When she has access to your closet…
This happens.
Waiting at the Exchange
Watching TV while daddy picked up his commemorative Sig Sauer deployment pistol.
At the chirocracker
I told Owen we were going to the chiropractor and he was super excited: “Katie! We’re going to the chirocracker and get to play with toys!”
She was excited about the unicorn!
Someone got a badge tonight!
Owen went with Tom to the police department to pick up his pistol purchase permit…and I got this picture.
Katie and the bib
Owenisms 47
Riding in the car:
Owen: Mom! Katie took her shoes off!
Me: Katie, you need to put your shoes on if you want to go outside.
Katie: *raspberry*
Owen: Katie, that is not a good decision.
Playing in the pool:
Katie: Are you hungry mama?
Me: No.
Katie: Are you hungry Owie?
Owen: Yes! I want electricery soup with guns in it.
Owen pooped in the potty and I said it was a small poop.
Owen: No, it’s big.
Me: No, it’s small.
Owen: Big.
Me: Small.
Owen: If you say that again I’m going to punch you in the face.
Me: NO SIR.
Owen: Then I will…touch you in your eyeball.
I still hadn’t eaten lunch at 3:30 so was eating a small snack of tortilla chips, nacho cheese, and guacamole.
Owen: Can I have some chips and guacamole?
Me: This is my lunch. You already ate lunch with daddy. Remember? Your egg sandwich?
Owen: I can have double lunch!
Katieisms 3
Out playing in the back yard.
C’mon Maggie, follow me!
It was too quiet so I went looking…
Mama! I play Owee’s Legos!
I always tell Katie to eat _fill in the blank_ one at a time. This morning she was feeding me cereal pieces.
Me: Thank you!
Katie: One at a time. One at a time.
I went in to get Katie in the morning.
Me: Good morning Katie.
Katie: Good morning mama. I love you mama.
Me: Awww, I love you too, Katie.
Katie: Mama?
Me: Yes?
Katie: Chicken butt!
I was trying to catnap in the chair.
Katie: Mama? Mama?! Are you sleeping? Mama? MAMA! Are you sleeping? Mama! Wake up! Wake up!
NEW WORDS
Breakfast
Bumble bee
Careful
Despicable Me
Dinner
Dirty
Duck
Hungry
Minion
Pillow
Seat
Stinky
Unicorn
Plus a ton more I just forget to write down.
Ta da! Bracelets!
She was so proud of herself for getting these “bracelets” on (really Owen’s magnatiles)…
Waterslide Playdate
We had invited everyone back over today but no one could make it…so I was glad that I had talked to another pre-k mom at the end-of-year party and had invited her and her kids over. Owen loves the slide, but enjoys it SO MUCH MORE when there are other kids to play with. 🙂
Izzy (Owen’s classmate) and her sister, Cory:
After awhile I convinced Vicky to go down the slide as well. She agreed it was a blast!
Waterslide Day 2
Yep, we splurged on two days of the waterslide—why not? (Yes, it was mostly guilt—I still feel bad we have no back yard (per se) at the new house and they lost their playset.) And what fun is life if you can’t spoil your kids now and again? 🙂
Unfortunately, Katie was NOT into it today…this is all she wanted to do:
Then Katie climbed up this far then stopped and wanted help getting down. She refused to go up and refused to go down and wouldn’t let Owen help her. I wanted her to figure it out herself so just left her there for awhile while I watched Owen play.
I eventually had to go up and get Katie down because she would. not. move. And then it was time to go inside to rest for a bit before more friends came over for a waterslide play date! 🙂
Bruised & The Beauty
Thankfully Owen’s injury didn’t even bruise much, let alone turn into a black eye. You might not even notice it if you didn’t know it was there.
She saw me taking Owen’s picture and wanted her picture taken, too. 🙂
Until We Meet Again Party
We decided to have a going away party before we left—but I called it an “Until We Meet Again” party because I HATE goodbyes. It was also a perfect excuse to rent a huge waterslide for Owen because he loves them and our new house has zero place for one.
As it was being set up, the kids were VERY excited watching out the window. Katie was saying “Slide! Katie slide! Katie slide please!” 🙂 I was busy getting the last few things ready for the party and Tom was running our last errands so I made the kids wait until he got home…but then it was game on! Owen had no issues with it, of course, but Katie was a poop. She loves climbing on things but put her on the slide where she HAS to climb (and can pretty much climb without much caution) and she wanted NONE of it. This is where she’d stop:
Even after Owen went down a few times, this is the farthest she’d go:
Finally I had enough of trying to verbally coerce her into climbing up, so I got on the slide with her and basically pushed her up each rung of the ladder. Once we got to the top, she didn’t want to go down…so I put my arm around her and we went down together—AND SHE LOVED IT! And immediately went to the ladder…and climbed up all on her own (the little shit!)! I did go up again behind her to make sure she didn’t slip backwards, but she did it just fine!
