Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

OK, this is another “catch-up” post. We’ve been busy, busy, busy around here and I’m honestly glad that things will start to calm down now.
So, what have we been up to? Well, a few weeks before Christmas we had a very busy Saturday with Christmas activities. In the morning we had breakfast with Santa at St. Jude. This was Owen’s first experience with Santa and we were quite anxious to see how he would do. The breakfast wasn’t anything to write about, but the kids had a great time and we got a nice family photo with Santa. Owen did wonderfully and was soo excited to see Santa. It was a good morning for all of us.

Cackie & Michael having fun at Breakfast with Santa

Owen & Mommy having a great time, too!

The kids in the new Chili's Care Center at St. Jude

That evening we took the kids to an event called “Alpine Village” at a local church. Cackie loved it last year and this year was not a disappointment. Both kids and all our friends had a great time. After the village we went to dinner with some friends, it ended up being a very late night but we all had a great time.

Fun at Alpine Village

This is my FAVORITE picture!

They loved these rocking horses

After that busy Saturday we kept very busy until Christmas. The day after my birthday we hosted a holiday party for Michael's office. I took that day off and cleaned the house from top to bottom (well, I didn't do anything on the 3rd floor since it's just storage... but the first & second floors were spotless!) I was soo worn out by the time our guests arrived and by the end of the night my feet were killing me. We had a great time, though! There were two other kids who were a little older, but Cackie & Owen took to them right away. This was actually one of the best things that could have happened because the other kids LOVED being able to go outside and play with Bruno & Jackson. (We had 60+ degree weather that evening and it was quite pleasant). Cackie & Owen spent a lot of time out on the deck with the dogs too and it really helped Owen to overcome his fear of them! Since that night he has asked us numerous times if the dogs can come in the house and play! (Best Christmas present that Michael & I could have asked for!)

The next day we all went out shopping. It was quite an experience! The kids wore us out and we were glad to get home to take late naps.

Christmas was very exciting at our house. We were excited about Owen’s first Christmas and couldn’t wait to see him open his gifts. Michael’s Mom, stepdad and son Zack came over in the morning and we enjoyed brunch with my family and watched the kids open their presents from Santa. Just after noon the in-laws left and we started in on the rest of the pile under the tree, but it wasn’t long before the kids (and everyone else) started to show signs of needing a nap. So, that’s just what we did… we put the presents on hold and headed for rest. After nap we finished up the pile under the tree… just about the time the sun started to go down. It was a great day! We were all still in our pj’s and we were soo relaxed!

Putting out "reindeer food" on Christmas Eve

Opening their Christmas Eve PJs

the tree before we dove in

they like their new bean bag chairs

Barbies and Thomas, oh my!

That evening we snacked and watched Kung Fu Panda with the kids and then the adults enjoyed Wall-E after the kids were in bed. Unfortunately I had to work the next day, so I couldn’t stay up late, but Friday was an easy day at work.

On Friday evening we were lucky to get a visit from Robert and Aimee. Robert was a volunteer at Owen’s orphanage and would occasionally send me little updates about him while we were waiting. We got to have lunch with Robert when we were in Tianjin, so it was great to see him again and share Owen’s growth with him.

After we recovered from Christmas we started getting ready for our New Year’s Eve party. We had a great party with some of our FCC families. The kids enjoyed themselves playing on the 2nd floor and the adults got to sit and enjoy ourselves downstairs. I’ve come to enjoy these get-togethers so much because we have all become such great friends. All the kids stayed awake until midnight and it wasn’t until 2am that Michael & I climbed into bed. It was the perfect way to start the new year.

Since then we’ve taken time to relax and spend some time with the kids. This week things will start to pick up at work for me and I’ll start my next class the next week. Michael will start getting busy with home improvement projects and the kids keep us busy all the time, so it was nice to have this weekend to relax.

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to a wonderful 2009!

Enjoying blackeyed peas on New Year's Day

Happy Birthday to Me!

This is what my crazy husband brought me today at work for my birthday! There are 36 in total, one for each year! You can't even see them all in this picture. I had to put them in a plastic recycle trashcan to get them all in water, lol! Needless to say... he surprised me! After he gave me the roses he took me to a great little Italian restaurant for a yummy lunch and tonight after Owen's gymnastics we are all going out for sushi and my favorite dessert... cheesecake tempura!

