Fun and Possibly Exciting Times!!!

So Lee and I have have been cooking something up over the last couple weeks/months and we're finally ready to take the plunge. We have talked about it for a while and for whatever reason decided that we should now start.... House Hunting!!! Last weekend we toured parts of Nash County and did some drive-bys on homes that are on the market - and let me tell you there are a lot! We both LOVE LOVE LOVE one house so curiosity got the best of us and we set up an appointment with the agent to take a tour! TODAY!!!

I am really excited and kind of nervous about it. We are going to see 3 homes that are all within walking distance of each other. 2500+ square feet, 1+ acre yards, garages, neighborhood, white picket fences -- the works! (okay no fences but all the other stuff is true)

I have done my share of research on home sales in the Mount and the Real NC (Nash County) and have found that the market is flooded with homes and the average purchase price is between 60% and 75% of the tax value of the homes (based on similar homes that we are looking at in terms of location and square footage).

As much as we would like to move before new baby comes Lee and I have agreed on the following:

1. If the house does not fall into our budget - even if its close, we will wait. We must be realistic
2. If everything were to work out with the bank, and we cannot negotiate to a price that is what the current real estate market is bearing (60%-75% of the tax value) THEN no matter how much we want/like/love the house, we will not buy - we must make sound financial decisions, there will always be other houses and we can revisit the housing situation in a year. Its a buyers market and we are in the drivers seat.

Back of our house

Current house love! In the kitchen that Lee reno-ed last winter!

It is exciting and nerve racking. I know we can make it in this house for another 1-3 years so moving is not absolutely necessary. We would have to move by February because moving with a newborn would be horrible so if we can get a steal on a home then great, if not then here's to our Little House Under the Oak Tree until late 2012.

I'll let you know how tomorrow goes and if anything comes of our house hunt!

Dear Hallmark... You have broken button

I FINALLY had collected and entered all of the addresses into Hallmark.com so that I can get my free postage on the Christmas cards. I have been working quite dilgently on this for several nights. Enter all the info, get my free postage, and bam! review and confirm order button does not work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The purple button is not clickable!!!!!!!!!

Its a good thing that I cannot easily transfer everything and order somewhere else. I am going to retry tomorrow but still I am super annoyed that a simple programming issue is holding up my order.

~generally annoyed

Breaktime with the Girls

This afternoon/evening Papa was on E duty for a couple hours so that I could meet up with some friends for a coffee break. Yes I am 30 weeks pregnant and yes I drink coffee - about 1 cup a day - I'm pretty sure that's within the recommended limits. Anyways, not being from the Mount I do not too many people - and being a young working mother does not really allow for a huge amount of socializing so when I can take a break and not worry about work and changing a diaper I'm all over it.

Its so nice to get together and talk about girl stuff at the Mount's one and only coffee shop (Via Cappuchino). There is not a free standing Starbucks for miles (literally you would have to drive 25 minutes to get to one though there is one in Target but its not a coffee shop). Going to coffee shops reminds me of meeting friends for coffee in high school and college. Its different people but still an enjoyable and necessary break from life's many motherly calls of duty.

Fortunately we all have super great hubbies who can hold down the fort and understand the value of girl time!

Deadline for Savings

Tonight I have been trying to be super super super productive and get our family Christmas card ordered from Hallmark.com . Why you may ask? There is free postage on card that Hallmark mails from now until 12/4. Dulce vida!!!

No biggie. We have the pic taken - though I cannot promise that E is any less serious than last year's pic. So ready to place the order... Hmm... NO!!! I have to manually key in our 150+ Christmas card recipients. Love you guys! So the order will get placed in time for the free postage but its going to take longer than expected. Need to get some updated addresses but if I don't have them in time I can order extras to address by hand!!!

Christmas Pic 2010

Let me know if you want a card and I'll get one to you!

Naming Baby #2

After all the fam we saw this weekend the question came up multiple times - do we have names picked out. I guess people don't even bother asking what the names actually are because they know we're not finding out if baby is a boy or girl!

So, yes we do have both names for baby boy and girl picked out (first and middle). Will definitely follow the same first and middle letter like E's name. The names have been around since before baby - that way there is no controversy.

Also, it should be noted that there have been some really good guesses - several people have guessed the first name and one person has put together the first and middle name for one of the names (I'm not saying which and if you ask me I wouldn't tell you if you were close or not).

Shoe Crisis!!!

This morning it was cold and wet (here's to fall weather) and of all morning to be concerned about which shoes she wears - today E chose to care. She has three main pairs of shoes- black mary jane's (I think?), brown boots and pink moccasins (on sale from Hanna last year). Clearly pink shoes with out because the soles of them are soft and I don't think they would survive the rain.

E wanted to wear her black shoes that do not completely cover her feet/stockings which clearly would not bode well in the rain but she got them out anyways and proceeded to put them on - on the wrong feet! I told her that the boots would be better and set those out for her and took off the black shoes. Screams and tears ensued. Really over shoes! I cannot wait to see what she'll pick out for middle school that will inevitably be axed and the screams and tears that go along with that. I think I'm okay with the screams and tears of an 18 month old than a 13 year old!

Fortunately Papa came home (he just had to run out for work) with his boots on and E was much more... hmmm open? to her boots. Crisis averted, problem solved : )

Happy almost-Wednesday!

Cross Stitch Update

I have been meaning to post this a while ago... I have done some work since but still hoping to finish in time for Christmas!!!

In the mail...

We have 50 million thousand magazines come to the house and the vast majority of them only see it to our recycling bin. There are a select few that I really really enjoy looking at.

