Saturdays

There are so many wonderful things to love about Saturday!! I remember back when I had a job outside the home, I loved sleeping in on Saturdays! As much as I loved sleeping in on those lazy Saturdays, I love my little girls more, and so I can live without the extra sleep! Now one of my favorite things about Saturday is Bill cooking pancakes and either sausage or bacon for breakfast. The girls and I love Daddy's pancakes and it is an extra special tradition we have enjoyed for quite some time now. It's just not a Saturday without starting off with our pancakes.
The girls love Saturdays (and Sundays) because those are the days Daddy is home in the mornings. Since he leaves for the gym and work before 5:00 a.m. every other morning, Lauren and Allison don't get to see Daddy until supper time. I love how excited they are to come in our room on Saturday morning and jump in bed with us.
Another nice thing about Saturday is that Bill usually takes the girls for a while so I can have some time to myself to do things. He loves to take them to the park. We are ready for warm weather so they can do that more often.
Saturdays are also the day my brother comes to visit us. The girls love to have Uncle Bill come over to play with them. He gives them his undivided attention and plays anything they want to play!! He's the best uncle. Those little girls are so blessed to have such a fun uncle!
This particular Saturday was fun because we bought a new refrigerator and a new washer and dryer for our new house!!!!
Two weeks from today we will wake up in the new house for the first time on a Saturday! What a great day to wake up in a new house!!!

Four, Three, Two, One......

Four nights with Allison (and Mommy) being awake for hours coughing
Three days of being stranded at the house (except for a visit to the doctor and pharmacy)
Two little girls with horrible coughs, fever, and ear infections
Equals One frazzled, stir crazy Mommy!!!!

I guess I should not complain. Considering how cold and snowy it has been this winter, we have been blessed to have a relatively healthy season. When I took the girls to the doctor Monday, the nurse said to me, "Allison looks like she has the flu." Fortunately she did not have the flu, just a very mild ear infection developing with her nasty cold. Poor Lauren's ear infection was pretty bad the nurse said. Lauren's cough sounds so bad even today. Allison finally slept last night all the way through until 4:45 am when Bill got up. She did go back to sleep after I gave her another dose of Triaminic. Both girls still had fevers this morning, but when I took their temperatures at lunch time, they were both back to normal. I've been giving Tylenol and Motrin round the clock for ear pain and fever. I had to make a chart to keep up with the times I was giving all the pain relievers and cold medicine.....and antibiotic because I could not keep it straight!!

Fevers came back in the late afternoon. Guess we will spend another day at home!!

On a happy note only 17 more days until moving day!!!!

March Madness

I enjoy basketball and love watching the Lady Vols and even the UT men (as of the past couple of years) especially during tournament time. But I'm ready for a different type of March Madness this year.

I am so happy to see March arrive. February seemed like such a long month this year. Only 25 more days until moving day. We are tying up loose ends and continuing to pack. Every day I drive through our current neighborhood I am thankful that the number of days we have to drive through this particular neighborhood are numbered. Bill said on the way to church yesterday morning that we only had three more Sundays to drive that way to church.

God has blessed my life so much. Even in this somewhat stressful time of moving, I am so in awe at how wonderful my life is. I could not ask for anything more in my life. Getting ready to move into this house with Bill and the girls is so exciting. I love how excited Lauren and Allison are about moving. I love seeing the joy and excitement in their eyes.

I met with Lauren's preschool teacher last week for a conference to talk about Kindergarten readiness. I was very pleased to hear what her teacher said about her. A few of her comments were,

• well liked by her classmates
• leads and follows (we knew she could lead, but wasn't sure about the following part) :)
• uses manners
• easily corrected
• learns to find joy in everything (my favorite)
• always positive

My one concern about Lauren is her activity level. While she can sit still and focus and attend to any number of activities, she still loves to be moving. And she is going to be one of, if not the youngest in her class. Yet her teacher assured me that she is more than ready for Kindergarten. I knew that, but it was nice to hear from her teacher.

On a different note, I think Allison may be trying to give up her nap. Some days she decides she is not going to go to sleep at nap time. When she does nap, she is staying up until 9:00 or 10:00 and sometimes later. She has a hard time in the evenings if she doesn't nap though. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to let her give up the nap completely. Maybe she will just nap every other day or every three days. We'll see.

31 Days and Counting

I have finally begun the official countdown to closing day. It seems like the time has just crawled by since we sold our house on January 20 and bought the new one on January 24. We are anxiously waiting to get settled into our new home. I am including some pictures we took of the house while we were there for the inspection.

This is the front of our new home.

This picture is taken from the dining room looking at the front door.

Here's the kitchen.

The breakfast area of the kitchen

This is the view you see of the back yard when sitting at the breakfast table. It was snowing the day we were there for the inspection!

We have a corner fireplace in the living room. (Finally, I will have a place to hang stockings for Christmas!!)

The packing is coming along nicely. I really am enjoying that part. I have been cleaning out drawers and closets and making regular runs to Goodwill. I am also in the middle of getting some of the spring clothes Allison has outgrown ready to consign. (I'm not enjoying that!)