Now the only other thing I want for my birthday is for my daughter to behave. For a week now Cackie has gotten U's in conduct at schoool (unsatisfactory). We've tried everything in the book to get her to "use her listening ears" and improve her conduct, but nothing so far has worked. So today I used my birthday to lay a guilt trip on her.... I told her that the only thing I wanted for my birthday was for her to get an E (excellent) in conduct. I'll leave work in a few minutes and will hopefully be met with good news!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Cackie was well behaved and that Velcro Boy doesn't make another appearance at gymnastics!

Stay tuned...

Velcro Boy and Silly Girl

Back at the first of November we signed Owen up for gymnastics lessons. He enjoyed watching Cackie at her lessons for months and a couple of times he tried to sneak into class with her, so we figured it was time to get him involved in his own activities.


The only problem was that we wanted to have the kids in separate classes to eliminate fighting and give them each an opportunity for "alone time". Unfortuntately that meant that Owen would have to take lessons on Thursday nights at 5:30 and Cackie would continue her lessons on Tuesdays at 6:30.


Trying to get into a routine we planned things so that I would take the kids to their lessons and Michael would spend time with whichever one didn't have a lesson. This was working well until a few weeks ago when Cackie and I were about to leave the house and Owen attached himself to my leg and started crying. Michael freed me from Owen's grips so we could leave and says that within a few minutes Owen was fine.


Of course, this concerned Cackie and we had a long discussion in the car about Owen crying and how she didn't want him to cry, etc.


This happened a couple more times, but nothing big. Then last week Owen and I were at his lesson, he ran his 2 warmup laps around the track but when it was time to go off with his coach and take his lesson he suddenly became attached to my leg again.He started screaming "I want my Mommy" (this always freaks me out and makes me afraid that someone will think I'm abducting him). I begged and pleaded with him to calm down and go do his gymnastics, his coach even begged and pleaded with him but no luck. We went and got dressed despite the fact that I kept telling him that he was going home to go to bed. We had one brief minute where he wanted to go and join the class, but that was quickly over when he actually had to detach himself from my leg!

We went home and I didn't quite know what to do. I was worried that something was wrong, but he had really enjoyed the lessons before and couldn't figure out what happened. It was certainly becoming apparant that Owen needed some time away from Mommy, though.

So, this week when Cackie went to her lesson on Tuesday we made a big deal about her going to gymnastics and how much fun it was, etc. To help things even more I had Michael take Owen to his lesson last night. My not being there helped a lot! He enjoyed his lesson and was excited to show off his smiley face stamps to Cackie when he came home!


Since Michael & Owen were off at the gym together I took advantage of the opportunity to spend some time with Cackie. I picked her up from school and we headed out to do a little Christmas shopping and then to the dreaded grocery store.

On the way to the store I explained to her that we were looking for presents for other people and at first she didn't like that at all, but it didn't take long for her to understand how nice it was to give presents to other people. She very thoughtfully picked out a present for Owen and was very excited. It's something that she can enjoy as well, but she was adamant that Owen will really like it and she wanted him to have it.

I had a lot of fun out with her and I think she enjoyed it, too. At the grocery store she didn't want to get in the cart and tried to convince me that she's too big to ride in the seat. She's got a good point there, she almost doesn't fit in the seat anymore! But, I made her squeeze in because I didn't need to worry about her wandering off. As we were walking around she kept putting her hands on either side of my face, squeezing my cheeks and saying "OOH Mommy, you're soo CUTE!" It's really funny when she decides to get silly like that! We also had a good round of a game where we call each others names in silly voices back and forth. I'm sure the other shoppers didn't appreciate it, but we had a good time!

Tonight is Parent's Night Out at school, so the kids will have a little pajama party while Michael and I go out and get some shopping done.

Tomorrow will be a busy day for us... We have breakfast with Santa in the cafeteria at St. Jude (this will be Owen's first opportunity to see Santa) and then in the evening we're going with friends to a Christmas Village at a local church. Cackie loved it last year and we're all anxious to see if Owen enjoys it, too. I'm hoping to see more of Silly Girl this weekend and a little less of Velcro Boy!

