Moving On Up

To the East side....or well, maybe South. We're here. Our new Home Sweet Home. And let me tell you, I LOVE our new house!! Sorry I'm just now updating. We've had a busy couple weeks.

It all started two weekends ago. We had to get the house organized (again) top to bottom. Throw away anything and everything that wasn't worthy of moving. Get everything in the room or closet it was suppose to go in, so when we unpacked everything was where it should be. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. It took us til about 2 a.m. Monday morning and we started bright and early Friday, granted we took a little time off on Saturday to go bowling with Frito. Speaking of bowling, we had a great time. We bowled for an hour or so, then dinner, awards and recognition and then karaoke. Brent got some extra special attention since this was the last time everyone would be together, as we were moving 2 days later. A lot of employees got up and said some really nice stuff and he was given a nice clock engraved with a saying (I can't remember what) to go in his office, along with a digital photo frame loaded with all the pictures that were taken that night. Some buddies of Brent signed him up to sign karaoke, to "I'm a Barbie Girl" no less, and it was HILARIOUS! Josh and Taylor came over afterwards and we played rummy til the wee hours of the morning.

Back to the move....The movers showed up at 8 a.m. Monday morning and they got started immediately. They had the downstairs packed within a couple hours. I took Logan and Nate and ran some last minute errands to keep Logan from under the movers feet. They ended up ahead of schedule and had the downstairs and garage packed by the end of the day. The next day they packed the upstairs. I took Logan up to Mom to spend a couple days so we could close on the house and get moved in and settled without his "help". Julie was also gracious enough to watch him some and he's been talking about his Gran Gran and MawMaw ever since, so I'm guessing he had a good time. I sure did miss him though. He was gone 5 days and that's the longest I've ever been away from him. We closed on Wednesday and the movers met us at the house afterwards to unload. That night we went and purchased all the furniture we've had picked out for a while. We got a new sofa, love seat, recliner, TV, entertainment center, dining room table, breakfast table, and bedroom suite. It's so nice having new furniture. The only thing we've bought new since we've been married was a couch and love seat, which we hated ever since the day it was delivered. I've been able to do some decorating this time, too, which also helps the new house feel like home. When we lived in apartments I never hung anything up because we had to patch the holes when we left and then the old house never felt permanent. We knew we only wanted to be there a couple years and I never got around to decorating. I didn't waste anytime this time though. There's still a lot to do, but I've got a good head start this time around. I especially love the dining room. It's so pretty. It feels like it should be in a magazine, minus the dog cage that's tucked away in there, haha. The office definitely needs some attention. I hope to get that done soon because it's the first thing you see when you walk in. We need some stuff for our bedroom walls and my craft room is still in boxes.

We got most everything unpacked by Friday. I got Logan's room finished Saturday, while Brent met the wrecker to bring his truck down (the old one he's trying to restore). I wanted Logan to see all his stuff and it be familiar to him. He seems to have adjusted well. He has some new rules which he's learning to follow, like he can't eat his snack on the couches, he has to sit on the rug (anything that's not messy, like goldfish). He can't take it into his playroom, either. I can imagine fruit snacks and crackers ground into the new carpet, so he has to stay in sight and sitting down. The couches we got have recliners and the first day all he did was pop open the recliners and then yell until I pushed them back down, so I put a stop to that too, or at least I'm trying to. I keep losing him in here. We don't have curtains up yet and the echo is horrible. Sometimes he's in his playroom and I think he's upstairs, or he's upstairs and I think he's in the dining room. And for some reason he just LOVES playing in my bathroom. I have no idea why, but that's where he's usually hiding.

