Move In Take One

Stacey and Shane are moving into their new house today!

Brian and I took today off to help them move.

I have been looking forward to this day for awhile now.  I am anxious to see their house.  We got a tour back in December but there was still a lot to do.  I have see some pictures and from what I have seen, this place is AMAZING!  ( I did NOT take enough pictures today)

This was from earlier, the garage doors have been painted and in this picture the pillars aren't done

 Here is a view from the top of their stairs.  This stairway is awesome.  The view when you come down the stairs is beautiful.  I love how wide they are and I can not get enough of their wood floors!

 Stacey and I spent the morning organizing her kitchen and then we all made a trip to the townhouse they were living in to help get the place cleaned out.  Their house is very spacious- Maddie has her own bathroom (in her rooom), the boys have a huge jack and jill jack bathroom and Stacey and Shane's closet is enormous.

Everything looks great and it makes me so much more excited for our house.

Meanwhile at our house nothing much has happened however, we did get a delivery.

Fur Auntie!

Jennie has been infected with puppy fever.  I am not surprised, Schmidty will have that affect on you.

Lately she has been hinting around that it might be time to cure this fever.

So tonight when I got these pictures I was surprised but not shocked.

Meet Male #4

Jennie and Tom have 'reserved' him and should be able to pick him up on Sunday.

The rest of the night my sisters and I brainstormed names: Tiny, Axel, Mufasa, Mohammed (hee hee), George, Kingston, Romeo, Reggie, Rocky, Coco, Leopold, Gatsby, Timon, Conan, Pumbaa, Jefferson, Sheldon, Hoover, Stiller, Jack, Stiller, Mack, Murphy, Oliver, Focker, MJ, Dexter, Hairy, White Goodman, James Dean, Miller, Bentley, Herman, Prince, Clifford, Martin, Charlie, Henry, Samson, Clark, Jordan, Mr Big, Louie, Stuart, Puck, Steve and the list went on and on.

Her and Tom decided to figure out his name one their way home with him.  They have a two hour drive to meet him and will have plenty of time to come up with a name.

SO exciting!

Poor Schmitdty was stripped of his manhood today.  Poor little guy!

Still no siding

There is still no siding at our house.  

It's killing me.

For one I am anxious to see the color.  I am sure it will be fine but there aren't many houses around with the color that we chose so it's hard to know just what it will look like.  

There is so much happening inside that it's hard to believe that we are still at this stage outside.  We are just about a month away from our potential close date (March 7th) so worst case scenario it will be another month before we see it.

No school again

School is closed again today.

Brian left for Chicago this morning and I was not interested in driving out to Jackie's today so Hailey stayed home with Hannah and I.  I was sort of looking forward to it so that Hannah would have someone to play with.  I have a ton of meetings today so I am hoping that they can find stuff to do and let me work a little.

The morning started out great.  The girls layed in our bed and watched TV, they colored and played school.

After lunch Hailey wanted some alone time and didn't want to play with Hannah anymore.  I was on a conference call and  trying to work when Hannah came over bugging me to play with her.  I had to get pretty stern with her and eventually had to walk her to her room so I could finish my call.

After the call I went upstairs to get her and found this on the stairs.

Usually this stuff makes me a little sad.  I hate when they feel sad or feel like people hate them or don't like them.  Especially when it's because of something I did (like telling her to go away).  This actually made me smile a little bit- I love finding little notes that she has written all by herself.  I was able to go and 'make up' with her and within a few minutes her and Hailey were back to being best buds.

Later tonight she made me this sign with bubble letters.

Brian made it safely back home from Chicago.

He is working on a project that involves the John Hancock building.  

There is a new attraction coming to the observation deck and he just might be involved ;-)

Stay tuned....

Good Morning!

Well, school was closed again today.

This is getting sort of ridiculous.  It's tough because I get it.  It's freezing.  I wouldn't want kids going out in this but at the same time, I drop my kid off everyday.  Can't I still do that?!  Close school for the kids that walk or who take a bus but let the rest of us bring our kids.  I wouldn't expect them to learn anything but at least we wouldn't have to take off work for a 'cold day'.