I did it!

I did it! I walked 13.1 miles in 3:36!

Saturday was a GREAT day! It was sooo cold, but I got my butt out of bed and we all headed downtown to Autozone park to meet up with friends before the race.

This is Jennifer and I warming up at the ballpark.

The race officically started at 8AM, but it was a wave start, so I didn't actually get started until close to 8:25. Here's one of the groups heading out before me, there were nearly 14,000 people racing!

Here I am at the starting line, you can't tell but I was sooo cold!

I had my cellphone with me and was able to call Michael at different points during the race. He tried to meet up with me at mile 5, but the police had the roads blocked off and it made getting around town very difficult. They were able to meet up with me between miles 6 & 7 and I was soo happy to see them!

They were able to make their way around between miles 8 & 9 to see me again. Here's a great shot Michael got while they were waiting...

When they saw me here Cackie got very excited. She ran up to me and gave me a huge bear hug. Only problem was that my hips were starting to ache and if I stopped I wouldn't have been able to start again. I almost knocked poor Cackie over trying to get her detached from my legs!

The last 4 miles or so went pretty quickly for me. There was lots of traffic on the street and soo many people were out cheering the runners and walkers on. I was starting to hurt in my hips, but I had no doubt that I was going to finish. In fact, the last mile or so I was passing people who just couldn't keep up any longer.

Here I am just crossing the finish line.

Michael said I had this big smile on everytime he saw me.

The best part was getting to hug my kiddos when it was all over!

I finished just after noon and the kids were starving, so Michael took us out to lunch. After that we all took a much needed nap! I was lucky enough to get a massage appointment for that afternoon and that helped my recovery a lot! The rest of Saturday I did absolutely nothing, which is not like me at all. I was just too pooped and achy!

Sunday I was pretty sore, but I tried to keep moving as much as I could. Yesterday I didn't hurt much and today I'm hoping to get back out and do some walking!

The race was a lot of fun and I really hope to be able to do it again next year. It has me motiviated now to get back to exercising and maybe next year I'll be able to get an even better time!

I've Decided to do Something Crazy!

I've decided to do something crazy!

Some of you may know that back in August I began a training program to run/walk the St. Jude Half Marathon. But, then in September I started to have problems with my left ankle and after an MRI found out that I had a couple of stress fractures and had to quit training. Well, there has been lots going on between then and now and I just haven't had time to get back into training. I figured it was just a silly dream to do a half marathon and it was time for me to get back to reality and focus on all the other things in my life.

But, the thing is that I work at St. Jude. I’m constantly hearing information about the upcoming events and the Marathon/Half Marathon is a pretty big one around here. When I heard the news that the Half Marathon was sold out I felt guilty… just before I got hurt I signed up for the Half Marathon to help give myself a goal and motivation, I even signed up to be a St. Jude Hero because I believe in what we do here at St. Jude. Once you are signed up to be in the race your spot is taken and can’t be given to anyone else even if you don’t show up to race.

So, that race registration has been burning a hole in my brain. I keep thinking I’ve signed up and no one else can take my place. Our old house is right in the middle of the race course, so over the years we’ve tried to go out and about on race day and have seen the participants, some running and a lot of them walking along just to be a part of the race. I keep thinking about those walkers and I’ve told myself, I can do that!

So, this Saturday I will get out of bed early and get out into the cold morning to be at the starting line downtown (anyone who really knows me will know that getting up early and out in the cold will be half the battle). I’ll walk for as long and as far as I can. There are no promises that I’ll finish this race! But, the whole time I’m walking I will be thinking about the reasons why I’m there… because I believe in the mission of St. Jude and want to do something else to help, because I’ve been blessed with two beautiful children who are happy and HEALTHY, because there are children out there who not as lucky as my children and they need the best medical care available, because I never knew my grandmother but she believed in Danny Thomas’ mission and would send money to St. Jude and lastly because I’m blessed to be able bodied and can get out and do my part, even if it’s just a little bit.

If you believe in me and want to support me in my dream of becoming a St. Jude Hero, please log onto my website www.stjudeheroes.org/users/dwalls and consider making a donation. If you can’t make a donation, please let me know I have your support… leave a comment here, each one will help motivate me on Saturday!

