In honor of...

...the season upon us, and because I haven't posted in a few days, and because I will be out of internet range for a while, I am uploading some new pictures of the house as we speak. Er, type. I know you have been missing my daily anecdotes and pictures, as well as my sparkling personality and sense of humor, so I figure you deserve something good for your patience and long suffering. Don't worry, Christmas posts will follow the New Year, as well as New Year posts, and oh yeah, that pesky 5th birthday thing for my oldest. See?!?! So much to look forward to! However, until then, these updated pictures (albeit old as heck) will have to suffice :)

This was the family room/dining room before we tore up the carpet and restored the hardwood. This is how I saw it the first day. Hubby saw potential. I have always said he has good vision :)

Up the stairs to the bed room.
The smallest, and aptly named bedroom, "the Pink room." Now Dylan's room.

The middle room. The Blue room. Now the girls bedroom.

The Master. The Red Room.

The new middle bedroom. Check out that fancy scmancy carpet!!! And the poor girls, who spent many a night in their sleeping bags with their little TV :)

The New Master!

OK. That is all for now. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!!!

Gloves

Dylan is a very hot natured little boy. When the rest of us are in blankets or comfortable, the poor kid has little sweat beads on his cute little button nose. However, the other day, his little hands seemed freezing, so I borrowed some gloves the girls had.

At first, he can't really tell what they are....

Then he figures out, hey... It doesn't matter... I can still move around. And stuff.

And then, the rest are just cute. Gloves or not.

I love me some cheeks :)

Sneaky Fort

After we had moved into the house, I helped Kari to build a fort. I let her keep it up and sleep in it over night. I went in to check on them, as I normally do before bed, and found Kaitlyn had sneaked in to join the party. Back up... Yes, we have changed Kaitlyn's bed to a toddler bed. She was climbing out of her bed, so we thought it would be better to just change it over. We actually had a relatively good transition. She stays in her bed most of the time. In fact, one day we were pretty busy doing something (I believe it was a water/basement issue) and she got tired of waiting for me to put her to bed. So, she walked up stairs, grabbed her blanket and pacifier, and went to bed. Yes, the pacifier is the next hurdle. Kari ceremoniously gave hers up on her third birthday. As long as Kaitlyn is done by then, I consider it acceptable. It is kinda hard to tell from the pictures, but they are both in there... I don't know how they slept. They are both such wiggle worms!

Here is the fort. The sheet door had fallen off.

Its hard to tell, but they are both in there.

See, there are two pairs of pajamas.

To be honest, I am surprised they both fit. Kari sleeps with so many "cuddle toys" anyway, there is hardly any room for her. But, there they both are :)

Beach Party

Ok. Lets go waaaay back. I said I was gonna catch up a bit. I am gonna skim over some stuff, but this was cute enough, I wanted to share. Kari decided we were going to have a beach party. In November. A few days before we moved. She made us Party Passports. We had to have these to get into the party. :)

We played a few games: Follow the leader. Copy Cat. And then, we drew pictures.

For the beach party, we drew pictures of beach balls :)

Then, we had a seal party. It was for Kaitlyn, but she didn't plan it. Kari did :) We did all the same things, except we drew pictures of seals.

She did a very good job planning it, and it was very fun playing around. She is so creative :)

She's Baaaaaaack...

I know, I know... It has been, like, forever! You missed me?!?! Well, I missed you too. In a virtual manner of speaking. And, as much as you want all the gory details of what you have missed in our busy and not always the super happy lives, I will spare you. For one thing, it would take way too long. And besides, I am an optimist. And, I am choosing to not dwell on the things that would send me into a spiral of depression the likes of which you, as my dearly devoted reader and friend, do not want to be held responsible for. Things like the hard drive on my computer going bad and having to be replaced and loosing everything because I hadn't backed up anything. Or the phone company turning off my phone and Internet because of a misunderstanding and not being able to turn in on again for 4 days, at which point they had apparently not even put the appointment on the computer, so I had to call, and wait another 4 days because that was the "earliest available" even though they were the ones who messed up. Or that my phone still doesn't work. Or that it rained, and my basement flooded again to the point where I was bailing it out with shop vac after shop vac, but still ended up getting not one, but two pumps, and letting them run for a combined 30+ hours. Or, that Dylan had his first sick visit to the doctor. Or, that I have decided I no longer like the rug or paint on my wall, and need to take one back and re-paint the other, though what color, I know not. No, I am not going to think about those things. Suffice it to say, when it rains, it pours. And in my case literally. Inside my basement.