I haven't been able to get out and explore much because the weather has been icky. Cold and rainy. I have found my Publix and Kroger, both within 3-4 miles of the house. We also tried out a Mexican restaurant up the road the other day and was pleased with it. I'm going to look up Mommy Groups and see what I find there and hope to make some friends. There's a bunch of kids in the neighborhood so I'm also hoping to make some friends nearby. The family diagonally to us is a stay at home mom as well. She has a 15 month old boy and is expecting her second. I haven't met her yet, but the realtor told me about her. She said the lady asked if we had kids, so I'm hopeful the boys will start playing together when it warms up. The people in front of us, I don't see myself being friends with, but who knows. The couple on one side of us has teenage daughters and this is the kids first time living in the states (military, grew up in Europe). I asked the dad if his girls would be interested in babysitting sometime, haha. The house on the other side hasn't sold yet. I'm hoping it's another young couple with young kids buys it...or it stays open til Laura and Ben can move down, haha. That's our plan. We've decided that Brent's going to get Ben a job with Frito, they are going to buy the house next to us, Laura's going to stay at home and have lots of babies, we're going to rotate cooking so neither of us has to cook everyday, cut a hole in the fence so the kids can go back and forth, etc. Haha. That would be awesome if it came true...Here's to hoping!

I'll post pictures soon. I can't seem to find where I placed my camera....

More snow!

The best sled EVER!


He LOVED the snow!


Until he took his gloves off.


Helping Mommy cook breakfast. He missed the bowl, oops!!

Oh, Yeah!

I forgot to add...Nate has found his feet and boy does he think those things are just the best thing EVER! haha.

Nate's 4 mth checkup

I forgot to post Nate's 4 month stats, so here goes.

He was 14 lbs 15.5 oz, 43%. I don't remember his exact length, but he was 84% for height. He has dropped a little in his percentile for weight, but they didn't mention it so I'm guessing that means there's no issue. He saw the Dr for a fever a couple days before and she was impressed that he'd gained 2.5 lbs in 2 months.

He's rolling a lot now, both directions. He sat up on his own the other day for about 10 seconds, but hasn't done it since, so I guess it was just a fluke. He is sleeping in his crib for the most part. The first stretch of the night he sleeps for about 4 hrs straight but after that he's up every 2 hrs. When he gets up at 4:30, I usually stick him in the bed with me until Logan gets up. He'll sleep til 9 a.m. if Logan doesn't wake him up and I have one of his naps scheduled at the same time Logan's is, so I can take a nap myself or get some stuff done around the house. It's so nice that he's on a schedule now. I hate trying to figure out if he's sleepy, hungry or just in a bad mood and a schedule definitely makes that easier! I figured out today that he'd rather just lay down in his crib and go to sleep on his own. Wow, does that make a difference! At 7, both their bedtimes, I put him in his crib, turned his crib soother thing on and he went right to sleep! Amazing! He did this at nap time today, too! I hope it sticks around because the hour or more fight I had each night to get him to sleep was really starting to get stressful. He's starting to manipulate things with his hands and really likes just staring at his hands trying to figure out how those complicated things work. Most days he'd rather be in the floor rolling around or watching the fan than being held or confined in his bouncy seat. He really is a good, easy baby. I really needed an easy baby to follow up Logan. They always say the second baby is the one that gives you trouble, but mine is the opposite. I guess it's true that God only gives you what you can handle!

SNOW!

Christmas

The past few weeks have been filled with lots of fun Christmas activities! Last weekend we went up to Julie's and spent the weekend with her family. We had a nice relaxing time! Logan must have had a blast because everytime I tell him we're going bye bye he asks if we're going to Gran-Gran's.

This weekend, Santa came to visit the boys. Logan kind of understands the idea of presents this year, so it was fun for all! We decided last minute to go up to Chickamauga for Santa because of the snow in the forecast. Good thing we did because we woke up to lots of snow and it snowed all day, night and into the next day. The total according to the new station was around 6 inches! It was so nice to have a white Christmas and to be snowed in with our family. Laura and Ben flew down from Minnesota, and it was so nice to spend some time with them as well!

Sunday was Mom's 60th birthday party! She never really had a party as a child with her birthday being so close to Christmas, so we wanted to make it extra special for her with no signs of Christmas used for it. I even removed her Christmas table runners. She had a great turnout and seemed to enjoy it even though she insisted the whole last couple weeks to me and Jennifer that it was not necessary and even tried to convince us to just use the leftovers from Christmas for the menu and leftover Christmas cookies/cakes for her cake! As Logan would say, silly mawmaw.

Here's some Santa pictures!

House Hunting

House hunting in the Perry area was successful! We went down Friday night and spent all weekend looking at every single house that met our criteria. We found a house that we are both extremely excited about and our offer was accepted today!

Here's our new house!