a scheduled play date was all the motivation i needed.

it was time to nail out the play area of the basement.  i did some patchwork quilting with carpet scraps and old dorm rugs, and ended up with a softer surface on which to play.  nate was more than happy to see toys which have been gone for a few weeks suddenly pop out of boxes like it was Christmas.  (can’t tell you how ready i am to decorate for that!)  although we still need to do a little work with it, i was pretty pleased with how it turned out.  (don’t you love how the insulation makes it look like a padded psychiatric ward room!)

i also made sure to leave enough concrete exposed in one area to bring in all the fun outdoor riding toys.  (i’m still debating bringing in the sand table to play with in the basement for the winter.)  both kids are super excited about getting to ride these indoors.  unfortunately, the basement is still home to too many packed boxes.  seriously, i’m not getting rid of the vcr tapes, but what am i going to do with them. . .

what’s a mom to do?  there are two cement trucks hard at work outside, and nate just has to sit on the front porch and watch them.  so rather than be in the basement getting some work done, i’ll sit at the computer and blog so i can easily check on him every 67 seconds.  (no, i’m not a paranoid mom.  what would make you think that?)

you noticed?  i suppose it’s hard not to.  yep, naters got his hair cut this weekend.  it was long overdue.  but talking this kid into a haircut is no fast task.

he’s not wearing his everyday shoes today.  a very excited mom was ready to throw shoes and coats on everyone and head out the door in time for nate to not be late for preschool.  except, nate only had one shoe in his closet.  he only has two pairs.  one he wears every day, and the other has been missing since the move.  after a frantic whole house search by brad and i, i found the pair missing since the move.  unfortunately i’ve exhausted all possible ideas of where the second shoe of the every day pair is.  my luck is that jill threw it in the trash (like so many other things), and we didn’t catch it.  hopefully not though.

jill?  anyone seen jill?

there she is!!!

oh my!  this girl is wearing her momma out.  she is testing how many bumps and bruising one tiny (chubby) body can handle.  a lot.  this girl is a climber!!  she’s into and onto everything!!  whose responsibility was it to warn me about how different number two would be from number one???  she’s a cuddler though.  and i love that about her.

i suppose it’s about time to share the pictures of the kids in their costumes.  they were both adorable and had fun at journey of joy.  good pictures of jilly weren’t quite happening between the masses of people and it being past bedtime for her.

oh, we found the missing shoe.  it was under the tools in nate’s workbench.  ugh and thank goodness.

while i’m at it, the kid’s great grandparents along with some great aunts, a great uncle, and a cousin, stopped by a week ago to delivered gifts to the kids.  the both got a handmade activity book which includes all kinds of fun stuff.

okay, i think i feel pretty caught up now.  a very cranky and tired nate went down to nap a few minutes ago, and i hear a basement calling my name.  off to work!

mini-loaders and dump trucks and graders!  oh my!!

last week was super exciting around our house.  6 dump truck loads worth of dirt dumped on our yard exciting.  then it had to all get spread out and smoothed out.  having 2 kids glued to the window sure helped me have some productive chunks of time. we’re finding ourselves less and less surrounded by boxes.  things seem to be finding new niches in the new house.  pretty soon i’ll be able to get back to normal household tasks rather than trying to fit them and unpacking into too few hours a day.  (blogging regularly is definitely a normal household task in my mind!)

make new friends

but keep the old

one is silver

and the other’s gold

well, we packed up and shipped moved out.

we’ve gone from this:

to this:

i love the new house.  for some reason though, i miss the old one.  i look forward to the new one having the sense of familiarity and comfort that i feel when i think of the old one.  luckily, i know it will come with time.  i know we made the right move for our family, but i think i’m still in transition.

in the meantime, i’ll continue the endless work of unpacking boxes, organizing stuff, and trudging through the mucky new sod to move the sprinkler.  (ross, totally expect a call at some point regarding self-installing a sprinkler system.)

and for those who’ve been asking for some pictures of the inside, here’s one to somewhat satisfy your desires.

we’re still tweaking things, and getting things like we want, but we’re starting to get things figured out.  we’re hoping to do some painting of the kitchen on friday.  i’ll post pictures once we get it done.

I should have known from the grouchy wake-ups.

