My baby's crawling!!

Here is a new video for us... Penelope is crawling, as of Wednesday! And although it's Saturday, she's even more of a pro at it than she was when we shot this.

Super exciting times in our house. Oh, and sorry for the loud cheers at the end! :)

Let the Decorating Begin...

So, here it is. This is the home that we put an offer on and were awarded... so far! Any of you who have purchased a home before, know that the journey of home ownership is a long one of numbers and signatures. And to do it long distance is just as difficult. But that is who it works this time. So, we won't dwell on the negative, but look to the positive and all of the design and decorating ideas :)

The house has four bedrooms as well as a family room, kitchen, formal living room and formal dining room... about 1000 square feet more than our current home... PLUS an unfinished basement.

So, I've been thinking through colors that could work with our current living room furniture, without doing the same brown color on the walls. I've found a design website that has a beautiful dark teal color on the walls with brown/khaki and red accents (which is what our furniture is). I'm contemplating consulting the interior designer for some color flow ideas from one room the the other, as this is something that I've never done. We'll see what we come up with.

The kids room ideas are coming together. Finnegan would like a "train" room. So we'll probably do a lower key paint job and do art centered around trains. Penny's room will also have a simple low key paint job (perhaps two colors) and then the bird theme that she has in her room currently, but a bit different, perhaps.

As we get moved in and get things rolling, I'll post photos of how things are going. :)

Meeting Optimus Prime

On our way to Baltimore, last week, we had a layover at JFK. The flight from JFK to Baltimore started off well. We'd been told that it could be a while before we left the airport as the airport had a horrible system for selecting planes for take off (basically pulling numbers from a hat). So, while we waited and made our way to the runway, the plane drove pretty slowly around the airport. And we actually made a full circle around the particular terminal we originally boarded from. Anywho, before we were seated, a man and his son sat down behind us. The boy was by the window and he was about 6 or 7 yrs old. The dad seemed to be a young guy, perhaps in his early 30's. As we drove around, I glanced out the window as we drove by the row of large snow plows, and then sitting all by itself, a mac truck without a trailer attached. It was purple, if I remember correctly. When I saw it, I thought of Finnegan and his love for the character Mac from CARS. Then I heard the boy behind us say, "Look Dad! It's Optimus Prime!" You could really hear the excitement in his voice that he'd actually seen him. His dad's attention was caught and he began to talk to his son about it.

Son: Dad, can we meet Optimus Prime?

Dad: Sure we can.

Son: Dad, why is Optimus Prime at the airport?

Dad: Well, he's protecting the airport.

Son: From the Decepticons?

Dad: Yup, from the Decepticons. He's here making sure that we're safe at the airport.

As I heard the conversation, I just smiled. Although we all know that the transformers isn't real, it just made me smile for a minute that the dad lived in his son's world for just a few minutes and let him dream. He indulged in his son's world for just a moment. (Granted, I'm wouldn't have let my young child see a movie that is rated pg-13, but that's not the point of my post).

Indulge in the world of your child today. Entertain dreams and fantasies with them. Dream through their eyes.

Move Update

Friends -

Many of you know that Ken and I are in the midst of a coast to coast move. And boy are things getting hectic. Just a little over a week ago, we learned we'd be coming to our new state to find a home and that our final move date would be mid-June. I feel like it should be the first week of April and yet tomorrow is the first day of May!

We are here in our new state, and looking for a home. We'd seen several before visiting that we wanted to see. But since speaking with a mortgage lender, our list has been narrowed down. On our first day in town, we visited 6 homes in 4 hours, and were convinced we hadn't seen all that we needed to see. Later that night, Ken and I along with Penelope, drove all over creation and visited about 12 other homes, driving by them at night, taking a look at the neighborhoods and then later reporting back to our agent about more homes that we were interested in. Late last night, we emailed her our top three from the day as well as 6 others that we were interested in. Of the new six, only 3 were truely available, and only one was worth looking at. So, today we viewed our top two from the first day, and then the third.

