A Day in the Life (with a Toddler and Infant)

So this is actually from a week ago Friday, but hey, I consider one week a pretty decent turn around time (especially since I haven't shared any beach pictures yet and that was back in July. Whoops). Plus I actually remembered to write down pretty much everything that happened that day, so that's a definite win as well. Welcome to your peek into our crazy little life!

610: William tiptoes into our room, a solid thirty minutes before he usually gets up. I pull him into bed and convince him that he needs to lie back down for a little bit. Just as he gets settled, Garrett starts to stir. I have get up to give him his pacifier back (and hopefully buy a little more sleep out of him), but the downside is that now William is up for good.
620: After a quick change out of his wet pajamas, William plays with some toys while I steal a few minutes to check Facebook--heavy rains the night before caused some major flooding.

Photo borrowed from KSFY, taken by Dan Thrice

645: William decides he is ready for breakfast. On the menu this morning: yogurt, Cheerios, and grapes. I snag some breakfast at this time as well, my usual bowl of cereal.
705: Garrett stirs again, and this time there is no settling him back down. He is ready to start the day.
715: After sitting through a few stories with William, Garrett decides he is ready to eat.
730: I come out to find William reading to himself after I'm done nursing Garrett, so we sit down and read a few more stories together.

740: William decides he wants "Mommy downstairs, Garrett downstairs". I go down and turn the lights on for him, but then head back upstairs to get Garrett and myself dressed.
750: Garrett and I head downstairs to join William; I bring the fingernail clippers so I can cut back Garrett's claws while he is (mostly) distracted watching big brother.

820: First poop of the day award goes to Garrett. I take the dirty diaper upstairs to throw it away and use the opportunity to make my bed and finish getting ready. I'm back downstairs by 830, but it isn't soon enough because both boys are fussing about something or another by the time I get down there(Garrett had fallen onto his belly away from his toy, William, well, who knows. Sympathy cries maybe).
850: Garrett decides he is done with being awake. We rock for a few minutes, sing a few verses of "Jesus Loves Me", and down he goes. I take inventory of the diaper bag to make sure it is ready to go for the day and do some light cleaning.
900: William makes his way upstairs and catches me putting the grapes away from breakfast. Naturally he decides he is hungry and has to eat some RIGHT.NOW.
902: Garrett starts to fuss. Thankfully he settles back down once I give him his pacifier back (yes, I know, this kid is in dire need of some sleep training, but this Momma just isn't ready to do it yet).
905: William, aka My Bottomless Pit, asks for more grapes. For the sake of variety, I convince him to eat half an avocado (which--if you know William--doesn't take much convincing at all. If anything it was difficult to convince him to only eat half).
910: More stories and puzzles with William. We've been reading through a bunch of "new" stories from the library about camping to help him prepare for our camping trip Labor Day Weekend.
935: Garrett starts to fuss again, and nap time is officially over because William barrels down the hallway and into the nursery yelling "Garrett cry! Garrett cry!". He then insists on being put into the crib with him.

940: Start getting the boys ready to leave so we can make it to the library by 1000 for story time. I let William play with my phone (aka look at the photos and videos--his favorite thing to do) so we can get out the door more quickly (although it causes a tantrum when I make him give it back, but he is all ready to go at this point so I just pick him up and carry him out to the car). I grab an apple to eat in the car.
1000: Story time at the library. This story time is geared for babies under two, so Grandma comes to help keep William occupied so I can have some one-on-one time with Garrett (I decided he was too young for Kindermusik this fall--especially for the cost of it--so this is my alternative to Mommy and Garrett time).
1045: Leave the library and take the long way home because some one wants to drive over the train tracks. I also decide to drive past a garage sale in our neighborhood that I saw advertised earlier to see if it is worth stopping at. The extra driving causes Garrett to fall asleep in his car seat.
1100: William makes a beeline to his high chair for lunch almost as soon as we get home. On the menu--leftover carrots and beets from last night and leftover bacon chicken ranch pasta from a few days ago. Garrett stays asleep when I bring him into the house, so I move him to his room to let him keep napping (never wake a sleeping baby!).
1115: Lunch is over, and so begins the game of keeping William entertained until nap time. Puzzles, toys, books, the whole nine yards. Occasionally he gets engrossed in an activity and plays independently, so I clean up his lunch and do some other tidying while he is entertained. And, well, for the sake of honesty, I also catch up on Facebook and my email a little bit. Today I also start making a list of things we need to take to the lake when we head there over the weekend.
1215: Start getting William ready for his nap--clean diaper, ice water, stories, etc). On a scale of one to ten, the tantrum he throws during the process is only a four, so I consider that a success.
1230: William is down, Garrett is still sleeping(!!), so I get my lunch going--leftover pasta and a salad. Lunch of champions.

