moving date moved

The original plan was to move Saturday, June 19th, that's when we get the keys to our new house. Load the truck in the morning, drive it to the new place, unload into the garage, come back to clean Monday, turn in the apartment keys and get on with unpacking the NEW house! I had it all figured out... I thought. Our lease on our apartment isn't up until November so rather then pay the $2000 to break our lease we gave them our notice when we paid our May rent. If they get it re-rented then we don't have to pay to get out of our lease. Apparently someone in the office was confused and didn't double check the date, and re-rented our apartment starting June 15th. See a problem here!?! So now we are moving on June 8th, cleaning up on the 9th and turning in the keys on the 10th so they can have it ready for someone to move in the 15th. My dad has graciously offered up his garage to store our stuff and we will be sleeping either at their house as well, or at one of my mom's houses. We are still figuring out the details on that. My mom and her husband currently live n Des Moines, but they bought a house in Auburn (18 min from our new house) and are the process of remodeling the kitchen before they move in. They were planning to be done this weekend and be moving in, and were going to let us stay in their old house for the 10 days of our "homelessness". Well, Dave(my step-father) had a mild stroke Saturday and had to be rushed to the ER. He is recovering well, but has to take it easy and will need extra help with getting their new house livable and get moved in. We now have less then two weeks to finish getting everything packed. Andrew got sick, Kara keeps taking off her diapers to put on underpants, her potty is packed, and the boxes in the living room are closing in on us. Moving = yucky!

Going Private

I didn't want to but I feel like it would be best. I like it when I find a friends blog linked to another friends blog, and I like being able to tell when there are new posts by following rather then having to check the blog for new posts. I realized though that when I posted about our new home that there's enough information that someone could find our neighborhood and then our house if they really tried. So since I primarlly keep a blog as a journal of family happenings, and for family and friends that might be interested, I've decided that for the safety of my cute kids to take this private. If you comment a lot (Janine, Jill, Mary) I already plan to send you an invite. :)

We're buying a house!!!

We just came from the inspection and I'm superSUPER excited! I was playing with Kara in the backyard and imagining all the possibilities and fun things we will be able to do, like have camp outs in the backyard! The yard is fully fenced, front and back. There's a big lilac bush in the front to the right of the driveway.

The kitchen has a pantry and a bar and an adjoining dinning room.

Did I mention it has a BIG backyard! There's a swing set with a slide that the seller is leaving. I foresee a trampoline purchase in our future.


And a great community park with a fenced play area, a dock on a private lake (which we were recently informed gets stocked with fish), a bathhouse, a tennis court and basketball court.

Our closing date is mid June, moving the weekend of the 18th. Lots to do!

7 months

My sweet little boy is now 7 months old! As long as his basic needs are meet he is a smiling, happy boy and I love him more and more everyday! He is officially wearing nine month clothes. He crawls quite well, sits up and as you can see from these pictures has recently started pulling himself up to a standing position.
It's fun to see where he chooses to go and what gets his attention. The dog's water bowl and food dish are popular destinations. He also likes to check out what his sister is doing, or comes looking for mom. Unlike Kara who used to grab my pant leg, Andrew just crawls over and looks up at me, waiting to be picked up. Here he is with one of his favorite toys, a shaker egg.

leaving for church this morning

We were ready to head out the door for church when we discovered Kara admiring herself in the mirror...

She had decided to "put on make up" with her makers. I hurried to grab a couple baby wipes, and the camera too! What you don't see in the picture, because her eyes are open, is how well she "applied" her "eye shadow" and "eye liner".

Kara's ruffled skirt

Over the weekend I made this skirt for Kara by following the tutorial found here. I modified the dimensions as follows to fit Kara:
Band 1 - 5" x 12"
Ruffle 1 - 5" x 21"
Band 2 - 3.5" x 12"
Ruffle 2 - 4" x 21"
and I used a 1/4" width elastic

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the inside as well.


And here's Kara modeling her new skirt

made this last night

I made this "Rosetta" dress up skirt for Kara from a remnant of costume satin while Jeff was at the grocery store. Really loving how fast and easy it was, and the seams are clean and professional not frayed and jagged. :)