One Year Ago Today...

One year ago today around 3:30 pm, my life was changed forever. I was at work and had just finished cleaning up one of the cubicles to get ready for a new co-worker in my department. I had sat down at my desk and my cellphone rang. It took me a second before it registered that the area code was from Colorado and my heart skipped a beat when I answered and realized that it was Pam from the waiting child department on the other end.

I don't remember much about the conversation, but I remember her telling me that she had a sweet little boy who needed a Mommy & Daddy. She emailed me his pictures, but warned me that they were not the best she had ever seen.

I was in shock and didn't quite know what to do. I opened the email to find this picture...

I called Michael after that, he was home with Cackie who was sick that day. I was crying, of course, and he immediately wondered what was wrong. I told him that I had a picture of his son and I could tell that it took at second for the news to register with him. I was glad I wasn't the only one in shock over this!

I went home shortly after that and we had many discussions. We took a few days to think about this little boy and how he would change our lives. It took us a little longer than we would have liked, but all this happened just 2 days before Thanksgiving. I remember when we finally heard from our pediatrician, we were out eating dinner and we were soo glad to hear that she said we needed to bring this little boy home. We had already come to that decision, but just needed that last bit of confirmation before we jumped in. After we got home from dinner and had put Cackie to bed I called CCAI and left a voicemail for Pam, I just couldn't wait till the next morning to call!

Today that sweet little boy is my Owen and I can't imagine what our lives would be without him!

P.S. On that day, one year ago, after I called Michael and shared my shock with him, I went back into the cubicle that I was cleaning out just to check and make sure I had put everythinig away. Sitting right in the middle of the desk was a little red string off of an interoffice envelope. I knew deep in my heart that the red thread was at work.

ARRRGH!

Anyone remember the movie "The Money Pit"?
I'm beginning to think we're starring in the sequel that is being filmed by candid camera!

First, the previous owners left us with a horribly green pool. Actually, it was a beautiful green color, just not something you would ever want to swim in. We were soo frustrated with trying to get the sellers out of our house and get moved in that we just let it go. Finally, two weeks ago we were able to get some pool guys to come out and winterize the pool, at a cost that was much greater due to the fact that it had been neglected by the previous owners.

Then, there's been the issue our guest house. The previous owner's had a renter there and had told us before closing that he had moved out.... not true! He finally moved out the same weekend we moved in, but now we've been left with his disgusting mess and the previous owners never came forward to give us the cleaning deposit that they collected from him.

We also have electrical issues in the family room that was added on to the original house. Let's just say that the electrical wiring is sooo not to code (this is where having an engineer for a husband is a GREAT thing!). We found one electrical outlet behind the dishwasher in the wetbar that was SPARKING!!!!! YIKES!

Now, our latest issue is a leak.... it's in a lovely spot, just off the kitchen in the breakfast room. I came home the other day during a rain storm to find the ceiling leaking. It has continued to leak steadily, but it's not raining any longer. Michael has been working on drawing up the layout of the house and it looks like the issue is not the roof (a good thing?), but that it's the toilet in the master bath. We are very unhappy with the master bath and bought the house knowing that we would be changing it up and expanding it, but we weren't quite prepared to do it right now.

Oh, in addition to the leak appearing the other day. It kinda looks like this is not the first time it has happened. It also appears that there may be termite damage in the ceiling of the breakfast room (hmmm, termites like moisture).

So, right now the ceiling is falling in my breakfast room and there's an awful wet, musty stench throughout the whole house. I'm just praying that it's not termites and that we can get it fixed and cleaned up soon (and that we can stay sane in the process!). Fingers Crossed!

6 Months!

Six months ago yesterday was Owen's gotcha day!
In six months he has gone from this shy, careful little boy who was scared of just about everything...


To this little ham who loves to see his pictures on the camera, is still kinda scared of animals but is very curious about them, thinks his big sister holds the moon and stars and loves to jump, run and play!

Wow! What an amazing 6 months it has been! A lot has changed in his life, but he takes it all in stride and brings smiles to everyone's faces. We love you Owee!