1250: Good thing I had all those years teaching to train me to eat lunch quickly. Garrett wakes up and is--not surprisingly--famished. Get him fed, then head to the kitchen to work on marinating the pork for dinner that night and make sangria for the lake tomorrow.

My little sous chef!

115: Poopy diaper number two for my littlest love. After changing, I intermittently play with him and work on getting a few things done around the house. Today that includes checking Craigslist for garage sales. Depending on when William gets up from his nap we may take advantage of the nice afternoon and head out to a few, or we may go tomorrow morning while Darrell has to go in to the office.
210: Playtime gets interrupted thanks to a spit up from Garrett that requires me to change my clothes.
215: I remember that I need to cook a sweet potato for Garrett for dinner, so I get that in the oven and then make sure I have snacks ready to go for the car in case we head out to garage sales.
220: I consider doing the dishes (honestly, I do), but then I hear William come out of his room. And he needs a diaper change. And then he wants some stories. And then Garrett starts to get fussy (but refuses to nap). And the dishes just don't get done.

245: Remedy for a fussy baby and bored toddler? Garage sales. Sure, it's work to get them both in the car and around the sales (thank goodness for my Ergo!), but it beats being cooped up in the house.
345: Get ready to head home from our last sale, and realize it's close to quitting time for Darrell. Since we aren't too far from his office, we decide to swing down there and pay him (and the ladies he works with) a visit.
430: We get home and the dinner chaos begins. I feed Garrett while Darrell gets started on our food. Thankfully, William goes downstairs on his own, so when I'm done nursing we take advantage of having four hands in the kitchen and get as much done as possible--because we know the time will be short-lived.
510: William comes back upstairs, and spends the rest of the time until dinner getting in our way or asking to eat. We take turns entertaining him as necessary. Garrett thankfully is able to entertain  himself for the most part.

530: Dinner is ready so we sit down and begin the dinnertime roulette. I alternately feed Garrett and myself (first night of sweet potatoes! Not very successful). Darrell cuts up William's food before eating himself, and has to stop every now and then to give William more food or blow on a hot bite.
545: Garrett decides he has had enough with the dinner table and all his toys, so down he goes for a nap. Shortly thereafter, William also decides he is all done, and insists that "Mommy done, Daddy done" so we can all go downstairs. Not surprisingly, we aren't done eating, so we explain that he needs to wait. Somewhat miraculously, he actually entertains himself until 610, which allows Darrell and I to have some leisurely adult conversation.
615: We're planning to Skype with Darrell's parents tonight, so we work together to get dinner put away quickly, although usually one of us cleans while the other plays with the boys.
620: Garrett wakes up from his nap.
630: William gets to use the iPad to call Grandmom and Granddad on Skype (and don't you dare help him press any of the buttons!), and we spend the rest of the evening in the basement talking with them (which is mostly just them watching the boys go crazy while we try to have a little bit of a conversation over the chaos).

