Happy (early) President's Day!

Yay! I finally got Nolan's 6 month pictures taken at 7 1/2 months! It was so worth all that hassle though (and I don't mean Hasslehoff). Look how cute he is:

Christmas Cards

Yes! I did it! TWO posts in one month! I'm on a roll!

So Christmas cards.

I had every intention of sending out Christmas cards this year. In fact I still do. After all, we had a kid, bought a house, and didn't go bankrupt this year! I think that merits mentioning along with a nice family picture.

Here's how it didn't happen:

I was super excited for Nolan to turn 6 months old on Nov 29 - partly because I get to dress him up in some outrageously cute outfit and have the traditional 6 month pictures taken. Well, the actual day wasn't too good for us so I planned on doing it later that week. That week got busy. So I scheduled an appointment at the photo studio for the following week.

However, I had a genius idea to have a family picture taken at the same time - then we can have a picture for Christmas cards all ready to go! I quickly rescheduled for a time when Kirk could join us after work.

When that day showed up so did some complications and pictures were the last thing we wanted to do. So I rescheduled (yet again). This was now the Monday before Christmas. Cutting it close, but I could still do it.

Well, when that Monday rolled around I got up early to shower and look decent, only to learn that Kirk was not feeling well. Bummer. I decided to still take Nolan in for his 6 month pictures anyway. I could at least send those in a Christmas card.

Drove to the studio.

Had a hard time finding the place.

Showed up too late for the appointment.

No other appointments available before Christmas.

Frustration.

Okay I cried. I'm just trying to be a good MOM and get pictures taken of my child before he grows up!!! Is that too much to ask!?! Hello!?!? And that's when I realized that this was more about me than him. Does my self worth as a mother really lay in living up to the traditions of my parents!?!?

Yes.

But the point is, that's why I didn't send out Christmas cards this year. I still plan on having Nolan's 6 month pictures taken someday (although he's over 7 months now). And I could always send out New Years cards, right? Or Presidents Day cards? Or something!

So to as a treat for all of you, here is the only picture I have of the three of us all together:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Lame-O Pants, Excuses, and Solids

Dangit, I really wasn't going to fall into the blog-every-so-often trap, but it's so easy to do. Let's face it, they don't call me Mrs. Lame-O Pants for nothing. I've earned that title!

Right now my days are carefully split as follows:

60% Baby Tending

60% Home Matenience

60% Other

I know it doesn't quite add up to 100% (I never was good at math), but we'll just say there's some overlap there somewhere. As you can see, there's little time for blogging.

Here's some super cute pictures of Nolan to make up for the lack of blogging. That should do it :)

He started eating solid foods a few weeks ago. "Eating" is a term used loosely.

Have you ever tried Rice Cereal?!? It's disgusting!! No wonder babies don't eat it. He's doing MUCH better with the squash now. Mmmm, plain unsweetened squash.

Still learning to swallow rather than suck.

He wasn't so good at feeding himself.

Dang that kid is cute. It's a good thing too.

Sometimes the cuteness is his saving grace.

Ok, I promise to blog at some point again this month. Really. Really.

What the...what happened to October??

Hey! It's about time I convey the last month of my life as a picture book! Cuz really, it's THAT interesting. Closing on the house, painting, moving, unpacking, fixing stuff up, and Halloween of course! I'm all about candy and dressing up :)

Here's our house just before we signed our life away.

I will always remember September 23rd 2009 - I dated enough signatures, how could I forget it!?!

FYI - houses are expensive!

On the day we closed, I picked Kirk up from work, stopped by Little Caesars and enjoyed our first meal in our new little home! I pulled out the camping chairs and a surprise basket filled with Sparkling Cider, crystal goblets, and a good book. You know, the type of stuff that goes with pizza.

I spent the next two weeks in these nasty paint clothes. I had high hopes of painting every room in the house when I first started. But in the end, we were lucky to paint over the nasty orange in the kitchen, the green in the living room & hallway, and the blue in nursery. It took several layers. And NO, I didn't get the fun stripes for the nursery painted yet. Darn! But I really want to. White is boring. It needs color!

(It was a sad day when I had to paint over the stripes in the old nursery :( It took three layers)

We moved out of the town home on Friday Oct 9th. That was a stressful day. That morning I was not quite done packing (of course) but I had to go to the new house to hurry and clean things up, when I locked my keys in the car!!! The KEYS, my CELL, the DIAPER BAG - everything but Nolan (luckily). Thank goodness for good neighbors and parent's AAA, but it took an unexpected 2 hours out of an already stressful day. Things still worked out somehow .

And yes, that is a PIANO! It's on loan from my sister for a year and half, but I think I just might be attached already. I LOVE LOVE LOVE having piano (and a place to put it).

We moved into our new house the next day after sleeping on a deflated air mattress (by 3 am I was hittin' bottom, but too tired to do anything about it). We also had trouble getting the U-haul started. But alas, all of our earthly belongings made it into our new home.

Now that' we're somewhat unpacked, we've been busily fixing things around the house before winter.

Here we see Kirk cleaning out the gutters, like the good husband that I trained him to be.

Now he's raking leaves. LOTS of leaves.

and hanging the shelf.

