Just like that

And just like that, we are homeowners! Holy Moly!!!! Here are a few pictures from the rest of the house. I will be doing quite a bit of changing, especially when it comes to paint color. I think that painting it is what is going to make it feel like it's actually mine for real, and not just for now. Here is the back. The back yard is fenced in.

Here is the cat door. It'll make it so that the cats can get to their litter boxes in the basement without me having the basement door open.

Dining room. I'm already taking the wall paper down that is under the chair rail.

Large mirror in the living room. That is already down too. Nate cried a lot because we weren't keeping it. It was too big to get out of the room in one piece, so we had to break it. Now we have to work on the wall behind it before we can paint. SO MUCH WORK to do before painting!!! ugh!

One of the bedrooms. This is all going too. Ugly wall paper up there too. Not a high priority though since we don't need all 3 bedrooms right away. This will eventually be Olivia's room.

Master bedroom. Through those doors is the bathroom.

Kitchen. I may leave this for a while since there's not much I can do with it on a budget.

Family room. This only needs to be painted.

So there is our new house! We're very excited to get to work on it, and in the next few weeks I can imagine my mornings being spent at the new house working on painting, etc, and afternoons at the old house packing. It's all real now, and I probably ought to stop living in denial.

One year later

OK, so it's only really 11 months, but here she is, wearing the same dress. This was her Easter dress last year, a size 6-12 month. It finally fits her this year. (In case anyone is counting, she's 21 months.

A missing tooth

Nate lost his third tooth today. It was a bit of an experience. He was drinking, and he swallowed it. It took us a little while to calm him down and explain that nothing bad was going to happen, and that it was very likely that the tooth fairy would come anyway. The only problem now is that his crooked bite, combined with his other loose tooth migrating he looks like a little hill person, with one tooth in the middle of his mouth. Hopefully he'll lose the other tooth sooner rather than later!

3 weeks

Do you remember back in October when I said that we had put an offer in on a house and the owners accepted it? Well, we close in 3 weeks. I know, it's been forever. I was so worried that we had found this house before our 6 month lease had even begun. I was worried that we'd end up with a few months of double housing payments. As it turned out, with several major holidays in the middle there, I had no need to worry. And now all of the sudden it's March. When did that happen? And we close in 3 weeks. Holy moly! I am very much not ready to move. I'm the kind of person who likes to pack like a whole month before I move so that it's not all done at the last minute. The problem is that I don't have a space to put any boxes right now. However, we have over a month after we close before we have to be out of this place, so that will be nice. We still don't know when we are going to start living at the new place, but it will probably be early April. So there you have it. 3 weeks from today, and it all seems so weird.

Another trip to the ER

So I've been a mom for 6 1/2 years, and I have now taken my 3rd trip to the ER with one of my children. Way less than some moms I know, but also, way more than other moms I know. The first trip was a mistake, Nate was about a year and a half old and he had an ear infection. I only wanted to take him into the dr, but on the phone with the nurse, she heard his breathing and it worried her. Of course, it was nothing, but all the same, in the ER for a standard ear infection. I was kind of annoyed about that.
Then about a year ago, we thought that Graham had broken his nose. He hadn't, but it looked pretty bad anyway.
So then there was Friday. It was a nice day here, and Nate had a half day of school, so we had gone to the park that afternoon. Nate and Graham were on the seesaw, and Graham was at the top, and wanted to get off. You all know what happens next. So he comes over to me screaming, with blood pouring out of his chin. I get him to the car, and give him a tissue to hold there. By the time we got home, it was no longer pouring out blood. I was able to bathe him and not have it still making a mess, so even though it kind of looked funny, like something was sticking out of the cut, I put a band aid on it, and thought that we'd see how things went. Well, at bed time that night it was still bleeding a bit, but I put him in his pjs and put him to bed anyway. Then I started to think that maybe I should take him in. After a quick Facebook survey, and Jesse's brilliant idea (Can't you call the pediatrician's office?) I decided that I ought to take him in after all. He was not thrilled about it. He was a trooper though for the first half. But then he screamed his little head off throughout the whole procedure. He had to be strapped into one of those papoose things. I was standing at his head while they were getting things ready, and giving him the local antithetic, and all of the sudden I didn't fell so well. So the nurse got me a chair and a drink of water. I felt so badly that I couldn't stand and look at him, he kept on calling my name, but I had my hands on his head the whole time, and was talking to him.
As it turned out, the wound looked funny at first because there was fatty tissue hanging out of it, so it's a good thing that I took him into get it taken care of. I think it probably wouldn't have healed well, and it probably would have gotten infected. End result? 3 stitches.

But the nurse got him this little wolf beanie baby, which he has loved ever since. Now he's just annoyed that he has to keep the band aid on until he gets the stitches out next week, just to keep him from picking at the stitches.

So there was our weekend. Graham is my child that it all happens to. There was one other time that he probably should have gotten stitches, but it was the night before my race last fall, and I was going into Baltimore to spend the night, so it was not a convenient time to take him to the ER. He still has a large scar from that cut. Interestingly enough, when we thought that he broke his nose, we didn't take him to the ER until the next morning because Jesse and I had tickets to a concert that night. He just doesn't get hurt at convenient times! He's also the one who always gets bloody noses, rashes, etc. It sure will be an adventure raising this one!

Snow

This has been the most pathetic winter in terms of snow. We have had maybe 3 times when we have gotten enough to cover the ground, but not even a full inch of snow. We have not had a single late day of school, or snow day. It appears that we will be getting out of school a week early this summer!
So the other night we got some snow. Nate had to go to school, and as soon as he left the rest of us bundled up and headed out in the snow. We needed to go out as early as possible because I knew it would be gone before lunch!

This was really Olivia's first time playing in the snow. She loved it! Her boot kept on coming off (it's hard to find boots for someone with feet as small as hers!) but she would keep on playing until I caught her to put her boot back on.

Peek A Boo!

We picked up a new end table from a yard sale last week. Olivia has already claimed it has her hiding spot!

Peek A Boo!