720: Garrett insists on having a little more to eat before bedtime. Some nights we let him nurse to sleep, but 730 is a little early for that.
730: We say goodbye to Grandmom and Granddad and start getting the boys ready for bed. Since it has gotten a little late we skip bath time.
747: Bedtime is hit or miss with William lately, but by this time we have his pajamas on and are brushing his teeth (with minimal fussing), so it seems like the night might go okay. Fingers crossed!
801: Lights out for William after some more stories. Definitely a successful bedtime night. Garrett, however, is having nothing to do with going to sleep.
810: Give up trying to put Garrett to bed. Since he is fed and happy playing with Daddy, I head out for a short run.
845: I'm showered and both boys are in bed. Life is good. Although apparently the boys sensed that Daddy was in a vulnerable position while I was in the shower... William got up--which isn't terribly uncommon--right after I got in the shower. Unfortunately, Darrell was busy rocking Garrett trying to get him to sleep. So he put (an unhappy) Garrett down to tuck William back in. And of course William wanted Daddy to cuddle, but Daddy had to say no so he could get back to Garrett (who was still screaming)--but he promised to come back after Garrett was calmed down. So he went back to Garrett's room, calmed him down, then went and laid down with William. Garrett fussed for a bit but then went to sleep, and William did the same. And I got out of the shower and was none the wiser.
915: Basic nightly "chores" are done (dishes and general tidying up), so we each grab a drink (hello, Friday!) and relax. At least as much as parents relax. Darrell works on editing some (adorable!) pictures we took of Garrett earlier in the week, and I finish getting stuff put together for the lake, including baking a pan of chocolate chip bars.
1015: Cookie bars are done. Time to get ready for bed.
1025: Joke is on us. Lest you think today seemed like a piece of cake, Garrett wakes up and is in a mood (which--unfortunately--has been happening somewhat regularly). He doesn't want to nurse, doesn't want his pacifier, doesn't want to be held, doesn't want to lay down, doesn't want to rock, doesn't want to swing, doesn't want ANYTHING. After about ten minutes of scream crying, he starts to settle down. I rock with him for a little bit and then put him down. He immediately starts to scream again. By now it's 1045 and Darrell comes in to take over so I can finish getting ready for bed.
1100: Garrett is finally settled. We wrap up a few last things, check in on William (please tell me we aren't the only parents who still do this!), and by 1115 it's finally lights out.

Garrett wakes up around three and does the same screaming crying bit that he did earlier, and then wakes up again at five ready to actually nurse--and by seven both boys are up and ready to start the "routine" all over. It's exhausting (what I wouldn't give for more sleep or a nap almost every day!), but that's life with two kids. Most days we love it--although some days it's harder to find bright spots than others.

Bit by Bit

This beauty is on its way to the house as we speak and I Can't.Wait. Bit by bit, piece by piece, we're slowly making this house into our home. Hard to believe we've been living here for over a year.

The Writing is on the Wall

Literally. It really shouldn't be all that surprising that I frequently try to convince my husband that we need more wall quotes. And for some reason--even though he always ends up being the one to hang them--he continues to let me buy them.

But seriously, what else am I supposed to put on the massively large wall that, because of the split-foyer, is awkwardly a part of the living room, entryway, and stairway downstairs?

Not the best angle, but a shot of the wall during the (difficult) painting process shortly after we moved in
 

The wall now!

It's a little hard to read, but the quote says "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord". And I love it! Darrell, however, did not love the hanging process required for this quote; apparently it was more finicky than the others he's done and the letters did not want to adhere to the wall. He's (pessimistically) convinced that they'll just fall off one day, but so far so good. And here's hoping it stays that way--I don't know if I could talk him into another one if this one fails! (At least not another one in that location--I've already got him on board with one for the nursery, and our basement is rife with possibilities for quotes now that we're finally in the process of getting it all finished!)



It. Is. Finished!

After what seems like an eternity, our contractor is finally done with the work in our house. And considering we only lived in this house for six weeks before the basement flooded, this waiting game has pretty much been the entirety of our nearly nine months in this house. But it's done. Finished. Complete. And we can finally move forward with the projects on our list. Which is certainly not a short list. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. And bit by bit, this is starting to feel more like OUR house. More like a place we are proud to come home to. Which is good, because in a few short weeks, we will be bringing a sweet little babe home to this place, and he/she will know no different home. So it had better be a good one.

1 Down, 11 to Go!!

While this post title could easily be referring to the number of posts that I need to catch up on (hello pregnancy that I haven't posted about in, oh, twelve weeks!), it's actually referring to the number of rooms in our house that are (finally!) completed. Not just functional, but actually organized, decorated, and something that I can be proud of!

And of course, what better room to start with than a bathroom? Small space, minimal effort, and the ability to reuse pretty much all décor items that we had in our previous house. Win win.