Projects projects projects.

The kitchen was mine. I'm constantly reorganizing it to make it just right.

Note: the walls are no longer orange. But goodness I'm anxious to put up my dazzling red curtains.

The first fire in the stove. We hope to heat our whole house this way.

Now for the cute pictures of Nolan!

I was super excited to dress him up in Halloween clothes :)

He was thrilled

This could have been a good warm costume but he couldn't move his arms or anything very well. Reminded me of A Christmas Story. Nolan just laid there smiling at me, because I was laughing so hard.

We decided on a family theme. Any guesses at what we are?? Collectively we are one thing. It requires in depth creativity. (Nolan did not want to attend the adult party with us so he sent a sub).

Here is the real Nolan in his adorable chili pepper outfit.

Again, he's thrilled.

Love this kid!!

But he's growing up way too fast. He's over 5 months now. Uh, it makes me feel old. It means that I'm like 5 months older than when I had him. But that doesn't really matter. Scratch that. My attempts at being funny are shot. Sadly I probably would have really said that in conversation. Why I'm not editing this more, I don't know. Let's just blame it on lack of sleep. Or something.

In case you're wondering...

...I'm still alive!

But just barely :)

It's been a super busy last couple of weeks/month. Packing, signing our life away for the new house, packing (how'd I get so much stuff?), painting the new house, fixing random little things around the house, cleaning the new house, loading the truck, sleeping on a deflated air mattress, unloading the truck, unpacking, and painting over the old nursery :(

All of the above take a lot more time to actually do than it may sound, ESPECIALLY with a four month old baby! Impossible actually. So he's been at other people's homes for way longer than I'd like each day. With all that's been going on - things have been slightly stressful.

Let's just say, I forgot to wash the conditioner out of my hair yesterday.

Right now the old washer and dryer are sitting out on our new front lawn. It makes me feel very white trashy. But Hey, widening the small pathway between boxes is higher my to-do list these days :)

But we are SUPER excited to finally be in our new house! I'm loving it. But I think I'll love it even more when I get a chance to sit down and actually enjoy it.

We went to church on Sunday, the day after moving in, and we were very impressed with our new ward. About 5 people introduced themselves before we even made it into the chapel! I spent most the time in the mother's lounge (which is huge, awesome), and I met other new moms there. Everyone seems really friendly and down to earth. Just another thing telling us that we're in the right place.

Pictures of the new house to come as soon as I find my camera cord.....where is that thing?? It's probably with laundry detergent...

Ummm.....

....I just heard my baby fart through the monitor.

That's weird.

My Neighbors

Two funny(semi-eerie) happenings as of late:

Story#1: Now that we're moving, I've been on a hunt of moving boxes recently. So I turned to trusty Craigslist to see what I could get for free. One ad said they were giving away a few very large boxes and they could meet in the Costbo parking lot (note: names have been changed for security purposes). I'm thinking, "Sweet, I live right by the Costbo parking lot. I'm so responding to this ad."

I get a phone call the next morning from the lady who says she'll meet me in the parking lot, but she's concerned that the boxes won't fit in my car. I tell her, no worries, I live right by Costbo, I'll just walk the boxes over to my garage. Well, she happens to live right next to Costbo too.

"Oh, maybe we're in the same area, Where do you live?"

"I'm on the corner of 162nd and Whompolooga."

"What?!? I'm on the corner of 162nd and Whompolooga!"

"No way! Let me go out onto my front porch."

Peering out my window I say, "Oh, I can see you from my bedroom window."

"Ok, that's creepy."

So as I'm hauling the boxes the short distance I find out that her and her husband moved in the same time we did a year ago, she's pregnant with her first and due in two weeks, and we both had thought about meeting our neighbors but never got a round to it. We should have been friends long ago. But now it's too late cuz I'm moving....

Sad when we have to meet our neighbors through Craigslist.

Story #2: I recently reconnected with a friend from high school who had a baby boy about the same time I did. Lizz and I were in theater and choir together and she's awesome (check out her blog). She came over a couple months ago, we had grilled cheese sandwiches, it was great. She happened to mentioned that she lived in Hillsboro off of Watery Road and that her neighborhood had some rules about parking on the street.

A few weeks later we find our house, and it is also just off Watery Road and the neighborhood has has parking restrictions. It's gotta be close to her house. So I called her up.

"Hey Lizz, we're buying a house and I think it's close to where you live."

"Oh, what street is it on?"

"Cowabunga Loop."

Pause, "What's the address?"

"1234567."

"That's right next door to me!!! Our neighbors are selling their house!!"

"What!? No way!! We're going to be neighbors!! That's awesome!! What are the chances!?"

And then we continued to talk about it for the next 20 minutes in high pitched girly voices, completely flabbergasted by the whole crazy coincidentalness of it all. (Man, I am on a roll with these made up words). She gave me the scoop on the neighborhood and I am feeling so much better about this whole moving thing now. It certainly helps to already know your next door neighbor. And it's also nice that our baby boys are the same age :) They better be friends.

Funny stuff.

Although it also would have been funny if we had instead accidentally seen each other in our front yards on some random future day.

Moral of the stories: Get to know your neighbors. You'll probably get along with them.