But, now, in my optimistic attitude, I am going to move forward, and embrace my new in door swimming pool, and my newly clean and super fast hard drive, and my non-phone interrupted life and look forward to the holiday season. So, in honor of the wonderful evergreen smell now invading my senses, I am going to post a happy point in my life: our Christmas tree. We went to a local Christmas tree farm, and in a tradition coming mostly from my side of the family, cut down our own tree.

Us, sitting by where the tractor would pick us up to take us down to the trees.

This one, mommy. No, this one....

I love this picture :)

Its a purty one :) They are so helpful...

A little more to the left daddy.

No, more to the right....

Mid moo.

Going across the street to look at the cows.

Mid skip :) I guess cows make her happy....

She needed a closer look.
Ha-woh!

Poor guy. This was a close as he got.

Cute little antler sisters.

And, I made hubby get up on the roof and put up lights...

So, that is all for now. I will do my best to catch up, but we of course, are going to be quite busy, so, don't hold your breath :) Merry Christmas!

Happy Turkey Day!

Do you know what I am most grateful for about Thanksgiving? I had to take a break from the whole moving/renovating thing... I needed it. I wish Dylan would have slept better. He decided to stop sleeping through the night. He thought waking up every 30 minutes was better... Silly boy.

Exhausted

Yes, we are in the house. Yes, we have a gazillion boxes that we don't know what to do with, but certainly can't live without. Yes, the basement is finally dry and sanitized, so we may start putting boxes down there. We have been staying up super late trying to get tons accomplished, and I feel like we have suceeded. Of course, there is always more to do.

I have been trying to take pictures along the way, and have a few, but they aren't uploaded yet, so these will have to do. While we were doing things at the house until the wee hours of the night, we brought over the pack'n'play and sleeping bags. To this point, the children have slept through sanders, hammers, saws, and all manner of dropping things and construction noise. But, they have definately been up waaaay past bedtime several nights in a row, and it was starting to show. I think we still have some catching up to do as far as sleep is concerned, but we are getting better. I am thankful Thanksgiving is coming up because, then I will be forced to take a break. So sad... :) So, until I can post pictures of the house, here are pictures of my kids. Falling asleep, exhausted as they were, in the exact position we laid them down in. Poor widdle things :)

Come on, Come on....

... Do the locomotion with me....

I shouldn't be doing this. I should be packing. But, at the moment, I am feeling a bit like a rebel, and I just really don't wanna. Besides, I have had that Gloria Estefan song stuck in my head since yesterday when he first started. I feel a bit overzealous to call it "crawling", but it is definitely forward locomotion :)

This is how I found her

Kaitlyn wakes up, but usually hangs out in her bed for a few minutes before I go in and get her. Sometimes she goes back to sleep. Sometimes she doesn't. A few days ago I went in the find her like this. She can reach the top of her dresser from her bed, and her hair things from the previous day(s) are up there. She reached over and grabbed some hair bands (that she honestly hasn't worn in forever) and put one one her head, and one around her middle. Good thing she is skinny, or we could have had issues. She liked them so much, she wore one in her hair for the rest of the day. Reminds me a bit of the 50s... :)

1 Coat Polly

Actually, our Polly will have 3 coats when she is done. 3 nice, clear, clean coats of polyurethane. After staining, the poly protects the wood, and makes the wood pretty. And shiny. I like shiny. I like the wet look, so I went for the gloss. Here is a picture of our stain, "Early American" with 1 coat of poly. Pretty, Innit??? While hubby was coating the floor, we were hanging out in the kitchen. That way, we could exit the house without leaving little poly footprints. Poly footprints=bad. I have to get a bit inventive with my entertaining skills. With half our stuff in one place, half our stuff in another, and the inability to leave one room, we do what we can. So, here the girls are drawing faces on paper plates... Hey, gimme a break ok?!?! I thought it was pretty creative :)
She has decided hamming it up for the camera is an ok thing to do. Cheesy smile...

And there is Dylan. Hanging out in his car seat. Watching. Listening.

Making funny gangsta' signs.

"Hay you. Over dare. Yeah. I'm tawking to you."

Then there is this face. I love this face.

And how do we know when we have spent too long in the house? Well, I have an alarm clock, of sorts. Seems it is built in. I can't place my finger on it exactly, but something about this face lets me know, it is time to be done....

I know Dylan. Me too. Just a few more minutes :)