...MAMA!!! As it should be! Lucy's first word was DADA, so it's only fair. I was hesitant to say that was his first word, but really there is no question. When I leave the room he crawls to the bottom of the stairs and yells Mama until I reappear. He's so cute. And I had to put the picture of him down to his diaper, look at how chuny he is!
Yesterday Shawn and I closed on our first house! We are so excited! It's crazy to think that we are now homeowners, but we couldn't be happier about it. After we closed, Shawn came home to work for the last few hours of the day. Apparently he got a call from our Property Managers for the house that we are renting right now, and they told us that the renter we have had lined up for 2 weeks now was considering an out of state job. So our extremely happy moment quickly changed to one of panic. We are moving out of this house on Saturday, and if that renter couldn't move in we had to pay the rent until one could, up until April at the latest. Yeah, that kind of dampened our spirits. Anyway, I called our property managers today, and our renter decided not to take that job, so we are all good. After a scare, we are still on track. Yay!!! And with no further adieu, OUR HOUSE!!!!
The exterior is cute, but when we first toured it, as we pulled up I decided it definitely needs a new paint job, not a huge fan of the butter cream and green.
The Living Room with brand new hardwood floors.
Dining room, why they stopped the hardwood floors, I don't know, I wish they went into the kitchen, but the tile in the kitchen is brand new too, so we'll see what we decide to do.
My new kitchen, pantry and all! I love it. I have some ambitions for this room, but I love the new counter tops and the new hardware on the cabinets. We actually already unpacked all our dishes and I LOVE all the cupboard space! It's fantastic!
This is the family room. What you can't see it the doggie door next to the back door. I like that, Shawn doesn't. The new hardwood continues down here. Again, I have plans for that fireplace, like making it work for starters. (The buyer wouldn't fix it ):).
Master Bedroom is a good size, and has the window seat.
Here is the Master Bath. The nice thing is that the seller just updated the floor to tile, and so that is one less project for us.
This will be Lucy's room. Remember this one for before and after pictures.
This will be Jack's room. It's a little smaller then Lucy's which is why it will be his. He hasn't had as much time as Lucy to accumulate all the toys.
The kids bath.
And the back yard. No deck, but we are looking at it this way, that is just one more thing we could to to increase the value of our house.
And there you have it. There is also an unfinished basement which we would love to finish off someday. One of the best parts is the laundry room with the half bath on the main level, it came with new front loading washer and dryer!!! I've always wanted those, and now I don't have to buy them! YAY!! Anyway that is how the house looked when we first saw it. I'm so excited to get in there and make it our own. Stay tuned for the after pictures!
Today between the conference sessions, we decided to take a drive in the mountains to see the fall colors. It was beautiful of course. We did this same drive last year, but it was extremely cloudy and foggy which made it beautiful in a different way. Today it was completely sunny. It was really funny seeing things that we couldn't see last year do to the fog, like a lookout point over the city.
Anyway, because it was so sunny, Lucy kept asking for her sunglasses. Here is an interaction that followed:
Lucy: I need my sunglasses mom. Me: We left your sunglasses at Tara's house. Lucy: Let's go to Tara's house and get them real quick. Me: Lucy, Tara's house is so far away we have to get on an airplane to get there and that costs a lot of money. Lucy: Well I have lot's of money in my poky cone we can use.
Her "Poky Cone" is a Pineapple that Shawn got a drink in on our cruise, and it had a slot for change, so it is now Lucy's penny bank. Unfortunately learning what pineapples, pine cones, and porky pinks all in one week is a little confusing for a 2 year old.
Who knew you could enjoy 2 days at Disney World, on the last weekend of summer, and not wait in a single line? I have to give a shout out to Tara for being the world's best Disney day planner! Thanks to Tara, this is the only line we had to wait in the entire time we were in the Disney Parks, and it was a 5 minute line for the Jungle Safari in Disney World (a ride that never has a line longer then 5 minutes). Talk about being prepared, Tara actually bought a program on planning your day at Disney, and I have to say it was full of so many helpful hints, it was awesome. In the end fast passes in combination with the parent swap is the perfect solution. If you have both, you NEVER wait in line. Thanks Tara.