So, as a celebration of his 6 months home we are starting him in gymnastics lessons tonight. He's always wanting to take classes with Cackie, but we were a little worried that a class together would be hard on them and the coach. Hopefully he'll enjoy tonight and will want to do more. Cackie won't be there with us tonight which I hope will give him a chance to open up and enjoy his own thing.

Cackie & Owen Tearing Up the Polls

Well, the polling booth at least! Yesterday Michael went to pick the kids up from school and came home with this great story...

The teachers were planning a voting activity for today and had fashioned a voting booth out of a large cardboard box. Well, when Michael picked the kids up they got a little out of hand (who, my kids?) and were fighting over a spot in the voting booth. In the process of fighting they knocked down the booth and tried to tear it up. If I remember correctly, when Michael was telling me about it he lovingly referred to Cackie & Owen as "numbnuts".

Today I'm happy to report that the polling booth was intact and that the kids had overwhelmingly voted for mint over strawberry... um, I mean Obama over McCain.

Never a dull moment here!

Happy Halloween!

 

Thank You Good Samaritan!

I have a bad habit that has got to stop! My bad habit it that I will use my credit or debit card for something and instead of putting it back in my wallet, I will put it in my pocket and move it to my wallet later. I do this a lot at work when I go to the cafeteria for lunch. I'll take out my debit card and forget to put it back in my purse. Often I'll forget to take it out of my pocket and the next day I'll go to get lunch only to realize that I have no debit card.
Well, my habit gets even worse... Last week I filled up my car with gas and instead of putting my American Express card back in my purse, I put it in the pocket of the jacket that I was wearing. You can guess what happened next... the card fell out of my jacket pocket and I never knew it. I actually discovered it when I was trying to buy something online, I have the card number memorized and when I went to complete my transaction it came up as rejected with some note about a lost card. I went searching for my card and couldn't find it. That night I called American Express and sure enough I had lost the card and some nice person had called it in to AmEx. They cancelled my card and are sending a new one. I got sooo lucky! No fraudlent charges and all the mess that goes along with that, I just have to wait for my new card to arrive.
So, THANK YOU whoever you are that took the honest approach and called in my lost card! I SOOOO APPRECIATE YOUR HONESTY!!!!

May 14 Pictures

Yes, I'm really catching up on pictures! Here's a slideshow of May 14, our last full day in China. At the end there is a picture of us on the plane on our way home. Then there is a picture of Chris Douglas Roberts, Michael got to meet him in Chicago when he got stranded there trying to get our painting back. The last picture is the balloons that our friends brought when they met us at the airport. The kids lost control of them at the airport and they were there on the ceiling when Michael finally arrived home.

May 13th photos

I'm catching up on photos from our China trip. Here is a slideshow from May 13. This was the day that we had the red couch photos and then went out to dinner at the Thai Restaurant.

It's a Gloomy Day

Here in Memphis it's rainy and gloomy. I needed something to help cheer me up, so I thought I would share some old pictures. These are from May 12th when we were in Guangzhou. Enjoy!

9-1-1

You may have missed it, but two weeks ago it was Fire Prevention Week. It presents the perfect opportunity to teach preschoolers about fire prevention and how to handle a fire emergency. You know... stop, drop and roll... and how to dial 9-1-1.

Well, Cackie apparently learned her lessons at school well since she dialed 9-1-1 at least 4 times this morning while she and Owen were downstairs watching TV and Michael & I were upstairs getting ready!

I got downstairs to find the phone on speaker and when pressed Cackie admitted that she had played with it. I hung up the phone and it immediately started ringing I picked it up and Michael also picked it up from upstairs. On the line was a Memphis Police dispatcher asking if everything was OK because 9-1-1 had been dialed. I reassured them that our 4 year-old had learned how to dial 9-1-1 at school and tried to practice on our house phone. When we hung up the phone immediately rang again. It was another dispatcher telling us that the police were on their way since someone had dialed 9-1-1 at least 4 times from our number. Within seconds Cackie was in the corner!

I had already decided that she was going to have to tell the police officers what she had done when the phone rang again. The police were verifying that everything was OK and that we did not need officers dispatched to our house. Michael apologized profusely and that must have done the trick since we never saw signs of the good boys in blue.

