I heard Jason giggling last night around 3:30 am. He has the cutest laugh that it totally cracked me up. And just so you can better imagine, here's a clip of him getting a kick out of something on TV...
Imagine hearing that in the wee hours of the morning.
I would love to be able to see what he was dreaming about?
Have a mentioned how much I love these people???
Wait someone is missing, he was going potty all by himself.
Here he comes!
And this is what he wanted to wear to run errands – awesome buddy!
P.S. Happy Birthday Justin – you are one lucky dude! :)
P.S.S. We’re a little lucky too.
When there's snow in Seattle everything shuts down so it was no surprise when school was canceled on Tuesday and Wednesday. The kids had lots of fun playing in the snow.
- We have about six inches of snow
PRO: It didn’t start snowing hard til after the girls went to school
CON: Snow in Seattle pretty much stops everything
PRO: I have over a week before the dreaded appointment.
CON: I have over a week to dread the dreaded appointment.
- Justin took the day off
PRO: We are home all day together
CON: He’s sick and has been up in bed most of the day
- I have a lock box
PRO: Since don’t need to physically “show” the house, we may just be able to sneak out of here for Christmas
CON: I can never leave my house messy – needs to show-shape in moments notice.
CON2: A realtor can come in my house anytime. Sure they should call, but will they always?
» The girls had early release Wednesday-Friday this past week for parent-teacher conferences. We met with their teachers on Thursday night. I wonder if I will always love parent teacher conferences - I doubt it, but I will keep my fingers crossed. The girls received glowing reports. Abigail has the same teachers she had in her split class last year. They are awesome and continuously think of ways to try and challenge Abigail.
Carly's teacher didn't mention a single thing she should improve on - she's a bright girl and is doing awesome in first grade.
We couldn't be prouder of these two girls.
This picture was taken back in May... Carly has changed so much since then with the loss of those baby teeth and with her hair growing out. They are growing up too fast!
» Since the girls were out of school early we picked Justin up from work Friday afternoon and made our way to Snoqualmie to check out the progress on our future home.
Holy smokes! We have walls and floors and holes for windows! The first floor is already framed and they were working on the floor joists for upstairs.
The front is basically the garage, front door, and office.
Here's a view from the back. Draw an imaginary line from the two white posts and that's our backyard. The back widows are the family room, above the kitchen sink, and the slider in the nook area.
» I've shown our current home to several realtors since putting it on Craig’s list, but our plan has always been to get it listed on the MLS by Thanksgiving. We should be official listed by Tuesday. Then we just need to pray for the right buyer to come along.
» Friday night was Abigail’s end of the season soccer party. One of her teammates hosted a pizza party for all the families and a sleepover for the girls. We have a no sleepover rule, but Abigail was able to have a late night and stay til 10pm. I'll admit I got teary-eyed when her coach was praising her abilities and expressing how much he will miss working with her (he had plans to watch her develop into a skilled volleyball player). I highly doubt we will ever experience another coach with as much love, patience, and knowledge as him. Makes it hard to move on.
» Jason is potty training. I think. Last Sunday he woke up in the morning dry. Not the first time, but what was unique is that when I asked him if he wanted to go potty like a big boy he said yes! So he did. And again during church. He's doing great, not perfect yet, but we'll get there... in the meantime I am grateful for my belief in pull-ups.
» Yesterday marked the first time in the nearly ten years that we've lived here that Justin got up on our roof. It's not that he's scared of heights. The fact that he's 6' 6" means he has a long way to fall. He feels the same way about skating and skiing. Anyhow, equally impressive (probably to me only) is that my not-so-handy man got up there and fixed a shingle that came off in our recent wind storm. What a man!
» I am nervous about tomorrow. We are meeting with a designer to pick out tile, carpet, hardwood, and backsplashes. Those are big decisions. Big, expensive-to-ever-change decisions. What I fear is that these decisions will make me question previous decisions - paint color, countertops, etc... making all these different elements work together seems difficult and overwhelming. If we don't end up liking it we have no one to blame but ourselves... Stressful. So say a little prayer for us Monday between 1-4pm... We need all the help we can get.