And then at the top of the slide…I realized my phone was still in my pocket!!! @$&#%! I obviously hadn’t planned on going on the slide (I was still wearing clothes, too) but got caught up in the moment of being frustrated with Katie. 🙁 I yelled at Tom to come get it and instead of coming up the ladder calmly, he was a bit upset and wasn’t being careful…and instead tried to come up over the side of the slide and pulled a leg muscle while getting back off. Like pulled it badly enough that he was limping. 🙁 But the slide was a blast and I knew I’d be on it more throughout the day…so I just gave in and put my suit on right then. And since Katie was still going up and down, I put her in her suit, too.
This is where she liked playing the most. And she was pretty good about moving out of the way when you said “Katie, watch out!” She’d go wait on the side until Owen came down, then she’d go back in the water. 🙂
Even though the slide was fun, I thought it might be out to kill me. After the kids had been playing for a bit (while I was working on party prep), Katie refused to come down (it was her naptime but she didn’t know that—she was just being stubborn). I told Owen this was his one chance to push his sister down the slide—and he tried but he said she was too strong and he couldn’t do it…so I had to go up the slide again to get her down. So I climbed up and we came down together—and I smashed right through the end buffer and landed on the ground with Katie on top of me! HOLY CRAP. I knew it was possible (other adults have done it before) but I had already gone down “successfully” a handful of times so definitely wasn’t expecting it. Katie wasn’t hurt (or crying) so that was good, and for the most part I was okay, but I had actually smacked my head on the ground. Ugh—instant headache. Then Katie was trying to get back onto the slide so I had to grab her…and I slipped on the wet tarp while carrying her! Thankfully she wasn’t hurt and I wasn’t really, either, though my butt and back hurt. Good times, right? I handed her off to Tom and took some pain pills. AND THEN…I was going down the slide with Owen and we were having a blast…and he was excited and wasn’t following the rules (waiting for the area to be clear before sliding down) and just rammed his feet straight into my side. Needless to say it was time for me to take a break.
Once the other kids arrived, things got a little more hectic. Pool toys came out and were part of the slide and kids were going down together (as you can see here)…and the “rules” kind of went out the window. 🙂
The girls loved Katie and basically thought she was their own little doll. 🙂
Ursula was the first adult to go down and she went tandem with Virginia! She agreed it was a blast!
Everyone had fun and the slide was (of course) a hit. There were a few minor bumps and bruises once all eight kids were on the slide at the same time and Owen ended up with a sure-to-be bruised eye. But it was super fun and it all went really well. The only minor bummer was the weather—in the middle of the party we had a downpour just long enough and with just enough thunder and lightning to send everyone inside…for 15 minutes! So then it was back outside! It started to threaten a storm again about 7:00 which sucked because all the adults were going to get on the slide (and I had planned on being able to use the slide most of the evening)…so we just sent the kids inside and a few of us went down a few times in the rain. There’s even video of me catapulting over the end (which may get posted privately) but I’ll gladly post the one of Tom! 🙂
Once it started storming and we were all inside, the kids were watching a movie and the adults were visiting and snacking…and Jacqueline was doing my dishes. There was plenty of room in the dishwasher but she actually LIKES doing dishes so who am I to stop her? 🙂
It was a really great time and I am so glad we did it…and it wasn’t until everyone was gone that I got really sad thinking about how much we’re going to miss everyone. (It’s always sad leaving, but the last time we left, we were just going to be missing two families…this time, we have more friends that we’ll be missing so it will be even harder.) But at least we have some great memories!
Busy back yard morning!
The playset was coming down as the waterslide was going up! I couldn’t watch too much of the playset teardown because I was really very sad about it. I worried how Owen would handle it…but he literally looked out the window and said “Awww, I’m going to miss the playset…BUT THE WATERSLIDE WILL BE SO FUN!” And we didn’t hear another word about it.
Waiting for Owen
Mom Pillow
“I missed you bear!”
Our looooong day. Yay?
Today Tom and I did a long round-trip to the new house to drop off a FULL 14′ U-haul. Why, you may be asking?
Well, we somewhat recently found out that our last move was about 5,000 pounds over our allotted weight limit. Technically we could have been charged for it—but weren’t—so we didn’t want to take any chances this time. We’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff (see the #40bagsin40days posts) but it still just felt like A LOT. Yes, we likely wouldn’t have been charged…but this way, we can make 100% sure AND we also get paid to do a “partial move” ourselves (they pay gas plus a per pound price, if I recall correctly).
So we had loaded up all of the small heavy things that we could—everything from his garage cabinets to pantry goods to tools to golf clubs to cat litter. We even took the garage freezer (so we wouldn’t have to empty and defrost it) and our new refrigerator (we were NOT leaving a $3000 refrigerator for our potential renters/buyers). We managed to stuff just over 5,000 pounds in the truck (quite impressive, I thought).
The original plan was for Tom to go up himself and unload then drive home. But once we decided to take the refrigerator and realized we needed to upgrade to a full truck vs. just a trailer, that meant Tom would need a way home (since it was a one-way rental). I could follow him up, but it didn’t seem to make much sense to drive if we could tow the car instead. Loooong story short, we ended up with a full trailer (vs just a tow dolly) which likely ended up to be more difficult than the dolly would have been…but it was nice not having to drive two cars.
