Totally Cool!!

The new phrase around here is "totally cool" & where he heard it, i am not sure. But it stuck- tight! He looks for reasons to use it & last night he came to me looking like this & asked if he was "totally cool?" I have to admit, it wasn't that bad, until he turned around...... the belt around the middle with the undies hanging out, with the glasses strap was anything but "totally cool" but i certainly didn't want to diminish his ego, so i played along! Ha!
I look at this picture & can "totally" see him at 17 with the glasses on his head!

Safe Haven....

Yesterday, i went to PetSmart to make a purchase for little Lola. I had been looking on Craigslist for a cat carrier for our move, since she will have to be in it for the larger portion of a day. But after thinking about it, i decided to buy her a new one since she is already stressed easily & having to smell someone else's animal in a used carrier was just going to make it worse. Plus i decided i wanted a soft sided one so she could see out & maybe it wouldn't seem so "clinical" as the one she was transported here in when we got her. I imagine she remembers that well, so i don't want to freak her out. So when i got home, i unzipped one end & snapped it under so that she could go in if she wanted & she went right in! But she didn't get cozy or anything. So last night, i put her cat bed in there that she loves to sleep in & now all day i have seen this......


I am going to leave it out for her over the next few weeks so that it isn't a scary thing when we move (i am sure having to be zipped into it might be a bit scary, but not as scary as the first time ever going into something like this). So i hope that by the time we actually move her, she will think of this as her little safe haven at the new house. I will leave it unzipped & open for her there for a little while until she gets used to her new digs!

Goober!!

So this is just an example of the total circus i live in! I was scanning through my pictures after finding Eli playing with it & this is what i found..... yes, what a shot of that boy!

Give me a long weekend....

And i will give you a partially potty trained kid,


A freezer full of meals,

and a LOT of boxes!!


IT has been a productive long weekend! We decided since there would be 5 days straight of either Randy, myself, or both of us home, it would be a great time to potty train Eli. This was especially a good idea since Jackson is out of preschool, so less running around during the day & because i really don't want to potty train a kid in a brand new house. Let's get that over with here before we move! Although, that is exactly why it was stressful, because i have been packing up to my ears over here this week & so i literally had to set a timer to remind me to remind him to try to go. He has done pretty well with it, although he hasn't been consistent with his efforts. He will always go when you set him on the potty (M&Ms are a great motivator!) but he doesn't tell us he needs to go. So if he needs to go & he isn't near a potty, then well, there is a large splatter across the floor. We will get there though!

I also used this weekend as a time to get some meals frozen. A friend (thanks, Jana!) is letting me store meals in her deep freezer since i don't have a lot of freezer space & because i want to use these meals AFTER the move to help lessen the stress of meal prep when we first are getting settled. So if they are out of my house, then i won't have access to use them between now & then. So far i have frozen up black beans & sausage for black beans & yellow rice night, taco meat for taco night, chicken & rice, homemade spaghetti sauce, vegetable beef soup to eat with grilled cheese, "pasta, cheese & trees", lasagna, tetrazinni, 4 homemade pizza crusts- already rolled out to fit my stones, french bread, italian loaf, & turkey joe. Whew! And as we speak i am "cooking" a roast in my crockpot which will be added to the stock too and have already put together tonight's dinner of chicken enchiladas. So i already have roughtly 10 meals for our move. I am so excited about that. After we get settled i plan to start once a month cooking which is basically setting aside one day a month (saturday) to cook meals like this for the whole month. I can totally see how it lessens the burden of "what will we have tonight?" and hopefully decrease the urge to go out to eat on the nights that i am just exhausted.

THis weekend i also got started on packing up the rest of the house. We have 3 weeks & 3 days left! I didn't finish obviously, but i did make a big dent! I have been using the "office" as a packing area that is a "no kid" zone because they tend to come in & take things out of there & i find them playing with it or they want to get into the tubs where i was initially gathering items to bubble wrap before boxing. I have boxed up all of the interior decor items that need bubble wrap, but i still have the rest of the kitchen which will be a doozie. I plan in the next week or so, to start boxing up plates & glasses & start using paper/plastic for the remainder of our time here. Next weekend i also plan to pack up all the clothes except for a suitcase filled with a weeks worth of clothes for all of us & we can rotate that for 2 weeks. (Although, i may need more for Eli depending on how the pottying is looking next week!) The builder of the home we are buying won't bend AT ALL on using the garage to store our boxes a couple of days beforehand (not even if we paid "rent") so i am still trying to figure out the best way to get everything out of the house in one sweep since we will close on both houses back to back, thus leaving up without a place to put our things from the night before (walkthrough) to closing the next afternoon. It looks like i will be renting a big Uhaul in my future. Quite a waste of money when i am moving about 5 miles down the road.

Congrats lil graduate!