Essentially, we have three homes: A 2007 3 floor town-home, a 2004 2 story home, and a 1994 2 story foreclosed home. Both independent homes need some form of work. The 2004 home needs more major projects for a contractor/skilled tradesman to finish, and the foreclosed home has more work for us/general help to do. So, we've decided that perhaps we will begin making offers on these homes starting with the 2007 home (which has been on the market longer than Penny has been alive) and then move down the line to the others.

It's been a long trip so far, and we have a day or so left. We attempted to get on base today, but I wasn't permitted to be on base without a special pass. But you can see some pretty cool planes from the road... and we saw several fighter jets flying over while we were looking at homes.

We'll keep you posted on how things go. I've been bathing these homes in prayer for the past 2 days and know that God will work out the details.

Love you friends... I'll post when we've landed on the other coast!! :)

PS -- our toddler is not with us while we're here. We thought we'd be able to get a bit more work done without him here and it's proven to be true, although Penelope is a handful herself :) But she's proving to be more flexible that I thought she would be. We miss Finn ALOT and find ourselves talking about him alot. Can't wait to get my arms around my little buddy!!

My Fashion-ista and Our Day at the Fair

Last week, I woke up to a new fashion trend presented by my sweet daughter. In an effort to pull her arm out from her swaddleme wrap, she managed to pull her whole arm out of her jammies. She was sportin' this wonderful fashion, and enjoying the one shoulder look!!

After bath time... my beauty sparkles!
Last Friday, we had some beautiful weather, and took the morning and spent it at the Spring Fair with our friends, the Guilfoyles. Sara and her mom, along with all four kids, entered for some fun on some rides, and run with friends!!

Here are the kids.. All ready for a fun day!! This was Penelope's first ride in the stroller, not in the car seat.

After seeing the cows, Finnegan got to try milking a mechanical cow... kind of cool. It was a bit hard for him to do, but he liked trying.

Sara and Patrick rode a few rides. My sweet boy was a bit too short (or so we thought). But we'll try next time. We all had a wonderful time, nonetheless.

Weekend in Photos

Here are some photos from our weekend. We've had some nice weather and Finnegan's been begging to go outside. He just LOVES being outside with Daddy!!

He gave the slide a go this weekend... something he's never done. He climbed up the ladder and rode down himself. What a big boy! Then, Ken set up an "obstacle course" for him... He rode down the big slide then ran over to the little slide and rode down that one too. I have a video that I'll try to upload... I'm finding my videos are a bit too large to upload these days. So if not, I'll try to post a link to FB and post it there...

Here's my buttercup in the sunshine. She loves her bouncy toy that we've borrowed for some friends. Only a few more weeks and we'll have to give it back :)
Here's my little helper. He likes to mow with Daddy!

And here's some special time with Daddy. We haven't done a jam pile yet... but we're getting there! :)

From "Not Even Close" to "We're Done!"

Our efforts to de-clutter our lives and live leaner is a project that continues to be the first topic on our minds. Ken and I work by spending our weekends going through our belongings deciding what we can keep and what we can live without. We've been through each room in our home at least twice, and each box in the garage at least twice. The discussions are getting harder and the decisions are painstaking, now. And since these things are getting harder, it is beginning to weigh on our relationship as well. Ken wants to get rid of some things, and I want to keep them. And I'm not a debater. So when I want to keep it, I can't explain why, in terms that make sense... especially not right on the spot. So it just makes it so hard...

About 2 weeks ago, Ken said, that he didn't think we were close to being done. In fact, he thought we were about half done. Are you kidding me?? I felt that we'd been through everything and had made some good and hard decisions and I was ready for it to be over. We'd been through our keepsakes, and gotten rid of things we've been holding onto for years. I'd scanned over 2500 photos and uploaded them to the internet for safe keeping. And he was telling me that we had just this much to go before we were done. UGH!

Then this past Saturday, after I returned from the GoodWill (making our 5th trip in 2 months), Ken told me that he seemed to think we were about done. REALLY?? I was a bit gun shy at first and didn't want to believe it. There are still a few things that I'd still like to go through just one more time, as I've thought of things I'm ready to get rid of. But I can hardly believe it... We're done (for the most part). It's a wonderful feeling... and I don't mind walking through the garage and not knocking over needless things with the baby carrier or my multitude of bags :)