So, for fun, here's a picture of the bathroom when we moved in (or, more accurately, the picture from the real estate listing. Because let's be honest--no way did I remember to take "before" pictures of pretty much any of the rooms):

Super boring (pretty par for the course when we moved in. Everything was either super boring or super obnoxious. Have I shared any pictures of the neon pick and green room yet? No? Just you wait). And, if you look closely in the mirror, you can see that the tub had doors. No way was that happening in my house, especially since this bathroom is the one we primarily use to wash babies. While I'm sure William would have loved sliding the doors back and forth, I certainly appreciate all the space I have to wash a squirmy toddler with the shower curtain pushed all the way back.

So, to fix it up, we added a fresh (and colorful!) coat of paint, then decorated it with the same subtle beach theme we had in our previous house. And I totally talked Darrell into letting me get a (pretty large) quote for one of the walls--I pretty much love it.



Darrell has pretty well taken over bath time responsibilities with William because it's getting a little difficult for me to lean into the tub, but sometimes I still go hang out with them just because the room makes me happy. Which makes me super excited to get the rest of this house all fixed up--and believe it or not, we're actually making pretty good progress (we've only been living here for eight months, after all). Considering pretty much every room needed fresh paint (as I mentioned, the previous owners had really weird taste in colors, plus they did not care for the walls well, so there are all sorts of screw and nail holes that need major patching) and the fact that pretty much the entire basement had to be gutted five short weeks after we moved in thanks to a broken sump pump (but--Christmas miracle--our contractor was here last week getting started and he may actually be done with stuff by the new year!), I consider any progress to be good progress. And besides, we kind of have a deadline on getting the nursery done--baby could be here in just six short weeks!

At Last!

We have furniture!!

While the waiting period was crazy long (we ordered custom fabrics that the store did not have in stock), I totally wouldn't change anything about our purchase. Especially once we finally figured out how to arrange it (I may or may not have been the difficult one in that venture... Whoops). And now that the furniture is set, I can finally start accessorizing and decorating! We'll need an end table to go between the two chairs (as well as window treatments--but we have to replace the window first),

plus another end table at the end of the couch and a (fake!) tree for the corner (the storage trunks will be relocated to the basement.... Eventually... Whenever that gets re-finished).

I'm also thinking that the wall above the couch needs a nice big panoramic picture (I'm in love with the idea of spreading one image out over three canvases--how cool would that be?!?), or we could do some sort of gallery wall. Of course, the gallery wall would probably be cheaper since we could incorporate artwork we already have... But where's the fun in that?

Couch Trials

As I previously mentioned, the night before Darrell and I discovered our basement had flooded, we spent a solid hour trying to get our couch into the basement. There isn't a whole lot that needs to be said about the endeavor, other than it didn't fit. No matter what we did.

Can you spy Darrell? And note the missing door frame.... Still wasn't enough for us to be able to make the turn

Little harder to tell on this one, but Darrell is trying to squeeze out from under the couch to reevaluate the situation

In retrospect, it's probably okay we couldn't get it down there. While it may not have been in the flood-damage area, it probably would have still needed to be removed from the basement. And about halfway through our ordeal Darrell said that if we ever got it into the basement that it would not be coming up in one piece. So thankfully we didn't have to put that plan into action less than 24 hours after moving it downstairs. The couch has since found a new home, and we're on the hurt for new basement furniture. Once we, you know, get it recarpeted and everything. Minor detail.

The Sump Pump Dumps

In case you've been living in a hole (or not in the Midwest), Sioux Falls has gotten record amounts of rainfall this month. And it hasn't necessarily been a "rain a little bit every day" kind of thing; it's been more of a "let's dump an inch of rain (and hail!) an hour" kind of thing. Great for keeping our lawn nice and green, not great for flooding.

In our old house, we never worried about heavy rains. Because we had a split-level house, our basement was only four-feet under ground, and on the off-chance that the ground became SO saturated that it would cause flooding issues at that shallow depth, we also chose to install a sump pump. In the (almost) five years we lived there, I think there were only three rainstorms that were bad enough to cause our sump pump to run. So when the rain started to POUR down on Saturday night, we didn't think a whole lot of it. Our new house is also a split-level (although it may have a five-foot basement), and it is also equipped with a sump pump, which the previous owners had told us was in working condition. We saw posts on Facebook about people having to clean water out of their basements, and even went to church Sunday morning where we heard more of the same stories. In spite of all this, it still never crossed our mind to go check our basement.