Well, last Thursday was Jackson's preschool graduation and i made a blubbering idiot of myself! I cried incessantly from the first song (literally BEFORE the processional even started!) to well after he had received his "certificate" & even started over with all the crying when saying goodbye to his teachers. I know they must think i am an emotional whack-job, but in my defense there is a LOT of change going on in our world over here & this is just a biggie for me. I am not ready to send my little man into a big school all by himself with 5th graders! Kindergarten is just a few short months away & that is hard for me to digest. But anyway- i got a few shots with my camera before the graduation & Grandad saved the day with his professional zoom lens since we sat in the balcony for the best view of Jackson.

Daddy made it just in time on his "lunch break" at 10:30 am!
(i totally remember my preschool graduation, & i got to hold a flag!!)
He looked so proud & i am totally getting all teary just looking at this picture! ( i need to get a grip!)
Jackson & his teachers after the ceremony!

Disney World

Okay so this is totally the cop-out way of posting Disney pictures, but i literally took 440 pics & i narrowed it down to 66 to post on this blog. I still don't have the time OR patience to whittle it down further, so i uploaded them to my facebook & anyone can view the album (i made this one public i think) by clicking here....

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23769&id=1373996401&l=bf35582e2b

We had a great time & i really miss the food! Ha! My favorite quote from the trip was this:
Magical things kept happening when the kids would act well & so when we would come back to the room, something would have been left by we "assume" Mickey Mouse himself. And so, the first time this happened (it happened each day), Jackson said, "Mama! This place is so magical!" And i said, "I know buddy, it sure is!" Then he replied, "Last night, that casswle (castle) was changing ku-luhs (colors)! It was so funny & sweet that he thought this place was so special!


Here are a few of the magical things that were left behind.....

mother's day tea

I am so far behind on this blog since putting the house on the market & selling it happened so fast. It has been all we have been able to think about & deal with it seems. But before we left for Disney, (literally the same day) they had a mother's day luncheon at Jackson's preschool. It was really cute & i loved my corsage.... They came in as a group & sang a few songs to the mommies & then we got to eat lunch together. Each mom had a special picture frame at her seat & a picture on the wall drawn by their child. I always feel like such a goober at these things because i always end up crying! What is it with that? It's like i just can't stand how much i love this kid!

They read a passage from a book about the "invisible mom" & i have to admit that to Jackson, i must not be invisible because the back of the picture frame read like this: "My mommy's name is Rachel. She likes to cook for me. She likes to make up my bed. She likes to pack up food for me to go to school. She likes to sit on the couch with me and watch TV." I think he got it all right except i think he got me confused with Daddy on the last line!
His picture on the wall was of me & him & the caption reads: "I like to play outside with my mommy." He was proud, can you tell?

Here are his wonderful teachers who i will miss SOOOOO much! Mrs. White on the left of him & Mrs. Hensley on the right. I really wish they could move to Kindergarten with him! It's hard to give up teachers who you know really love your kid! And he has learned so much this year- it's amazing!And i went ahead & got a shot of him with Ms. Missy from last year who still greets him like this most days (see, she loves him too- you see why we are attached??)

And i got one of him with his music teacher Ms. Ginny. She taught him the sweetest song that he sings everyday! (Little Me....") I figured this was a great scrapbook moment so i took advantage!It's hard to believe that this week is preschool graduation. He has a little white cap & gown with a blue '09 tassel he will be wearing in just a couple days! It's official i guess- my boy is growing up & the next step i'm not so sure i am ready for! But i think he is, so i will try to swallow my neurotic mothering tendencies! It seems like just yesterday i dropped him off for the first time with Ms. Missy & cried the whole way out wondering & praying that she would take care of him. And now, he has made it through 2 whole years of preschool! And i have to admit that i have truly been blessed with wonderful caring teachers at this school. I couldn't have asked for a better place for my little one.

The difference between men & boys?

Well, let me tell you that Randy loves snakes. I mean, he loves them. (can you imagine???) He pulls over on the side of the road to get them out of the street before becoming roadkill (my preferred kind of snake, personally), he rescues them from the lawnmower, and anytime he goes hiking in the woods, he looks for them. yuck. I just cringe & shiver thinking about them. This weekend he was mowing our yard & Jackson came running in the house for me to come see what Daddy found. In that instant, i knew what it was.... a snake. But i had NO IDEA how excited Randy was going to be over this one. See, apparently this was a "king snake" (if you are like me, then this is when you oooh & ahhh like you care before carefully insisting the thing be removed from the yard even though you really wish someone would take a pitch fork to it!) & Randy wanted to keep it. Seriously, what was he thinking? He showed it to the boys (jackson kept a few paces away but Eli "pet" the thing!) & then said he wanted something to put it in because he was going to keep it until he could sell it since they are not usually found in the wild. I have to admit, the selling part had me for about a millisecond, but then i logically came back to my senses & said, "NO!" Here is the ugly little slithering thing.....

Under Contract... for us this time!

