Closing, Lights, Baby, and Snow

CLOSING: The good news is that we closed on our current house this morning with no problems! Yay! Big step in the right direction. We'll be officially moving March 15-16.

LIGHTS: We have permanent lights in the new house! All of the can lights are installed in the kitchen, and there are several other lights installed as well. Josh and a guy from work spent several hours installing last night. Josh didn't get to my parents' house until after 1:00AM. But, there is light, and it is good!

BABY: I had an OB appointment today, and all was well. I have an appointment set up with my c-section doc on March 12, and we will officially schedule the c-section date during that appointment. My OB said that it may even be April 7 or 8. We'll see!

SNOW: It has snowed a lot here this week. The beginning of the week snow was outstanding for making snowmen....so we made one. The girls really enjoyed playing outside, and I even joined in the fun. Claire and I made the snowman while Meredith went sledding down the hill. Here are some pictures of the fun:

Flooring Pics

The girls and I headed out to the house this evening to check out the new flooring, the tile, and the bathroom. Although, as usual, on the trip over Meredith fell asleep. She does this about 90% of the time. When we get back home, she begins to get weepy and says, "I thought we were going to the new house." It's kind of funny. Thankfully, tonight she didn't get weepy because I just brought her home and put her to bed. I had a cute picture of her sleeping that I was going to include, but she had slobber all over her face. I thought she might be embarrassed by it :)

Back to the flooring...it looks so great! Josh has just done a fabulous job on everything so far. He's such a great asset; I'm going to hang on to him :) Anyway, here are some pictures of the hallway and the office. (On a side note...I thought Josh said they did the dining room yesterday too, but they didn't. It will be started once the cabinets are installed.) I'm sorry for the slightly fuzzy pictures. I'm convinced that there is so much dust in the air that it is reflecting into my pictures, and there are actually dirty footprints all over the floor.

I've included two pictures with labels. I'm certainly not a "paint" expert, so I don't know the best way to label pictures. I did my best with what I could figure out. The first one, I'm standing in the family room/kitchen area taking the picture. The second one, I'm standing in the living room area taking the picture. You can click on either of them to see the "up close" version. Enjoy!

Birthday Pics and House Update

Here are a few pictures from Meredith's birthday party (Sunday's celebration). Notice her choices: Strawberry Shortcake for the hats, Dora on the cake. She's a fun kid! She had a really fun time with the fam, and we're looking forward to celebrating with all of the fam on the other side Thursday night! Here are a few of the highlights...



Meredith insisted that everyone wear a hat, so we thought it was only appropriate that the baby wore one as well:

Meredith opening presents:

Claire having a hard time NOT opening presents:

Meredith twirling in her new purple dress:

Update on the house:
I wish I had pictures, but my hubby forgot to take the camera with him tonight. I set it out to send with him, but being prego, I just can't remember everything! (I can barely remember anything actually.) Anyway, since he won't be out at the house until Saturday, I will give a "wordy" update instead. The tile has been laid in the entryway and in the main bathroom. It hasn't been grouted, but it will be soon.

We found out today that we have to put a new furnace on the main floor of the house (not in the attic like the old one). Unfortunately, that means we need to have a 4x4 space for this new furnace. The only space that will work is my front coat closet...sniff, sniff. So, when you come to our house for a visit, please leave your coat in the car because we won't have a place to hang it. It will also take up additional space in our office. It's not the way we would have chosen it, but we'll work with what we have! I've always thought that coat closets and office spaces were overrated anyway :) Who needs 'em?

Valentines and Burp Cloths

The girls decided to make Valentines for their cousins, Grandmas and Grandpas, and a few of their friends. These are just a few examples of the ones that they made. I think they ended up making about 20. They turned out really cute! I, of course, cut out the hearts and shapes, and the girls glued them to the papers. They also had a few stickers. One of Claire's valentines ended up having about 15 stickers on it. Anyway, it was a lot of fun!

Here is Claire with a few of her valentines:

Here is Meredith with a couple of her valentines:
(note the summer attire and "dancing shoes")

Now...on to the infamous burp cloths...
I started setting up the sewing machine on Friday night while Josh was installing the new water heater in our current house (it is in our contract with the new buyers). He didn't need my help, so I thought I would tackle the burp cloths. Thankfully, I had the sewing manual in front of me because I know I wouldn't have succeeded with out it. (I barely succeeded with it!) Anyway, so I threaded my bobbin, threaded the upper spool of thread through the sewing machine and the needle, and figured out how to get the lower thread to come up through the sewing machine in the right place. Doing well so far. Now comes the hard part...the actual sewing.

I get my first burp cloth up on the sewing machine, press my foot on the pedal, and begin to sew....or not. All of a sudden, there was a ton of string under my burp cloth, no string in any of the holes being made by my needle, and the string was broken. Hmmmmmm....something must be wrong. I looked through the manual again to make sure I did things right. The exact same thing happened again...and again....and again....and again. At this point, I was getting a tad bit frustrated! If I was a girl who used profanity, I would have used a few choice words! I seriously could not figure out what I was doing wrong.

So, I decided to start over....something must not be set up correctly. I rethreaded the top spool of thread. While I was doing that, I decided that might have solved the problem. I thought I may have missed one of the loops earlier. I began sewing again....yeah! SUCCESS AT LAST! I was actually sewing this time (professionals would probably disagree), but I was at least doing what I set out to do! Josh calls out from the other room, "Is that domestication I hear?" And it was. And here is a photo of my 4 finished products:

Ahhh yes....sweet victory over the sewing machine. I'm inspired to tackle more projects in the future!

Happy Birthday Meredith

My favorite Meredith in the whole wide world is 3 years old today! What a sweet pea! We will be celebrating her birthday with my family tomorrow and with Josh's family on Thursday. She is so excited to be "fwee" years old. She's been practicing with her fingers for weeks! She wants a "rocking horse, a turtle (Littlest Pet Shop), a guitar, a toy cup, and a pick for her guitar." I'm not sure if she really wants all of those things, but that's what she just told me! Currently, she loves dressing up in summer clothes (despite the cold weather), and dresses are her absolute favorite. Yesterday, Grandma took her to the mall to ride the merry-go-round, eat ice cream, and get new sun glasses. What fun it must be to be three! So, happy birthday to my baby girl!


By the way, this picture is Meredith in her truest form (three left hand fingers in the mouth/elephant in the other hand)...classic Meredith! We love you baby girl!

It's Official

It's official! After reading blogs for so long, I've FINALLY decided to start my own! My big motivation is everyone asking about the house. We are so very excited about it (most of the time!), and I just wanted to share the latest pics with everyone. We actually have walls! Enjoy...

This is a picture of the kitchen as of last week.

This is a pic of the kitchen as of this week! Thank you drywallers!

This is our family room last week.

This is our family room this week!

This is our dining room this week! Sorry, I didn't have a "before" picture.

Anyway, I know everyone may not be as excited as I am about all of the new drywall, but the house has been down to the studs for SO LONG that this feels like such a huge step in the right direction!