Brian is off to Chicago tomorrow so he was able to stay home today.  I brought Hailey to daycare and on my way there we drove by the house and much to my surprise there were lights on!  It was before 7 am and the lights were already on!!  Someone is busy in there!

Squeaky Clean

I was so overdue for a car wash.  My poor car was so dirty that I think I could actually hear it cry as we drove down the road.  The inside of the car looked like a war zone and this was no job for the gas-station-touchfree wash.  This was gonna require some elbow grease.

Hailey and I dropped Hannah and grandma off at the library while we ran over to Perfect 10 for a wash.

Hailey was enjoying the eye-candy while we waited for our car- she pointed out a few boys that were so cute that she was going to marry.  It's crazy what a difference a little shine can do!

Shrinky-Dinks

Hannah bought a Shrinky-Dink kit from Target.  Her and Hailey colored them this morning and we baked them this afternoon.  Hannah stood in front of the oven watching them curl up then shrink then flatten back out.  She was jumping up and down and giggle-squealing the whole time.  I forgot how fun these things are.

I don't wanna say goodbye

The email notification arrived a few weeks ago.  Archivers stores are closing.  All of them, for good.

 I guess I have to say that I am not really surprised.  

With all of the digital scrapbooking, photo books and apps like Instagram there just isn't a huge market for scrapbooking anymore.  Today I got out of work a little early and although I don't need a thing, I had to stop by to pay my last respects and see what this store closing sale was all about.  Surprisingly there was still quite a bit of stuff left.  I got a few things but also had a hard time justifying it since I don't need anything and lord knows I have enough stuff to keep me busy for years to come.

Although it seems ridiculous, it felt good to say goodbye.

(I am still not ok with it though)

Brian stopped by the house tonight and snapped this picture.  I can not wait to sit out on this porch next summer.  Now we just need that siding!!

Top It

School was closed today.  It has been freezing here and we had another day that we determined to be too cold for the kids so no school.

Hannah woke up a little concerned.

"Mom, is my tooth gonna come in before I go back to school?"

This reminded me of another story from last night.  As we were sitting at the kitchen table talking about her loose tooth and the tooth fairy she interrupted us to tell us "Umm, guys, the tooth fairy isn't alive anymore.  She used to be a real person but she died.  She died like way back in the 90's."

I stayed home with Hannah today and worked from home.  She did pretty good but had some tooth fairy money burning a hole in her pocket so around lunch time I signed out for the day and we went to Target and out to lunch.

When we got home we played her new favorite game 'Top It'.  Basically, this the card game War.  The rules are exactly the same only instead of calling it War her school calls it Top It- probably politically correct or something.

Later that night we caught Angel by the card game we had taken a quick break from. HA!

Nothing much new going on at the house- we knew based on the schedule that it would be a lot of painting and staining this week.  Took a few more pictures of the cabinets- man they look nice!

Hailey's closet doors

Something fun is happening around here!

The night started with some texts from Brian.

He made his daily trip to the house on his way home from work.

Lots of action today.

They poured our front porch!

The second floor cabinets, trim, doors, and railing have all been stained.  

Tonight when I got home from work Hannah showed me her tooth.  It was feeling more loose tonight and she was convinced that tonight might be the night.  During dinner she started to cry.  She was getting scared (or 'freaked out' in her words) because her tooth kept moving and she said if she put her tongue there she could feel a hole in her mouth.

Grandma tried to distract her by pulling out a Valentine's Day craft but within a few minutes she was crying again and we decided it was time to make our way to the bathroom to try and pull it out.

I got a wet washcloth and draped her in a towel.  I was getting ready to pull at her tooth when she mentioned that she wanted someone to hold her hand and then she yelled out to grandma.

Grandma came in and said that before we got started she wanted to take a look in Hannah's mouth to see if the tooth is ready.  As soon as she touched the tooth to wiggle it, it fell out into her hands.