So as of today, we are officially under contract for the house in the previous post! We are so excited that they accepted our (first) offer & i have already started thinking about what will go where- kinda decorating in my head. In fact, tomorrow i am meeting someone to get some pottery barn curtains / rods & tie backs for the playroom/boys rooms from craigslist! (So at least i am trying to decorate frugally!) But i only have 28 days to get this house packed up & ready to move out so i really need to be focusing on that rather than scoring a deal for the new house! But can you blame me? Decorating is much more fun than packing! But anyway- hopefully all will go well with both closings (scheduled for the same day june 16th) & we are hoping they will let us into the new house a day early to paint (i really love my green kitchen, so i want to at least paint the kitchen & boys rooms before moving in). But i am not holding my breath on that one- the builder would have to be super lenient for that one to work! So that is the newest news on the home front!

It could be ours......

Well.... last night we put in an offer for this house! We haven't heard back yet, but we feel pretty confident since our realtor talked to the builder before we made an offer. He pretty much laid out for us his lowest offer & we jumped all over it because it was a good deal. This house has roughly 2300 sq ft, 4 bedrooms & a bonus as well as a beautiful kitchen that i can't wait to cook in! It backs up to woods which is great for privacy, even though we will most likely still put up a fence eventually just for safety reasons with the boys. The lot is actually a little bigger than our yard here- it is .82 acres, but a lot of that is the woods behind the house. And did i mention that i will get my own closet? There are 2 master closets, so i am super stoked about that! This builder did a nice job of putting in some upgrades such as brushed nickel hardware, recessed lighting, & smooth ceilings which will be nice (much) later when we have to sell it ourselves. So for now, we are waiting to hear back that it is a done deal before i start decorating it in my head! ha!

what a bass!

Randy went night fishing last night with his brother, and look what he caught......
I don't know what time this was (since i was surely snoozing at home), but Randy was lookin' a little rough.... don't know if it was the bright flash that got him, or if he was that tired! But anyway- that bass was a beauty & he was super excited to tell me about it this morning so i decided i would post a picture of it since his brother emailed a picture for him!

We're BACK!!!!

So, our one vacation for the year is over. We got back from Disney last night after a 10 hour car ride where Jackson NEVER took a nap & Eli took one tiny 1 hour nap for the whole trip. Needless to say, we have had better car rides, but at least it is over. The kids actually did better than expected so i have to give them credit for that, but 10 hours in a car can't ever be good can it? I still have laundry & unpacking to finish today, but i am so tired, i am thinking of leaving it mid-cycle (the laundry that is) & taking a quick siesta. I have lots of pictures to update including pictures from the mothers day tea i attended before we left for Disney, so hopefully i can get to that this weekend. The kids had a great time & the parents did too, but we are just more exhausted than they are! Eli loved seeing Nemo & Jackson actually rode some rides with me (mama) like the Toy Story ride (which was a lot of fun!). Our favorite day overall was Epcot i believe because the kids could interact more with activities & had some time to get out of the strollers & ride less frightening rides (& they were kinda educational too!). Anyway...more to come on all that......

Under Contract!

Let me just start by saying- Whew! I am EXHAUSTED! Our house went under contract last week after 3 offers in the same weekend! It was a tough decision on which buyer to go with, but we finally went with buyer #2 who seemed to be the most financially secure. We really don't want to start over in 30 days if all of this falls through! So our closing date is June 16 & we have a lot to do between now & then.... like FINDING A HOUSE ourselves! I went looking this morning with our wonderful realtor & have already narrowed the search a bit & love a couple of houses i have seen already. Randy will go this weekend with me to look through what i have narrowed down from our searching together & my looking at them. Wish us luck, because this is nerve wracking!

Wow!

So, we have had our house on the market for 6 days, today! And last night we got our first official offer! We are super excited & are still in negotiations, so it isn't a done deal yet- but at least it is something! And it hasn't slowed down the showings by any means- we have had 3 showings today alone! That puts us at 8 showings in 6 days- so we are pretty exhausted from all this leaving the house spur of the moment & figuring out what to do in that time! We'll keep you posted if we actually work out a deal, though... don't worry!!

Disney Projects!!

Last night I completed the last of ANY Disney vacation projects that we will be doing.... Autograph books for the characters to sign. They turned out super cute (if i do say so myself!) but i did "scraplift" this idea off the internet, so technically it wasn't my idea- but i did add a little of my own flair to them. I made each a little different so that the kids could spot theirs easier. My favorite turned out to be the yellow one which i only made because Eli loves yellow so much! I hope the kids love them as much as i do!

House Pictures!

Okay, so i promised house pics once the photographer came in to take them... so here they are. Our house will probably NEVER again look this great, but i am enjoying while i can! So far we have had 4 showings in 3 days, so i am exhausted already. Everyone was right when they said selling a house wasn't for the faint hearted! Hopefully it won't be on the market too awfully long!