We are researching refrigerators and a washer and dryer set to purchase for our new home. If you have any great suggestions for these, please let us know. We have found some we like, but would love to have any additional input from friends on appliances you love or hate!

Lauren has pretty much memorized her new address and talks constantly about starting Kindergarten at Brickey Elementary in August. Both girls are ready to move in and have a bonus room to play in. I'm sure we're in for a few sleepless nights before we move in and after we move in while the girls get adjusted to a new room, but we are more than ready for that time to come.

Next week I have a scheduled appointment every day of the week, so I guess that will help pass the time quickly. I don't really like to wish my life away, but in this case, I'm ready for closing day!

Fun in the Snow

What a great Saturday we had here at our house. Lauren was so excited to see how much snow we got overnight and was ready to get out and build our own "Frosty". (She has been watching the movie Frosty and Frosty Returns a whole lot lately) I was a little afraid we might not get to go out because when we got up this morning Bill noticed that the thermostat in the hallway read 65 degrees and it was set at 68 degrees. The fan was blowing but the compressor was not running. Oh know!!!! Fortunately it was nothing major. The breaker had just tripped so Bill was able to get it fixed before we got too cold!
After our traditional Saturday morning breakfast of pancakes and sausage, we got bundled up and headed outside to enjoy the snow. We do not own a sled, but we tried a few things we had laying around the garage to let the girls try sledding. The snow was very wet and they couldn't really get going down the small hill at the side of our house. So on to building our snowman. The wet snow was great for packing.
Below is a picture of Bill rolling a snow ball. It got really big, but it was shaped more like a tire....it was flat!

So they started over with a smaller ball of snow and ended up with a smaller snowman. The girls were quite pleased with their "Frosty".

Allison, Frosty, and Lauren


Here is a video of Lauren and Allison singing Frosty the Snowman.


Allison enjoying the snow.

Lauren enjoying the snow.

Cute little smile.

Their favorite thing to do was to eat the snow!

Lauren eating the snow.

This afternoon Lauren went to a birthday party at Bounce USA. The roads were fine when we drove to the party, but they were very slick when we left at about 5:30. I was so happy to make it back home and up the hill safely.

An Awesome Week

One week ago today Dottie, our real estate agent called and said that a person who looked at our house the day before was going to write a contract on either our house or another one. We had heard several times from her that our house was second on some one's list. I tried not to get too excited. She called later that day and said the guy chose our house. He made an offer and we countered the offer last Wednesday and the guy accepted our counter! What a great answer to many prayers. We were really excited because we had decided on a house that we really liked in the area we really wanted to be in. Dottie called about the house in Summerhall Subdivision and someone had already put a contract on the house. What a major let down after riding on such a high from selling the house.
Back to square one. Allison and I looked at houses in the pouring rain on Thursday and then Bill and I looked at more on Friday. We went back to look at another house in Summerhall that we looked at before and after narrowing our search to that house and one other we were really interested in, we decided to put an offer on the one in Summerhall on Saturday. Dottie called Bill Sunday evening during our H2H meeting and told us the owner accepted our offer......without countering!!! Another amazing answer to prayers! I was so happy that we found out with our friends at H2H. It was nice to share our news with our friends.
We had an inspection on our house today and have scheduled the inspection on the home we plan to buy on Friday. Barring any unforeseen problems we will be closing on our new house on Friday, March 26, 2010.
Needless to say we have had a whirlwind week with very little sleep. Allison is cutting two 2-year molars and is not sleeping well. And Bill and I are waking up in the night and having a hard time going back to sleep. With all the excitement of a new house, when we wake up...we can't go back to sleep easily. Hopefully that will change soon. But in the mean time, we'll just enjoy the excitement of selling our house and buying a new home......and start packing!!!

A First We Were NOT Eager to See

Allison sleeping in her crib

The picture above is the last picture I took of Allison sleeping in her crib. We had her twin bed set up in her room for over a month before she started sleeping in it. She would talk about sleeping in a big girl bed, but when it came time to either nap or go to bed at night, she wanted to get in the crib. We were happy to keep her in the crib as long as she wanted to stay there.

On October 1st she slept in her twin bed for the first time! She was sick that night and I thought if she couldn't sleep and I needed to be with her, it would be easier if she was in the twin bed. Well, she slept all night that night and has continued to sleep in her twin bed every night since then. The amazing thing was that until today, she never got out of twin bed when she woke up. Whether it was nap time or in the morning, she never got out of the bed until someone went in to get her. Now sometimes she would cry for me when she woke up, but most days she would wake up singing, or just calling out Mommy! Sometimes she would call out Lauren!! But she never got up until we went in to get her.

During nap time today I was on the computer and I heard a door open. I thought it was Lauren's door because she was in quiet time. I thought she was coming in my room to tell me she needed to go to the bathroom or ask if she could come out. When I looked up from the computer, I was shocked to see Allison standing beside me instead of Lauren!

I guess three months of staying in the bed is something to enjoy. Hopefully today was just a fluke and she'll continue to stay put until we get her. That's a nice thought......don't really think it will happen though!:)

Allison's first night sleeping in her twin bed.