In fact, the only reason Darrell actually went down to the basement Sunday after church was that he wanted to touch up the paint on some of the walls we had scuffed trying (and failing) to move our couch downstairs the night before (that's a story for a different post). All it took was one step off the bottom stair to realize that we were in trouble--BIG trouble. I'll spare you the details for now because I don't have any of the pictures uploaded, but for all intents and purposes there was at least an inch of standing water covering 90% of our basement. And our sump pump? Completely full of water and not pumping a lick. Were we shocked and upset? Absolutely. But devastated? Not so much. Here's why:

1. Because we discovered the damage on a Sunday, Darrell didn't have to take time off work to help clean up some of the water and relocate our stuff (granted, I don't think shop vac-ing 175 gallons of water out of the basement was high on Darrell's to-do list for Father's Day, but whatever). 

2. The rain we got Saturday/Sunday was not nearly as bad as the rain we got on Monday. When we called our plumber, water removal service, and insurance agent on Sunday, they were already backed up (our insurance agent was still dealing with hail damage claims from the week before!). However, given the rain and flooding that occurred on Monday, I am certain all of those people are even more backed up.

3. Despite being busy, our plumber was able to get to the house Monday morning and fix (aka replace) our sump pump, which meant that we got no new water in the basement during that storm (it makes me shudder to think how much more we could have gotten; our sump pump was running almost continuously for a solid eight hours). Additionally, Intek was able to get here Monday evening to get rid of the damaged carpet and suck the rest of the water out, which was good because it was already starting to get pretty dank smelling down there.

4. Darrell and I pretty much hated most of the finishings in the basement--the two bedrooms had industrial-style carpet, and some of the walls had some awful wood paneling. The majority of the carpet was ripped out as a total loss, and most of the wood paneling was removed because it was going to prevent the drywall from drying out. Although this is much sooner than we had anticipated re-doing the basement, now we'll get to do some of it with our insurance money (less our deductible, of course--but that's an insignificant amount compared to what it would have cost to re-carpet the entire basement). 

5. Aside from the carpet and wood paneling, there was hardly any damage (I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over throwing away a few wet pillows). All of our storage areas got flooded, but when we moved I insisted that anything placed into our storage areas was stored in a plastic tote, not a cardboard box. So no damage there. Additionally, the bedroom that was storing all of our boxes with our picture frames and wall decor items (because we haven't gotten around to doing any decorating) had a stage built into it (don't ask why), and for whatever reason when we moved in I put all of the boxes on the stage instead of on the floor. So all of those items stayed nice and dry.  However, the bottom of a few electronic items (namely our shredder and Darrell's old, old desktop computer) got a little wet, and we haven't gotten around to testing either to assess the damage. Thankfully, a shredder is easily replaceable and I'm pretty sure we moved all "valuables" from Darrell's desktop to our laptop years ago, so there shouldn't be any major losses there. 

Does it suck to have a flooded basement? Absolutely. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy (well... Maybe a little bit of water. They are my worst enemy after all). But this is why we have homeowner's insurance, and why we had the sellers purchase a one-year warranty on all appliances in the house. Granted, we were anticipating that the warranty would come in handy on the 26 year-old furnace and air conditioner, not the sump pump, but whatever. Covered is covered. Now if only the massive dehumidifier and three industrial fans would dry up the last bit of carpet downstairs so our house stops smelling so dank that'd be great. And then I can get started transforming our basement into something I'm proud of!

Never Done That Before...

Well, I have officially used a lint roller on a door and the ceiling in our (not-so-new) house. Why, you may ask?? Because they were disgusting and covered in dust. We noticed the dust on the ceiling first, and because we have popcorn ceilings (boo!!) Darrell thought a lint roller would make less of a mess than trying to wipe with a dust rag. Today I noticed the same buildup on a door, and because the lint roller seemed to work so well last time I just went with it. Weirdly, though, it is only the ceiling and door in the master bedroom with this dust-accumulation issue, and only the top half of the door at that. Best explanation I can come up with is that they had their dog sleep in the master bedroom with them, although that wouldn't explain why dust covered only half the door. Who knows. And who knows where else I'll find places to use my lint roller--it's a nifty little gadget!

