Since the kids have bigger rooms, I thought it was time to have desks. Owen’s matches his room perfectly.
Katie’s is smaller since she’s probably also going to have the drawing table in there.
The kids have desks!
Category Archives: Photos
The Legos are out already!
Playing while Mom and Dad work.
Moving in the important things first!!
And after some hard work, having our first drink! From one of the three (!) beverage fridges in the wet bar. CHEERS!
We are officially homeowners again!!
After some last-minute drama (with getting the funds wired the morning of)…it’s a done deal. We are now the proud owners of a 30-year mortgage! But it’s seriously our dream house and we couldn’t be happier. Tom and I just keep saying What did we do?! Oh yeah, we bought a house THAT WE LOVE.
I mean, we have purchased two houses in the past and they were both great for us at the time but we never loved them. We. LOVE this. house. (Is it perfect? Of course not. But does it check all of our boxes? Minus a lazy river and a four car garage… Yes.)
And then Anna brought the kids over…and was our family photographer!!
The garage drywall work is coming along.
It was fine overall, but since this is our forever house, we figured we might as well do it right. Of course it was way more expensive than we thought but it needed to be done before we moved everything in… Otherwise it might never get done. So they actually had to start before we closed (we cleared it with the owner).
So this is what it started as…
This is what it looks like now… They did a bunch of retaping, replaced some boards, fixed some things…and now it’s looking good! Just waiting for it to dry so Tom can paint!
So I had to wear Katie’s mask…
I dropped my mask getting out of the car at the closing offfice and OF COURSE IT’S RAINING TODAY and it immediately got soaked so I had to use whatever mask was in the car so Katie’s it was! (normally I have a bunch in the car for back up but I had washed all of them the night before.)
Our last family photo in front of my birch tree!
On our way to buy a house!
The kids masks from Old Navy are good.
Plus they’re cute. And I guess she’s cute, too.
My thoughts on Hamilton.
We finished it tonight. My first thoughts after Act 1 this past weekend were…MEH—I would have been pissed if I’d have spent hundreds to see it.
After Act 2…well…Act 2 was indeed better but I had hoped to be blown away by it—and I guess in some aspects I was— but overall I have no immediate desire to watch it again. Also? I am an emotional sap so when I was warned I’d need Kleenex…I was worried. But my eyes just got a tiny bit misty and there was no ugly cry.
That said, I can totally appreciate all the work that went into it—the actors were absolutely phenomenal and of course the writing was amazing (I wish I could be that talented at anything)—and I even caught myself singing some catchy snippets of songs this morning (My Shot and Helpless). I will also give it credit for making history interesting. But it’s still historical and history is just not my thing. I’m glad I saw it but that’s the end of my relationship with Hamilton.
July 4th fireworks with neighbors!
The kids started by catching fireflies. They were actually pretty good at it. Katie set these on the table and they stayed there long enough for me to get a photo—half on and half off!
Soon the fireworks came out. We started small.
The kids were at a respectable distance.
But the second one we did—a Panda—got a little crazy. It started small but then the second phase got insane and sparks were reaching the kids. Needless to say everyone immediately moved back!
Then they did some individual ones—each kid got to hold one and I managed to snap this awesome pic of Owen.
The dads got involved, too.
The kids wanted to see the house!
We have a garage door opener to store some stuff before we move in…so of course the kids wanted to see the house again.
Happy 4th of July!
A bit more skill
I’ve done this every day for 10 years!
So I’ve been uploading a photo to an app (Project365) every single day fora long time and just randomly realized today it’s been 10 years!! So here’s our July from 2010.
Maggie burying herself in blankets
One of these days I’m going to get a full video of her doing this. I stopped recording today because she laid down…but then she started up again so I missed some. But she can’t resist a stack of blankets so it’s only a matter of time!
Trading veggies for herbs!
We get a veggie and fruit box every other week and for the most part we like everything or will try it if it’s something new. This week had artichokes. I steamed two and Tom and I tried one for lunch…
and it wasn’t exciting for either of us…so I texted my neighbor to see if she’d want it—and she did! As we were chatting she mentioned she had lots of dill and asked if I wanted some. Yes, please!!
I hope our new neighbors like to trade!!
Nude porch swimming!
Our new obsession.
And we can’t remember where we got them!! We thought we narrowed it down to Menards but we looked and they didn’t have them.
Well this is new, Bella. WTF?!
Apparently when you’re turning 84 in human years (July 4) you do whatever the hell you want?
And this was earlier in the day. Not quite as bad but not typical. The cats rarely get on the counters but they’ve both been getting on the table more these days.
The new color of our floors!
So one of the perks of meeting the seller/owner was that she said “Hey, the floors are being refinished Monday. Would you guys want to pick the color?” UM, YES PLEASE!