» I was hoping to find truth in the saying that after doing something for two weeks it becomes a habit. Unfortunately, that's bologna. I've kept my house clean for over two weeks and I have no doubt I could let it all go tomorrow. I could easily return to rarely making my bed, going to bed with dishes in the sink and mounds of crumbs on the floor, and leaving make-up and hair products scattered across my bathroom counter. I've been surprised though to find how much easier it is to have a clean house when you try to maintain it. A more appropriate saying for me is, "old habits are hard to break". I'm the gal who exercised regularly for SIXTEEN months and after quitting never once looked back. Habit smabit.
» Our DVR died. We've lost all our pre-record shows and our ability record new ones, which also means we can't fast forward and skip through commercials. Life is hard sometimes. Really hard.
» I made a wonder oven/freezer yesterday at our church Super Saturday. (truth be told my friend actually did all the sewing while I just say by her and chatted). If you don't know what a wonder oven is let’s just say I could haul 5 gallons of ice cream to Utah without it even softening. I guess that also means someone in Utah could bring Justin chic-fil-a sandwiches and they would still be nice and hot. Awesome.
» Jason is phasing out of naps. He'll still take a nap 2-3 times a week, but they usually end up so late in the day that it takes him a long time to fall asleep at night. Last night he quietly laid in bed for over an hour before coming downstairs claiming to be wheezy. Yes, he was faking illness to get attention. Here's the shocking part. We didn't march him right back upstairs. Instead we let him hang out. Mimicking me he helped straighten up the house. Mimicking Justin he sat on the couch reading.
Notice Justin’s thrilling choice of reading materials, the new priesthood manual. Saturday nights just don't get better than this :)
» Today we woke up to our first snow of the season. Jason said "That snowmans live". True buddy, but I think we'll need a little more snow before we see any snowmen.
» As I type this the kids are watching Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer – tis’ the season.
» Today was Justin’s first time taking Katie during Sunday School or Relief Society. Isn't that shocking? She is seven months old. It's not that he's incapable - he said she hardly made a peep. Truth is I've never before asked him to. That's how much I adore this girl.
But not a peep?? Sounds like Katie has a new church buddy. That is when he actually makes his way to our ward building.
Man I love this girl!
Katie can turn a bad day into a wonderful one with her big, beautiful smile.
As you can see in the above picture, Katie slobbers, slobbers, slobbers, but yet remains very much toothless
Can you believe I still wrap this girl up at night to sleep and that much of the time she's still tucked in when she wakes up?
Likes to eat, but she's not the neatest eater, her tongue pushes half the food back out, we're working on it though and significant improvements are being made
Her first finger food is Cheerios. Part of me is so sad that we are already at that stage, but I must admit that I appreciate that it keeps her occupied and happy. I was surprised how quickly she mastered getting them in her mouth. We only have a few minor gagging moments.
Still refusing the bottle and doesn't quite get the sippy cup.
Katie is quite obsessed with her feet. In fact she finds them quite tasty.
Yep, going for the feet again.
Is ticklish, especially under her chin
Rolls onto her tummy often, but still can't flip herself back over
Can sit up - briefly
I am so grateful for Katie’s big sisters and older brother. They are so helpful (even when they don't want to be) and Katie really loves them.
Even when they are squishing her nose
We had quite the storm last night with some serious winds – when the girls got home from school this afternoon all the kids were talking about our neighbor’s tree that had fallen down last night. How in the world did I not notice this when I was out and about this morning and again this afternoon?
Yep, that’s my house on the left - I drove right by it several times today.
Forecast is calling for more wind tomorrow and maybe even snow this weekend – e-gads!
As I was taking a few pictures of Katie last night there was all sorts of mayhem going on.
It’s all fun and games til somebody gets hurt…
In addition to the busyness that comes from buying and selling a home, we've been busy the past 2 months with twice weekly soccer practices and Saturday soccer games - times two soccer players, minus a dad who was working very long hours at work, plus the rainy fall season of the northwest and an infant that needs to sleep often, equals more chaos than this mom prefers. But the girls had a lot of fun and I really do enjoy watching them play. Both girls are great athletes and play hard, always giving it their best.