A Little Problem Solving

A few fun things about our house: It is twenty-six years old. And most of it seems to be in its "original" condition--appliances, furnace, paint, etc. You should also know that the most current (previous) owners were, shall we say, creative. It does appear that they did some updating (mostly with paint), and their color choices were questionable at best. I do think they updated some of the flooring as well--but only some (as in--they laid new flooring in the foyer but not in the closet that connects to it). They also appeared to not be very thorough and careful Do-It-Yourselfers, and you'll probably hear plenty more about that in the coming months (years!) as we transform this into OUR house. But first--the paint.

From the first time we walked in to this house we knew that the orange family room HAD to go. No ifs ands or buts. And while we didn't mind the white walls throughout most of the other common living spaces (not the bedrooms, though--oh no, not the bedrooms. Those are all their own special combinations of color), they were in bad shape and had clearly undergone one too many touch-ups jobs with not quite the same shade of white (or they weren't touched-up at all). So, we selected a neutral, much more palatable shade and bought three gallons (with fingers crossed that it would be enough!). Then came time for the painting. And painting the interior of a house with a split-level floor plan brings with it its own special set of difficulties. But that wasn't going to stop my husband.

In case you can't tell, that is a paintbrush tied to (what used to be) our rake. And this was the "safer" of the two approaches he used to cover this wall; if you look closely, you can see our ladder in the foyer, which he then climbed up and leaned off with his paint-brush-rake to cover the wall from the other direction (and one point I actually had to hold the ladder so he could step onto the highest rung and lean toward the center of the wall). Thankfully, this portion of the wall probably won't need a second coat, but the orange (oh, the orange), definitely will. Fortunately the orange is a little less dangerous to get at (albeit more shoddily done. At one point I noticed that Darrell was getting tan on the ceiling (which we are leaving white), and when I pointed that out to him he responded that he was NEEDING to put tan on the ceiling to cover the ORANGE that was on the ceiling. Folks, he is bound and determined to make sure there is no trace of orange left in his house. And I appreciate him for that.

Moved!

Well, we're here, we're moved, we're in. We are far (FAR!) from settled, but I suspect that will be the case for quite some time. Except for our kitchen. That room is pretty much already running like a well-oiled machine. If there was ever any doubt that Darrell and I are cooking/baking people, this should pretty well cement that fact: our kitchen was the last room we packed in our old house and the first room (and so far only room!) we unpacked in our new house. We're still sleeping in sleeping bags (on our mattress though--we were only on the floor for one night!), but just about everything in our kitchen is unpacked. Which was no small feat--we had more boxes for our kitchen than we had for any other room in the house! And I'm already excited about baking my first goodies in this house--who cares if my clothes are in a suitcase for a few more days?!?

The Big Move!

Well, everything is as good as done for both selling our current house and buying a new one! After a blitz twenty hours of looking at houses (twelve of them!) last weekend, we put in an offer on our favorite, had a counter-offer back to us three hours later, and by 9:00 on Sunday night we had accepted and signed the offer. Everything has been happening so quickly that it almost seems surreal, and I have a feeling the next five weeks are going to fly by. Between packing and inspections and paperwork with our realtor and paperwork with the bank and paperwork with the utility companies--all on top of our "normal" stuff: work, meetings, doctor's appointments, birthday parties, bridal showers, eating, sleeping--things are just crazy around these parts. I've already had to reschedule a dentist appointment twice, and I'm not holding my breath that the new time I have scheduled is going to stick. But, in spite of all of the craziness, I couldn't be more happy and thankful. Never did we anticipate our house selling as quickly as it did (for as much as it did!), never did we anticipate getting as nice of a house as we did (and still within budget!), never did we imagine the process going so smoothly (if not a little rapidly). So I'll take a few weeks of craziness and some sleepless nights and the inevitable tension and stress for the luxury of being able to call this beautiful dwelling "home" in a mere five weeks!

Just a Little Bit Crazy

Here's a recap of the past two weeks:

Saturday, March 8th: Meet with my aunt Janelle, who is our realtor. Signed some paperwork to formally begin the process of selling our house, but didn't go so far as to put the house on the market (because it was no where near clean enough for showings and/or open houses).

Monday, March 10th: I had my first day back at work since William was born. Definitely a bit of a transition, but one I'm enjoying.

Tuesday, March 11th: My second day back at work. My aunt came down to the house to take a few pictures for a flyer to pass around to the other realtors at her office (but still no formal listing). My good friend got induced.

