going to be hard (on me), but I didn't really think it would be that tough on him since a few of his friends have already moved over in the last month. The transition was supposed to take 2 weeks with a few hours a day building up to a full day by the end of the 2 weeks. Instead they built up to a full day by Thursday and on Friday we were to do drop off and pickup in the new room. Drop off was awful. He wanted nothing to do with the teachers, sitting at the breakfast table, or breakfast itself (which if you know my Lou Bug you know he does not miss a meal). He was screaming and trying so hard to stay in my arms and get back out that door. It reminded me of Molly's first puppy training class when during "circle time" she climbed into the sleeve of Kurt's coat...while he was wearing it.

Apparently Luke had a good day after about an hour and all is good for now. I'm still trying to imagine how they have converted him to sleeping on a cot. I think that haircut that I have also been avoiding is getting closer too. :(

T Minus 10 Days...

As I sit here and look at my current home and think about the quick trip we made through the new home earlier today, I can't hardly believe that everything will and needs to be wrapped up in 10 DAYS!!! While I have made significant progress packing, there is still so much to be done! The last of our Craig's List offers were picked up today too. Our house feels so empty...except for the clutter that has been emptied out of closets and cabinets and is awaiting it's new home in a UHaul box.

The new house definitely had some progress this week, but it's starting to get stressful going in and seeing so much left to be done. They were working this weekend, but we've been told that the cleaners come on Friday so I assume everything has to be done by EOD Thursday. I think I might actually wait to go back until our final walk thru...we'll see how long that thought lasts. ;)