This is for you Bob. We took Lucy to Disneyland a year and a half ago, and we made the mistake of taking her on Pirates of the Caribbean first. She was terrified of any ride after that. The second it looked like it was getting dark, she burried her head. The fear lived on here at Disney World. This is her second try on Pirates of the Caribbean a who year and a half older, no change. The funny thing is that Jack had the same problem. He wasn't such a fan.
Ok, that is just a cute picture. Lucy loved this little play place they had in Toon Town. We let the kids play in here for 10 minutes while Jeff went to grab some fast passes and we all loaded up on some water. Lucy and Luke, can you tell they are cousins?
The Tea Cups, a ride I have always hated. It didn't help that while we waited I had to watch a worker clean some throw up out of one of the cups. That's when I said "Memo to self, do not sit in a yellow cup." I took the girls in the non spinning cup, and Tara took the boys in the wild and crazy cup. Too bad Kate knew the cup was suppose to spin because by the end of the ride she and Lucy gained up on me.
Lucy got to meet 3 princesses, Cinderella, Bell, and Sleeping Beauty. She didn't really like Cinderella (which was weird because she has seen the movie), Bell was the same, she just didn't want anything to do with them, Jack did, he flirted with them. But when we got to Sleeping Beauty Lucy perked right up. She turned into a complete chatter box. She was telling her how old she was, that she liked her dress, about her day, etc. It took me a second to figure out why she liked Sleeping Beauty and then it hit me. The pink dress. Apparently Lucy has a favorite color, Pink.
Meeting Minnie and Mickey. Lucy was SOOOO excited, the highlight of her trip. She ran right up and was being so sweet to Minnie, as I expexted, but by the time we left she didn't care about Minnie because she couldn't get ove Mickey. Wish we would have gotten more pictures of her interaction with them, it was priceless. It was awesome when they realized Jack was asleep too. I wish I could be a Disney character (almost).
After one successful day, Lucy was a happy camper. She was ready to take Minnie and Mickey home. Too bad those dolls are like $75 a piece, but the picture was adorable.
So as I mentioned on Shawn's birthday post, I surprised him with a trip to Florida for his birthday. The surprise didn't go as perfectly as I had hoped, he found out about 8 hours before he was suppose to when he got an email from his frequent flier miles reminding him about his flight the next day. All that said, the day after his birthday we found ourselves at the Happiest Place on Earth. Disney World!!! We actually spent August 21st at Animal Kingdom, and I have to say I LOVE that park! It's Disney at it's greatest! Here we are in front of Mt Everest, an awesome ride BTW.
It was so great to see Jeff, Tara, and the kids. Lucy has not stopped talking about her cousins since we got home. Excuse Jeff's glare, he was still trying to get over our hotel. It was cheap, I mean really really cheap, but it was such a blast, and we saved a little dough.
The thing that is so great about Animal Kingdom is that it is a theme park and the world's greatest zoo. The way they did their animal enclosures in the Safari was GENIUS!!! I still can't get over how amazing it was.
So we had a bit of an accident. Here is Jack at the beginning of the day.
This was Jack's little set up for the day. Katie was so stinking cute sharing her treats with him. Anyway, Jack fell asleep so I set him back in his car seat. Then we went over to the Lion King Show. I went to pick up Jack's car seat because I was not going to wake him up. Well, I wasn't use to that car seat (we were using J&T's so we didn't have to bring ours) and I thought that the handle was locked into place and it wasn't. And of course Jack wasn't strapped in because he fell asleep while I was holding him. So I picked up the car seat and could not figure out what was happening because something didn't feel right.