This was Abigail’s third season playing with the same team and once again they were undefeated. How we are ever going to find another team this great I don't know. This year she played teams from Maple Valley, Federal Way, Kent, and Auburn. There's just no way around it; her team was awesome.
Many of Abigail's teammates were also on Abigail’s basketball team last winter (also undefeated). We decided to have Abigail skip basketball this winter since we don't know how long we will be here. It was a hard decision because she was given the opportunity to play on a junior basketball team for our girls’ high school team (the 2010 state champions). It's hard to walk away from the friendships we've developed with these girls and their families.
Carly also had a fun soccer team and a great coach. And get this... they won all but one game (I think one game was a tie but Carly swears they beat them by one goal)... Of course winning isn't everything, but it sure makes it more fun.
Saturday afternoon we celebrated with Carly's team at Dairy Queen. Even though she was new to the team this year she felt very comfortable and developed some really close friendships.
Last Thursday we were invited to a magic show in our soon-to-be neighborhood. We figured the kids would enjoy it and it would be a great excuse for us to see the progress on our lot and meet some of our future neighbors. There was a great turn out and we met lots of really nice people.
The neighborhood still has over a hundred homes to be built so we knew if there wasn't a ton of kids now there would be. We were surprised to see at least 4-5 three year olds and several young babies too. We also met a family that has a daughter in third grade, although in typical Abigail fashion, Abigail clicked with the girls older fifth grade sister instead.
We had just enough time before the show to take a few pictures of our house. The foundation is complete and the wood for framing was apparently being delivered today.
In this next picture I'm standing near the back corner of our lot. Sadly you can't move closer to the city and get huge backyards, but we picked the largest lot they had. It will be a little bigger than what we have now, but not by much.
News from our current home is that we are officially up for sale. I showed the house for the first time today to two realtors. Likely they were just trying to convince me that I was in need of their services, but I think they were surprised to find that this gal has done her research. Oh, and of course they loved our house… too bad they didn’t bring a buyer with them.
Last year we were traveling on Halloween and with Halloween falling on a Sunday this year that’s 2 years we've missed out on trick-or-treating. I'm not a fan of trunk-or-treats I think that trick-or-treating is best experienced running from house to house in your very own neighborhood. It's what I did growing up. However since Halloween fell on a Sunday this year we decided we would celebrate on Saturday at our church trunk-or-treat.
Abigail wore the same witch costume for her third year – guess that’s one advantage of buying a costume several sizes too big.
Carly squeezed into the size 4-6 fairy costume she wore 2 years ago, but opted to not wear the wings this time around.
Jason was “Woody” – we borrowed a cowboy costume from a friend. As we were rushing to get him dressed I taped up the chaps so they wouldn’t drag on the ground. When we got home and took off the tape it tore off all the faux-leather – opps! Guess that wasn’t the best idea.
Katie squeezed into the 3-6 month pumpkin costume that Jason wore as a baby.
It was a fun activity. We had a chili dinner before hand and the kids participated in a little parade while the adults got their trunks ready.
Jason's evening was bitter sweet. We woke him up from his nap and got him dressed up against his will. During the children’s parade he got lost and I found him crying in the arms of a neighbor friend. Then there was a clown walking behind us that completely freaked Jason out (who knew that there really are kids deathly afraid if clowns?) so we had to bow out if the parade early just to get away from the child clown. But once Jason figured out people would throw candy in this little bucket for just saying 3 little words all the trauma of the evening was forgotten.
Immediately after we got home the kids dumped out their candy and started trading. I had some candy left over that we didn’t pass out so I got in on the trading action to score some of my favorites – this year I’m lovin’ the Kit Kats! I also instituted a litter-tax. For every wrapper I find I get to choose a piece of candy from each of the kids. Too bad it’s only happened once – those darn kids are too careful.
Yesterday we spent the evening at Justin’s parents. They live on five acres and don't get any trick-or-treaters. When we got home we found things were still in full swing in our neighborhood. I can't wait til next year when we can do Halloween the good ole-fashioned way.