Needless to say, I'm now glad to be at work! Michael hopefully brought her little mishap to the attention of her teachers, we sure can use their help in reinforcing that she made a VERY BAD choice!

More later about our weekend and Cackie & Owen's mishaps with the lotion bottle at my parents house....

Boots are in style this season, right?

I sure hope they are in style since I'm sporting this nifty one...

I know it's no excuse, but this is one reason why I haven't updated lately. I've been running so hard I broke my foot!
No, not really. Actually this is what exercise will do for you! Back in July I started a women's running program. After a few weeks I lost a little momentum and then picked it up again just before the program was over. So, when I found out that our gym was starting a program to train for the half marathon I jumped at the opportunity. I was doing great, feeling good and was motivated when my ankle started to hurt. I took a few days off and it didn't get any better so I made an appointment with an orthopedic doc. He took some xrays and found nothing, so I was scheduled for an MRI. The MRI showed that I have a number of horizontal stress fractures in my foot and ankle. Yuck! I went for about a week after that just wearing a brace on my foot and it started to hurt more and more so I called and asked for a boot. It's soo fashionable, dont'cha think? Tomorrow I go for a bone density test and hopefully that will provide some answers as to what's going on.
In addition to my foot woes the kids are keeping us ever busy, we've moved to our new house and I'm halfway through the fall semester in my MBA Finance class. Just a few things keeping me away from the computer!
The move went OK. It wasn't the smoothest, but once we got through with dealing with the sellers it has been a lot better. There are a lot of things around the house that need fixing or updating and I keep telling Michael that this house needs him. It will take some time and a lot of hard work, but I have no doubts that it will be absolutely beautiful when we are finished.
This weekend we are headed to Knoxville for the Tennessee vs. Mississippi State game. My Uncle Donald is coming down to visit and it will be the first time Owen will get to meet him. We're looking forward to getting away and might not know what to do with a little free time on our hands.
That's it for now. I'm soo tired I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open! I stayed up too late last night watching the Phillies win the NLCS and was soo excited that they're going to the World Series that I had trouble falling asleep. Go Phillies!

All better!

I know it's been a long time since I've posted here. We've been staying busy with lots going on and I just haven't had much time to spend on the computer. I'm going to try to do better to keep this updated.

I'm soo happy to share that right now I'm sitting on the couch while Owen lays next to me watching his favorite Little Einsteins. We've been home about half an hour from having his ear tubes put in, adenoids removed and his circumcision done. He's doing wonderfully right now, even if he does look a little pitiful and groggy. He's already told Michael & I both that he loves us and gave Michael a big kiss. I'm very excited to see the changes that the ear tubes and adenoids bring.

So, to back up a little... we followed up with the ENT a few weeks ago and even after 2 months of medication therapy it was obvious that Owen had a lot of fluid in his ears. The doctor told us that he would definitely need tubes and his adenoids removed. We had to wait a few weeks for our appointment with the pediatric urologist, but then it all came together quickly. The two doctors were able to work out their schedules so that they could take care of everything during the same surgery. This was a relief to us since he would only need to be put under anesthesia once.

When the ENT doc was finished he told Michael & I that there was quite a bit of fluid in Owen's ears and he probably had about a 25 decible hearing loss. He's sure the tubes will help a lot and expects that Owen's speech and pronunciation will take off! The urologist said everything went just fine and the only restriction is that Owen needs to keep off of bikes & tricycles for a couple of weeks.

So, now that is behind us and we are very happy!

We've been up to all kinds of other things around here. Two weeks ago we were on vacation at Dauphin Island, AL. We ended up leaving home a couple days late because tropical storm Fay was coming through and there was a little bit of storm surge that we were worried about. The rental agency was able to change our reseravations, so leaving a few days late wasn't a big deal. But then we had to leave a day early because there was a mandatory evacuation because hurricane Gustav was headed that way.

In between the two storms we had a great week at the beach. The kids absolutely LOVED it and wanted to spend all their time swimming and playing in the water. We got to see all kinds of sealife (hermit crabs, sting rays, blue crabs, fish, dolphins) both on the beach and at the SeaLab on the island. We also got to spend some time with my Uncle Bruce and the kids had fun, even though his dog Bruno scared Owen.