1. PBK - clearly. I have talked about Pottery Barn Kids before but I really like there stuff. The prices are generally high but the product quality is excellent. Nothing came of the PBK photo contest so E will likely end up with the a chair and not a kitchen... Another set of Dr. Seuss crib bumper and quilt will likely be in order for baby #2. (Read something the other day about how the recommendation is now to not use bumpers???)

2. Hanna Andersson - I'd pretty much take one of everything is that magazine. Again can be pricey if you don't get a sale - but St. Nicholas got free shipping on a Hanna order and that saved about 11% on top of the discounts. Also, if you have a little girl please don't waste another dollar on nylon tights. Get the Hanna 'loose' tights and save yourself the trouble. Yes they are $18 - you can get them for about $14 during a sale but E has some of her cousins and they are perfectly great and don't fuzz up or run.

Turkey Day Helper...

As we get motivated to go over for Thanksgiving #2 it should be noted how we got there. Lee and E ventured over to his mom's house Wednesday to do some cooking and prep. MMO was closed so E got in on the 'cooking' - she knows that word now - action.

Not long after getting to work I got this pic... Apparently E dumped the recipe box (because it was within her reach and that is what she does best). Fortunately all the Thanksgiving recipes were recovered...

Thankful...

Today we are thankful for (list is incomplete because we could go on forever with people and things we are thankful for but here's a few)

Older fam pic but makes us remember where we've been...

+ our families
+ our faith
+ each other
+ one precious 18 month old who has been a blessing in our lives and teaches and challenges us everyday
+ our friends
+ our jobs
+ baby #2 who we are anxiously waiting to meet and love
+ 2 Thanksgiving dinners
+ no work on Friday!

Baby #2 reminds us how amazingly blessed we are!

Less is soooo More!

A friend of mine and I had this revelation a while ago and I have not really had time to expand on it. Should also mention this was back probably in April when E and B were not walkers and getting-into-ers like they are now so - NOW more than ever do I believe this.

Less is so more. Can be applied to most anything like have a busy schedule or stress but I'll just focus in on the obvious - the things around the house that babies/toddlers can get into. We are really going to learn our lesson on this one in the next several weeks.

1. Massive 10-ft Christmas Tree - I love that we have high ceilings in our entrance/living room because it is a great excuse to get a huge tree. Since we always get our tree the Sunday before Christmas we can snag a big one for pretty cheap. Though I was slightly disappointed in my pick last year there was a hole that did not 'fall out' like it should have. Anyways, this will require moving Lee's picture table (yes all of them are his pictures) somewhere. Last year we moved it into our room but now the bar table is in there...

2. E is getting bigger so that means bigger toys? - Well not exactly but I do know that she is going to be getting some larger items for Christmas so we will need room for those. Lee has committed to moving his 7 ft DVD rack into storage - though it might end up at his mom's because she already has one and could possibly use another. He will then be unloading some of his books from the two 8 ft bookshelves to make room for the DVDs. Note I have a handful of books compared to the number he has out and this does not even include all the Church books he has in the Chapel (4 5ft shelves stacked and packed in there!!!) The DVDs are definitely pretty much all his too. He is a reader and a movie guru whereas I, well, am I : )

3. In the not so distance future t-minus 11 weeks/ 77 days (say what!) new baby will be here!!!!!!!!!! I'm getting more excited and more nervous the more I think about it. Anyways, he/she will need a crib in our room for the first few months which means that the bar table/hutch will need to go out into the entrance/living room thus the picture table will have to take a permanent hike from our house. We'll probably put the pics on the bar table...

Not really sure of any other better way to do all this rearranging but I figure the less things you have to move around the easier life is, right? Now all we need to do is find another crib!!!

12 Cookies of Christmas

I am all about establishing traditions and Christmas is certainly a time of year where lots of traditions can come into effect. Example - Godvia coins in our sockings at my parents house, they'll always be there.

Here are some traditions we'd like to establish this year so our kids will have special memories about them:

1. Coming home to a fully decked out tree. My plan this year is to have Lee bring the tree in on Christmas eve before he (and E) head to Raleigh-world for the plethora of church activities. I am hoping E can crash out at Grammy and Grandpa Joe's for quick night night while I get the house ready. Lights on the tree, ornaments, Nativity scene out those kinds of things : )

2. Christmas morning mama and papa are going to exchange gifts and E and baby #2 are going to exchanage gifts so parents to parents, kids to kids and have some variation thereof in future years. Then on Theophany/Epiphany/the 12th day of Christmas E will get her present(s) from us and get her stocking

3. A different Christmas cookie on each day of Christmas - hence the name of the post. I only have this year to get it right in terms of the 12 cookies to make so we need the most bestest Christmas cookie ideas. I always like the peanut butter cookies with the Hershey's kisses so that is a definite but I need 11 more ideas!!!

Mums and Slugs???

Since when do mums and slugs mix? I'll spare you the picture that we came home to the other night. But really Lee discovered the culprit that is killing my mums. Well not even all my mums just my red mums. E and I ventured out about a month ago to get into the fall season and got 2 dark red mums and 2 yellow mums. We have had fun watering them every other day and E waves bye to them occasionally when we leave for work.

For the past several weeks the red mums have been looking a bit rough but we attributed this to more sun on that side of the stoop. Definitely not that - about four or five slugs were lined up encircling my red mums ready to strike. It was Sunday and I figured St. Francis would not be thrilled if I viciously threw salt on those slugs so I let them be - well actually it was 2.5 degrees outside and I really don't expect the mums to make it much longer so here's to nature.

I have a really creepy slug story from my days in Guatemala involving the trail slugs leave and my shoes but you'll have to read my book to find out the details...