BEFORE

 It's out!  Hailey started running around, Hannah started running around.  They were both so excited.

Hannah couldn't stop looking at herself in the mirror all night and a few times when I walked past her she squealed a bit and grabbed me.  She was SO happy!

AFTER

"Mom, can I tell you a secret?"

Hailey: "Mom, can I tell you a secret?"

Then she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out these....yikes!

Hailey: "I got these from my bathroom at the new house.  You can bring them to work."

Ummm.....ok, thanks honey.  (Holy cow!)

Looks like I need to start patting the girls down before we leave the house each day.

There hasn't been much action at the house over the past few days.  The place has been cleaned up and this week should be paint and stain.  Only thing we noticed today was the addition of some hardware.  Now if we could just get some siding on this thing.....ugh.

Hailey-isms

Hailey is so full of personality!

She has a few catch phrases lately that I had to document.

59-69

Hailey's version of 189.  If there is a large amount it's gotta be 59-69

"Whoa, there's like 59-69 pieces of licorice in there"

Oh my sausage!

Pretty self explanatory this four year old's OMG

Tarted

As in "I tarted" and "who tarted?" ever since I can remember, Hailey has been saying tart instead of fart.  I am sure she knows what the real word is and she can say words with the f sound- it's just too adorable to correct.

 

Oh My MG!

This is probably one of my favs.  Hailey's spin on the common OMG phrase!

 

Scared the heck out of me

You may sneak up on her or you may just look at her with a silly face.  Either way you will get the same response "Whoa!  You scared the heck out of me!"

Let It Show!

Let it Snow  SHOW!

Today the girls had their Spring Recital. It was a short show with just the Champlin Just for Kix dancers.

It's always so fun to watch them.

Hannah was practicing her smile this morning before we left.  Sure enough, she had a smile plastered on her face the whole time.  

Hailey came out on the stage and had a look on her face that gave me a feeling that she may have been a little nervous.  Then the dance started and she did great!  After the show her teacher told me she was crying right before they went on stage. She was 'missing me'.  Poor little one....although I am SO proud of her and how good she did, especially knowing now that she really was sad/nervous.

All of the dancers participated in a finale number and then got together for a group picture.

Hailey with some of her class

Hannah with her teacher, Reagan

At the end of the show I told the girls I wanted a picture.  Naturally they both posed for me.  This picture of the two of them is FILLED with personality. This is Hailey.  This is her pose.  ALL the time.  Hand on hip and butt sticking out.  Hannah- yep, that's her.  Arms up, leg out, huge smile.  Those are our girls :-)

After the show we stopped by the house again- just in case ;-)

The railing has been pretty much completed.  Of course it still needs to get stained but it is looking beautiful!

Swimming Party

Hailey brought a note home from Jackie's the other day.  It was from Cora's mom, a girl that used to come to Jackie's, inviting the girls to Cora's Birthday party.

She was having a swimming party at a hotel.  I went to the storage unit last weekend to try to find our swimsuits and did not have any luck.  So, I had to make a trip to Target to buy some new ones.

Thankfully they are selling them right now.

On our way to the party we stopped by the house and noticed that someone had been there.

Hailey was too anxious to go to the party and was not interested to go inside so Hannah and I ran in.

There was more trim installed and the railing for the second part of the stairs was in progress.

We made it to the party with plenty of time to spare and Cora was so excited to see the girls.

I am glad we were able to make it.

After swimming for a few hours we went back to their hotel room for pizza and cake.

Can't stay away

It's impossible to stay away these days with all of the recent changes taking place.

Tonight we swung by to see if there was anything new happening.

Here's our bench for the mudroom.

They started on the railing for the stairs.  It looks so beautiful!

Vanity for the master bath.

Hannah wanted to show off the tub in the master.  

Our hallway closet and on the right is Hannah's room.

I love the closet doors!  

Looks like some sort of trench was dug for the front porch.  Hopefully it won't be long now!