It was the first day in a while that had both a bit of warmth and some sunshine though.

Two outta three prerequisites isn’t bad right?

Wrong.

Oh, and I figured I’d go without Brad who usually does the placing and entertaining using his nimble skills to jump out of the way just in time for the click of the camera.  (You didn’t think the good shots were easy shots, did you?)

Here we go:

{testing the waters}

{don’t throw them at her, throw them up}

{apparently big brother has too many cooties to sit next to}

{hey guys!  over here!  look at momma!  hey!  remember me?!?  LOOK AT ME!!}

{I give this idea a thumbs down, mom.}

{hey, you mind checking my diaper?}

So it’s taken me a few days to settle down after this total flop of a favorite photo session each fall.  I was totally infuriated and might have overreacted just a tad to things not going how I wanted.  After looking through thing a few times, here are three that considering the rest, turned out okay.  (Although I’d still love a re-do session.)

Ugh.

We got the proofs back today for Nate’s school pictures.

Ugh.  He’s beyond adorable.

Ugh.  They cost what?!?!?

I’m having a bit of sticker shock.  Nate’s never had pictures taken before.

When I want a posed shot, I pose him and take the picture.  I have a nice camera so I figure why not.

Honestly I was hoping they’d turn out poorly.  Then I wouldn’t feel torn between wanting to order his first school pictures ever and not wanting to pay way too much for them.  What’s a parent to do?

And if we do order any, we have to decide what pose/color.

Ugh.

I’m thinking about heading here this afternoon.

(same as here.)

Pending a happy waking of my children from nap time and cloud cover staying away.

Don’t worry. As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at precisely 88mph the instant the lightning strikes the tower… everything will be fine.

-Dr. Emmett Brown (Back to the Future)

Time travel.

For a moment today I thought we’d traveled back in time.

Back to our St. Louis days.

Suddenly from my living room, I was hearing a commercial phrase which took years to get un-etched from my brain.

“Cheap, cheap, fun, fun.”

Noooooooooo!

One of the things Brad and I talked about as we left St. Louis in 2006 was how we were not going to miss the commercials for “the last refuge of the persecuted smoker”.  The.  Most.  Annoying.  Commercials.  Ever.  Ever!  (Highly rivaled by the radio jingle that went something along the lines of “rattle, rattle, clank clank”.  I can’t remember who it was for though or any more of how it went.)

Apparently the Husker game broadcast we got was showing St. Louis commercials for some reason.  Luckily, we only caught the commercial once since Brad does so much flipping between games during breaks.

There are so many aspects of St. Louis I’d love to relive (living on The Hill, Sunday afternoon walks at the Zoo, Galleria, Bandana’s BBQ, teaching at Hope); I had no desire to travel back to our “cheap, cheap, fun, fun” days though.

gray day, rainy day, rainy day, gray day.

this has kinda been the norm in the recent days/weeks.  it can be wearing from the point of view of a stay at home mom.  some days this past week were.  thursday it rained non-stop.  (seriously, non-stop.)  we didn’t go anywhere, but somehow it ended up being a great day.  i even gave you a glimpse of our fun.

as we waited for daddy to get home from work, the three of us cuddled up on the  couch with good old curious george.  (what we would do without that monkey and his daily visits to our house?)  it was so much fun for me to lie there with the kids enjoying some cuddle time.

after a while though, i could take it.  i had to take a picture of how cute they were.  they just so happened to look up to see what i was doing one right after the other.  it looks like i called their names to get them to look, but i didn’t.  they’re just that cute.

love them.  (and nate’s dragon toes.)

It’s like they know it’s cold, rainy, and momma ain’t taking ‘em anywhere today.

Our day so far?

A battle for the goldfish which I think the crumb covered couch was the big loser of that battle.

A child found sitting upon the coffee table.  (Not going to say if this was following watching a parental figure do a similar thing.)

Missing child.

A dragon shaking his booty.

A tiger trying to escape.

Underwear/Diaper-only children running through my house.

Bath-water soaked underwear thanks to “helpful” little sister.

A stool hiding in the sink from a certain little miss who thought it might help her get in on brother’s bath time.

I think I’d better stop documenting this day, and let it be one of those “don’t tell daddy” days.