Thursday, March 13th: Go to the hospital to visit the newest, sweetest little girl I know. Darrell and I began tackling a list of things to get done around the house before we would be ready to list it.

Friday, March 14th: Get a call from my aunt in the evening that one of the realtors in her office has some clients who are very interested in our house. Wants to know if we can have it ready to show Sunday at noon. We agree, and then begin some mad cleaning/packing.

Saturday, March 15th: Mad packing/cleaning continues, but in shifts. I spend the late morning/early afternoon at the Shriner's Mosque at their annual beer pong tournament; Darrell brings William down after his nap and works at the event until after midnight.

Sunday, March 16th: Darrell, William, and I evacuate our house for the afternoon. We joke about how it doesn't feel like a "real" showing because A) it happened so quickly and B) we don't expect anything to come from it.

Monday, March 17th: Day three at work--still going well! We get a call from my aunt. The people who looked at the house have made an offer. Darrell and I panic slightly, and then stay up until 11:30 looking at houses online (plus we fill out like four March Madness brackets because, you know, why not?).

Tuesday, March 18th: We meet with our realtor and come up with a counter offer. By 10:00 that night the counter offer has been accepted and signed. (The only catch is that the buyers need to sell their house before they can close on ours). Darrell spends most of the night working on his "sermon" for the Lenten service on Wednesday.

Wednesday, March 19th: William and I have our last Kindermusik class (sad day!) Darrell gives his (fantastic!) Lenten message, although wishes things hadn't gotten so busy and he had spent more time preparing.

Thursday, March 20th: William wakes up SUPER early and is unusually fussy. Plus he naps for three hours in the morning--VERY uncharacteristic of him. I take his temperature before lunch--one hundred degrees. Head to the doctor's office that afternoon--double ear infection. We decide to postpone Book Club because other members are under the weather/have sick kiddos, so I get to lay low for the evening and cuddle up on my sick little guy. (Plus watch some crazy basketball games!)

Friday, March 21st: William is feeling much better (yay drugs!). Which is good, because there is no relief from the madness tonight (and I'm not just talking about the basketball games!). We are meeting with our realtor for round one of house shopping. Round two commences tomorrow morning (after William's first swimming lesson!), and, if necessary, round three is Sunday afternoon. Because we kind of need a place to live since our house is as good as sold.

Consider this my formal apology for my absence from the blog. Also consider this fair warning that there may be additional absences in the next two months (which will include William's birthday party, three bridal showers--two of which I'm helping to host--and a likely move).

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!

While I'm not particularly loving the temperatures that are accompanying this snowfall (eighteen degrees with a wind chill near zero), I'm loving the blanket of white that has covered everything. Now it's starting to feel like Christmas--and if the temperatures could climb back up at least to the thirties that'd really be awesome. At least cut our tree down last weekend; while the forty-degree temperature didn't really feel Christmassy, it was certainly a better option than cutting down our tree in the ten-degree weather forecasted for this weekend.

Happy boy with his first Christmas tree!

And how, you might ask, is it going having a Christmas tree with a seven-month old crawling machine? About this well:

"Helping" to arrange the tree bag

Ooh, lights!!

Don't let that innocent face fool you--Mommy had to cut off the branch just to the left of him because he kept trying to wrap his hand around it and pull. Just a little dangerous

Thankfully, he hasn't quite mastered getting into a sitting position from his stomach, so we only have to have the branches and decorations high enough off the ground so that he can't reach them from floor level. He's also discovered that this strange green thing pokes him if he gets too close, so I think that has helped deter him from trying to crawl under or behind it. Now that the novelty of it being new has kind of worn off he hasn't paid it much interest, so that's good. We may have to avoid putting any gifts under the tree this year until we are ready to open them, though, because that might just be a little too tempting for him. Excited for lots more "firsts" with our little buddy this month!

Nursery Addition

As soon as we found out William was a boy, we knew there was one more purchase we had to make for the nursery:

Of course, I think it would be totally appropriate to hang something like that in a girl's room as well, but since William was a boy it was a definite must. Isn't it awesome? Gives me further reason to smile every time I walk into the nursery.

A Little Suspicious...

So either someone in our neighborhood thinks really poorly of us or William is already sneaking out of the house and hanging out with the wrong crowd because the other day we walked out of our house and found this written at the bottom of our driveway:

Maybe they got the wrong house? The people a few houses north of us are definitely more questionable than we are...