The week that we went to the beach, I also started back working on my MBA. I'm taking a finance class this semester and I'm already behind, no surprise there! It will be tough to keep up, but I always enjoyed finance, so that will help me to get through.

We're also in the process of packing and working on all the stuff needed so that we can move. Right now we are scheduled to close on Monday morning. We don't have all the paperwork, etc ready yet, so who knows if Monday will be the day or not. In the meantime we'll keep packing. The house is an absolute wreck because of the packing, at least when we move we'll have a little more room with all the boxes around.

I guess the last bit of big news around here is that Cackie has been moved up at school and is now in the big kid preschool class. It was time for the kids to finally be separated and it's turning out to be great for both of them. I've attended preschool parent meetings for both of their classes and there is a lot of excitement in both of them. Cackie is going to start having "homework" each week and in a few weeks her class will be taking a field trip to the fair!

OK, Owen is starting to stir a bit and needs some mommy loving. I have a ton of pictures from this summer that need to be added, it may take a while with all that we've got going on, but I will try really hard to do that.
Till later....

Moving on Up....

So, it's official... we're moving! We came to the final agreement with the sellers this weekend so that means it's time to start packing. Ugh!

This whole thing is really a huge surprise to us. We got back from China and started talking about our plans to add on to our house, because it was very obvious that we needed more room. But, since our lives have been so busy with work this summer we never got any further than just talking about our plans.
Then just before Cackie's birthday, Michael told me about a house in our neighborhood that was just put up for sale and that it had always intrigued him and he wanted to see it. So, we called our realtor and she took us by to check it out. It turned out to be a great house with a lot of potential, but it's potential could only be reached through lots of time, hard work and MONEY! It was really just too much for us to even consider and it didn't meet all of our needs so we knew it wasn't meant to be.
But, it did get us thinking about what a good market it is to buy in right now and we looked at some listings online to see if there was anything that interested us. We identified a couple and had emailed our realtor about them, but just hadn't been able to set up a time to get together to see them.
I was also looking at the ads in the Sunday paper and came across an open house that sounded interesting (it was like 105 degrees that day, so the pool sounded wonderful). I had to go into work that morning for a little while, but then after I got home and the kids woke up from their naps we decided to go ahead and check out the open house. We walked in and within a couple of minutes I was totally in love! By the time we left there Michael & I both knew that we wanted to buy the house. In fact, I remember us walking down the front sidewalk to leave and he said... let's buy it!
That was Sunday and by Tuesday night we had a contract to buy it! On the 8th we had our home inspection and some things were identified that needed to be taken care of, so we came to an agreement with the sellers and we're set to close on the house on September 15th!
We're all really excited, but know that we have a TON of stuff to do before now and then. We leave on Saturday for our vacation at Dauphin Island, so that's a whole week lost packing. We need the time away, though and the kids need some Mommy & Daddy time.
For now we are going to keep our current house and try to rent it out. We've had someone express interest in it and hopefully that will come to fruition.

So, that's about all the news on our new house. Well, except for the fact that it was featured in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago! How cool is that??!!!


Go here to check it out... New York Times Great Homes and Destinations

We can't wait to move in and make it our own!

Been Working Too Much!

Yes, I've been gone for a LONG time because I've been working too much! Michael has been working too much as well, so we've been a pretty grouchy bunch around our house.
I'm finally getting some relief from my work, YAY! Michael should be getting some relief real soon.
Even though we've been working a lot we've still had a lot of stuff going on around our house. We celebrated 2 months with Owen, the 4th of July, Cackie's 4th birthday, our 9th wedding anniversary, the kids and I took a weekend to visit LaoLao & LaoYe, we're buying a new house & moving and we're about to celebrate 3 months with Owen!

I'm hoping to get some time this weekend to share more about what we've been up to and on our big upcoming plans. I've also got quite a few pictures that I'm hoping to get posted to share.
One thing that is for sure around here... we're staying busy!

Rebuttal

A rebuttal to the idiot at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

http://www.popehat.com/2008/06/23/mike-seate-of-the-pittsburgh-tribune-review-doesnt-approve-of-your-familys-skin-color/