Before?

Last week, as we were doing the final walk through on our new house before closing, I had the forethought to go through each room and take lots of pictures. I did that when we bought the house on Cullowhee Ct seven years ago, and boy did those pictures come in handy when we were doing our adoption. But I took pictures of the new house for a purpose.

It's our plan to stay in this house for the long haul. We bought in an area that is known for great schools. It's close to all of the places I go to with the boys (church, playgroup, storytime, etc.), and best of all it's close to our babysitters, I mean my parents. Knowing that we plan to stay for a long time, we have some big dreams for this house. Dreams of adding on and maybe even up one day. Plans to put in an atrium and formal garden.

Back to the pictures I took...I like to refer to them as "Before" shots of the house. Our new place is pretty much a clean slate. White walls that have been primed. White trim. Beige carpet and white tile. You might call it boring. I like to think of it as having lots of potential! (If only we have the money to use all that potential.) As of this evening our first project in the new house has been chosen. We're going to tackle the kitchen. No, we're not talking about replacing cabinets and appliances, although I would love to do that. But we'll be changing the wall covering/color. We're (and when I say we're I mean my dad) going to strip the painted over wallpaper in the kitchen and repaint. It'll be a first step, and a pretty small one in the grand scheme of things, but I'm excited about it. It seems like anymore these days I spend my life in the kitchen, so I'm looking forward to making the one as pretty as the one at Cullowhee.

Big dreams people. Big dreams. Now, if only I could find my camera...I'd share a before picture or two. Maybe tomorrow.

MacDonald Clan

A cop out post for today. I'll try to do a little better tomorrow. But think of this a quick glimpse of who will be moving into our new home!

A first.

For the first time ever the boys and I jumped in the car this morning and took Dan to the airport, a trip he would normally make alone when leaving town for business for the week. Mostly this was for practical reasons. My car simply isn't conducive to doing any kind of hauling of stuff to the new house. I can't really even fit a broom in the car because of the two car seats in the back. We figured that if all of us took Dan to the airport, I'd be left with his car to use when/if I get to work on the house while he's out of town.

The boys and I didn't go to the new house today, and based on how much they loved being there yesterday I'd have to say that were probably a little bit bummed about it. We did take advantage of the pool in our backyard at Cullowhee Ct. though, with a little help from my mom. By the end of our vacation last week, the boys absolutely loved the water and loved swimming and jumping in the pool. A combination of familiarity, feeling better (we started the week off with a cold), and some confidence made for a great time in the pool at our condo. Today I took the boys in one at a time, and we worked a little bit on swimming and floating, thanks to the lessons taught by Mr. Jayme back in November and Miss Alisha in May. Both Matthew and Nicholas love jumping in the water, so we spent a lot of time doing that today as well. I think I might be a little sad when we finally sell this house and move away from the pool.

That's it for today. Tomorrow my dad is going to pressure wash the porch, both screen and floor, and clean out the garage. We are so blessed to have my parents so close by, and so willing to help!

Oh, and no pictures today. Maybe tomorrow!

A new challenge for a new month...

You might remember that I committed to blogging every day during the month of November through NaBloPoMo, a site that encourages blogging. Well, I was just reading my friend Anne's blog tonight and she found a new challenge on their website. The month of June everyone is encouraged to blog daily about "Home".

I'll try not to plagarize what Anne wrote in her blog about the subject of "Home", but seeing as how we also just bought a new house (last Friday), I think there will be plenty for Dan and me to blog about over the coming month. Just as Anne promised to her readers, I promise to you...there will be pictures. Here's one from today!



More tomorrow!

Don't wipe your nose with your chicken!

As heard at dinner tonight... The things you hear when you have little ones around...

Anyway, we are at our annual excursion to the beach. It's a little early this year; normally we go the week of independence day, but this year we went early to meet Kate and Emily's summer schedules. The boys seem to be enjoying it, despite almost all of us having a cold in various stages. The boys are sleeping well (which is nice since they don't always when we are traveling) and are swimming every day. It's interesting to see how they seem to enjoy kicking off one of us to the other, and instinctively trying to kick and doggy paddle in an uncoordinated tangle of limbs. They didn't care much for the beach tho - it took a little while to get used to the sand, and they didn't like the possibility of the surf reaching them.

I've been trying to take pictures, but I forgot my card reader so I can't download anything... so it will probably be a couple weeks before they get done.

A lesson from the boys

Last week, I made a sandwich and brought it into the living room to eat lunch while watching the boys. Of course, the vultures descended and ate about 1/3 of it. (I should have known better.) Since they handled it pretty well (mustard and all), we decided that we would add sandwiches to their diet.

So, a couple days later, I'm feeding them lunch including a quartered up sandwich each, handing them one quarter at a time and making sure they are taking bites and all instead of shoving it all in. Matthew pipes up to get my attention and I look over and he is brushing his hands together (flat. one on top of the other and palms together) and signing "please." Not recognizing what was going on, I tried to prompt him to sign "eat" or "more" or something like that (since they are getting lazy and just signing "please" for everything). He keeps rubbing his hands together and Nicholas is piping up, so I give up and hand Matthew his next piece and lo and behold, Nicholas does the same thing!?! After another second or two I finally realized that they had invented a new sign for sandwich! Pretty smart for only knowing what a sandwich was for about two days...

One house too many

If all goes well on Monday morning, the MacDonald family will own two houses! Yes, we're a little crazy for both selling and buying in this market. Some people don't understand why we're moving now, and that's okay. The long and the short of it is this is a great time for us to buy in a neighborhood we want to settle down in. It's close to our biggest support system, and it's in a school zone we want our children to attend. It's located in an area that the boys and I spend a lot of time in. It's a little closer to our church. Housing prices in this area are at an all time low. Oh, and Dan hates the swimming pool and wanted to find a place without one!

Below is a picture of our new house (again, assuming all goes well on Monday.)


With that said, our current house is on the market. If you know someone who is looking for a great house, send them our way. :-) Say a prayer that someone buys soon.