Nursery Reveal!

Since BOB is due in a handful of days (almost down to single digits!), I figured it was about time to share the nursery. I've shared quite a few sneak peaks along the way, but I think we finally have all the "pieces" put together to form a nice, complete nursery. Of course, I'm sure things will inevitably change in the next few weeks after we bring BOB home and we learn what sort of things do and don't make sense from an organizational standpoint... But until then, here is our nursery!

Nursery Bookshelves

So remember those totally awesome bookshelves I showed you earlier this week? Bragging time--Darrell totally made those. What started as a few pieces of wood and some nails turned into one of my favorite things about the nursery. And although I can't really take any credit for the assembly of the bookshelves, I can say that they were pretty easy--and way cheaper than buying pre-built shelves.

Unfortunately, Darrell took some initiative and built these shelves one morning while I was working so I don't have any pictures of the process, but from what I understand it was pretty simple. Let me refresh for you what they look like before I explain what he did.

The shelf is actually made up of three separate pieces: the base, the lip on the front, and a mounting piece on the back. Since he kept the lip on the front pretty small he was able to split one piece of wood and use it for the lip on both shelves, and then secured it with small finishing nails. He then created the same lip on the back of the base using another piece of wood, but left the extra material hanging below the shelf to serve as the anchor (I apologize that it's really hard to see that, but trust me, there is some material hanging below the shelf which mounts it into the wall). We fully anticipate our child using these shelves to pull himself/herself up, so Darrell made sure to secure the screws into studs (and trust me--those suckers aren't going anywhere).

What I love most about this project is that we were able to customize the depth of the shelves. All the pre-built shelves we found were around three inches deep, and I really didn't want our bookshelves to stick out that far from the wall. Trusty Menards had plenty of small wood pieces (I believe we purchased cedar, but I could be mistaken) of varying widths, so we were able to find one that was closer to an inch--plenty deep for supporting a children's book or two. Plus the wood we bought was already finished so we didn't have to worry about doing any sanding--just slapped a few coats of paint on the shelves after they were built and we were done! Love them!

If you enlarge this image, you can see the anchor piece underneath the top shelf a little more clearly

Nursery Teaser IV

Since we've been buying children's books like crazy, I decided we needed some creative way to display them in the nursery, especially since we don't have a lot of space for a traditional bookshelf. And I couldn't be happier with the final product.

Love. Love. Love.

Louie and JR

So a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I've successfully kept two houseplants alive for well over two months. That may not sound like much, but it's kind of a big deal for me, given the hit-or-miss luck I've had gardening (and the fact that I usually give up on the garden about two months into the summer). Of course, house plants don't really require any weeding or pruning or insect removal, so all I've had to do is remember to water them (thankfully they seem pretty hardy because this does slip my mind occasionally) and open the curtains so they actually get sunlight during the day (I'm definitely not the best at remembering this, but thankfully the days are getting longer so they can still get some sunlight even if I don't open the curtains until after I get home from work).

For the record, I'm probably jinxing myself and will find them both wilted and dead when I get home from work today, but whatever. I'm impressed they've lasted even this long, so I totally won't be heartbroken when/if they die.

Introducing Louie and JR:

Louie (top photo) is a Croton Plant, and was gifted to me after the death of my grandfather Louis in October. Apparently if we were to put him into a larger pot he could grow to four feet or taller--I think we're happy with him the size he is.

JR is an amaryllis, gifted to us by someone with the initials J.R. (shocking, right?). About a week after the photo shoot the other two flowers bloomed; since then all four flowers have started to die. But I'm pretty sure that she will flower again as long as we keep her alive (knock on wood).

And just for fun, while I was taking pictures of the plants, I decided to play around with Darrell's new camera flash a little bit. Here is the same picture of JR as above, but with the flash tilted at a different angle.

Shadows!

And for this next shot I put a different filter on the flash (a "warm" filter, as Darrell tells me).

Isn't that fun how much of a difference the flash makes? Of course, I don't really understand any of the logistics behind it; I get the shot I want by playing around with all the different settings and filters whereas Darrell can do all the adjustments before he shoots and get the shot he wants the first time. Which is why photography is his hobby and not mine.