So we scheduled a meeting with the floor guy and then thought about what color we wanted…I really thought a light gray would be great—it would really change the look and lighten things up a lot. (I’m so tired of everything feeling dark. I want everything light and bright.) Tom wasn’t sure at first but quickly came around and agreed. It will go perfectly with all the current paint colors and kitchen cabinets, etc.
He mixed some colors for us and these were our options (without making him do 32 varying shades). I had hoped for a bit lighter version, but A) I wasn’t taking the original wood color into consideration and B) when we added more white, it actually looked a bit more blue. We ended up picking the top middle. We can’t wait to see it finished!!
Just nine days until closing!
Last minute Lippy moving sale!
I decided kinda last minute to have a moving sale… I got to test out my new Portal+ and it was really cool!
I wasn’t expecting to buy this today.
Tom and I innocently went to a local artisan shop today to get some ideas for the new house and one of the very last things we saw was this desk/hutch. We had actually been looking at desks for the kids rooms (since they’re bigger) and even a basic Ikea piece is like $100 (and not real wood). So I had a hard time passing this up. (Of course Tom could build something like this but he just doesn’t have the time.) So this will be Owen’s new desk… Something he can definitely grow into and something that we can paint over the years if we need to. Now we just have to go pick it up next week after we close!
Charlie finally saw the chipmunk.
This bird feeder has been up for about a year now but the cat hardly pays attention to it. Well, a chipmunk has started visiting and Charlie still hasn’t noticed it…so today I literally pulled her out of the bed and forced her head in the direction to see it. She wasn’t having it so it took much longer than I thought it would, but then she saw it. And she was intense. (I thought we might get some chirping but we didn’t.) Now I can’t wait to see if she looks out on her own…
I love this dog.
Physically-distanced margaritas with my new friend!
So if you recall, the seller of our new house invited us over for drinks and a casual walk through. That was today. And it was epic.
Long story short, she’s amazing, the house is amazing, and we love it even more now!! We got along really well, we have a lot in common (to start, a love of margaritas and makeup!), and we are definitely going to be friends! How cool is that? The kids even wanted to stay the night!
Just 13 days until closing!!
I guess this is better than throwing a tantrum?
Owen has been asking and asking and asking for a specific iPhone game and we finally told him tonight that the answer was no (and explained allllll the reasons why). Of course he’s not happy so this is the note he handed me, telling me he wanted me to write him back.
Owen: I’m sorry about today and I’m a jerk and it feels like you’re being mean and you don’t want me to get Terraria.
Me: You aren’t a jerk. You’re a kid who didn’t get what he wanted. You’ll be okay. I love you. Love Mom
I feel like as your Margarita Queen, I have failed you.
You guys.
For legit YEARS I have been juicing limes for the freezer (because who can use a whole bag before they go bad?!) and then also freezing the rinds to put down the garbage disposal to freshen it up.
And then today. Today y’all. I had the mic drop moment. I was juicing limes from our local fruit and veg box (George Fourkas Produce Company) while also drinking a margarita and I thought why not use those frozen lime ends as ice cubes? 😱😱😱 No more watered down margaritas!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻
You’re welcome.
I hate it when Alexa doesn’t listen.
Me: Alexa play XM channel 179.
Alexa: Playing Sports 971
Me: Alexa play Sirius XM channel 179.
Alexa: Playing Sports 971
Me: Alexa play XM channel one hundred seventy nine.
Alexa: Playing Sports 971
Me: Alexa play XM channel 1-7-9.
Alexa: Playing Sports 971
Me: Alexa play XM channel 179 stay at home.
Alexa: Playing Sports 971
Me: Alexa play Sirius XM channel 179 stay at home.
Alexa: Playing Sports 971
Me: Alexa play stay at home on XM radio.
Alexa: Playing stay home radio
This is exactly how my whole day is going thus far. (Data point? I’ve been listening to this channel for a month using the same verbiage.)
Virtual Lego Challenge
Our library was having a virtual Lego challenge—you had to built a Lego scene with real life objects in it. Owen built a baseball field complete with baseball posters in the outfield! Katie added a fan eating a sucker!
Introducing the kids to an old favorite show…
We are hoping they might be more appreciative of what they have after watching life in the 1870s. It’s a good thought, right?
Surprise! The kids saw their new back yard!
We went on yet another walk in our new neighborhood today and the homeowner was outside in the garage and we quickly debated introducing ourselves or not…and I said WHAT THE HELL and long story short she’s super awesome—she was excited to meet all of us, reiterated that she’s thrilled the house is going to a nice family, and she let us show the kids the back yard.
She also told us she was leaving two additional TVs (one in the wet bar and one in the gazebo), that we were welcome to start bringing stuff over to leave in the third garage bay, plus, after we exchanged numbers, invited us over for a house tour and a drink on the deck!
Both kids are super excited about the gazebo.
We also got to scout out the back yard again to see where we could put a small shed so that was good.