And this was the result. What didn't feel right was Jack toppling out of the seat onto the cement. POOR BABY!! And of course he landed right on his head. Then everyone was watching and all thinking (and some saying) horrible things about me. Anyway, I felt horrible for weeks, still do. But Jack was fine, just one heck of a goose egg, and a scrap by his eye.
What we did learn was that if you drop your baby on the sidewalk outside of the entrance to the Lion King Show, you get passes to be a part of the show. Here is Shawn and Lucy teaching the crowd how to make a wart hog sound.
The show was really really good, obviously.
Will was the lucky one who was picked to go up and dance with the performers. He was so adorable! Those of you who know Luke know that it was not a happy situation when Luke realized that Will was chosen and not him. He was so heart broken. But when we got out of the show there was an answer to Luke's prayers waiting for us outside.
Could there be anything more perfect for Luke? No. The funny thing was that Will was upset after this, but he got over it really fast.
And then there were the characters. We were so lucky because there was like no crowd, so we were able to meet Donald, Goofy, Terk, and of course MINNIE, without waiting in a line for more than 5 minutes. Lucy was in HEAVEN!!!
Lucy had the time of her life. When we got back to the hotel that night she could hardly believe where she had spent her day. She was so happy. I feel so blessed to have been able to take her to Disneyland and Disney world in her short 3 years. I've really been so lucky with that. It does always help that she is still falls into the free admission category. We had to hurry and squeeze that in before her 3rd birthday in October!!
Talk about your perfect ending to a almost perfect day. (If only I didn't drop Jack on his head, my poor baby!)
Lucy recently decided she is a wimp at night. She usually will go to bed ok, but sometime around 3 am she wanders into our room. When we take her back, the battle usually begins. It is really hard to be patient with your 2 year old when it's 3 am and she just woke up the baby. As frustrating as this has been, we do have a couple of funny stories.
A few weeks ago we were in Florida to visit Jeff and Tara (that is where the problem started, Lucy slept in our room and decided that she really liked having someone close by). While we were there Shawn and I went on a little 2 night cruise. The first night we were gone Lucy did great. The second night there was an issue with leaving the door open, a battle that Tara folded on really quick when Lucy said "My mom let's me sleep with the door open." The next morning, Jeff and Tara woke up when Kate (who was sleeping in their room so Jack could sleep in her crib) climbed into bed with Jeff and Tara. It was one of those cute cuddly mornings for them, and all the sudden they heard a cough. They were a little confused because they knew it wasn't either of them or Kate. Tara leaned over to see if someone was laying on the floor in Kate's little make shift bed, but no one was there. A second later, Lucy popped out from under their bed. Sometime in the night, she got scared, climbed up the stairs and under their bed where she slept the rest of the night on the hard wood floors.
Since we got home, Lucy had some ugly 3 am battles, but quickly learned we were not going to give in. So lately I have heard her wake up and tip toe across the hall. I just lay in bed and don't move, watching her to see what she will do. Then she drops to the floor and tries to get under our bed. I have a small mattress under my bed that I pull out for naps for the kids I watch. So she hits the mattress and backs out. Then she tries again higher up where she hits my Tupperware of wrapping paper. Then she tries to roll under parallel to the bed. That doesn't work either. She is so desperate it is pathetic. Some nights her desperate attempt melts me enough to just put her in bed with me. But seriously, she has got to stop.
Sep 5 Oklahoma 5:00 ESPN
Sep 12 @ Tulane 1:30 ESPN2
Sep 19 Florida St 5:00 Verses
Sep 26 Colorado St 4:00 Mtn.
October 2 Utah State 7:00 Mtn.
October 10 @UNLV 8:00 Mtn.
Oct 17 @San Diego 4:00 Mtn.
October 24 TCU 5:30 Verses
Nov 7 @Wyoming 12:00 Mtn.
Nov 14 @New Mex 12:00 Mtn.
Nov 21 Air Force 1:30 CBS
Nov 28 Utah 3:00 CBS/Mtn.