So this is how we traveled to Virginia.
Unfortunately, the whole road trip part SUCKED. With such a beast of a load plus towing the vehicle, our speed was limited—and then of course we hit traffic around Stafford (the parking lot that is 95) so it took us 6.5 hours to get there (best case scenario the trip should take five hours). So, ugh.
The unloading didn’t go too badly—it was warm but not ungoldly hot. We met a neighbor who was very nice and has a 4yo and 2 week old and was excited someone was finally moving in (it’s been empty for like six months). She told us the street is mostly Army and Air Force—we’ll be one of the few Marines. We met with the landlord to pay our rent and pet deposit. We asked about the fence (as it wasn’t up yet) and he told us he was just waiting for the association to approve his request. It’s been 1.5 months since we signed the paperwork so either he didn’t ask right away or the association is slow—neither of which is a good thing in my mind.
I had also taken some measurements of our stuff to the new house so I could see just how things would fit—and some stuff is going to be TIGHT. The space looks big, but once you put our big stuff in it, it doesn’t look quite as big. Our table and chairs will fit in the eat-in kitchen space, but it’s going to be close—and we may not be able to open the leaf…because our huge sectional will be taking up ALL the living space. (I’m going to have our real estate lady go back and check measurements of a space in the basement to see if there’s room for the sectional there instead. We may end up selling it if it won’t fit nicely. We bought it for this house with the HUGE bonus room…which most houses don’t have a room that big and it’s very hard to fit.) Our table would fit fine (with the leaf, too) in the actual dining room space, but I honesty don’t want to eat there every day—it’s not convenient to the kitchen at all plus it has white carpet. There’s also no room for our current island (where we have the dog and cat food) in the kitchen…so not sure where we’ll be putting that food or the island. It’s just bizarre that this house is SO huge but the space isn’t allotted quite how I’d prefer (like our master bedroom is twice as big as it needs to be). So, time will tell on all that stuff. It will all work…it will just take time.
So then, the ride home. Ugh. It was worse than the ride up. Apparently there had been construction on 95 South so traffic was already backed up. Then there were storms farther South so that had backed up traffic even more. And then there was an accident somewhere along the line… The parallel road (Route 1) which we can sometimes take to escape 95 was also backed up due to trees down from the storm. It took us almost two hours to go 38 miles…and took us seven hours to get home. We had hoped/planned to be home by 8 but it turned into 10:30. At least the kids were in good hands—Virginia was babysitting. 🙂
Braxton’s Birthday
Owen wrote everything. I’m not sure why he did both Rs lowercase. 🙂
He had a blast at the party. They’re waiting for cake:
S’mores!
Messy with mama!
Owen’s friend Jocelyn:
Braxton’s mom, Alea, after a marshmallow attack! (She was in our mommy group. You can also see why Braxton is so petite.)
Their final hug:
Tunnel fun
She’s getting better on the slide!
Please keep every appendage crossed for us!
(This should have been posted on June 15 but it’s been crazy so I forgot about it.)
We have had a few showings lately (for sale and rental) so had our fingers crossed that SOMETHING would work out. Part of us wished we’d get a good rental so maybe the house prices would go back up in a few years and we could sell for a profit (or at least without having to have a short sale) but then part of us wished we’d just sell the damn thing so we could cut our losses and stop being stressed about it all the time.
So imagine our surprise when…we got an offer! For sale! HOLY CRAP. Of course, we had imagined we’d be excited about ANY sale offer, but honestly, we were a little gobsmacked with the offer—it was for $7,000 BELOW listing, which was already a pretty rock-bottom price. Plus they wanted almost $6,000 in closing costs, an $1,100 stainless refrigerator, and occupancy with pets prior to closing at a low daily rate plus no deposits of any kind…
My first instinct (after the ball of stress immediately appeared in my stomach) was UMMMM, NO. Did they really think they could get all that because they know we’re desperate to sell? There’s no way I’m giving them most of what they asked for. But after talking with Roger and discussing things, we ended up only countering with a few minor changes (a small price increase, a decent rental rate and deposit, and a cleaning addendum). We were kind of screwed with the refrigerator issue because they wanted prior possession—and since they’d technically be renting, we needed to have a fridge in the house. We also wanted to take up our fridge and we’d need one in the meantime… AND worst case, if this deal falls through and we end up having to rent it, we’d need a fridge. So there’s more money down the toilet for this damn house. We figure we’ve put in about $10-11,000 in the past three years (shed, deck, stainless appliances, wood floor), not counting all the other minor upgrades we’ve done since we bought it. Just to make ZERO of it back since the housing market is in the toilet (when all is said and done, we’re technically set to lose about $37,000 on it—though with the short sale hopefully none of that will actually have to come out of pocket). But, as Roger said, it was stuff we needed to have done to even get people interested (pretty much every comment on the showings were about the floor and deck).
So now we wait to see if our mortgage company accepts the short sale offer.
Fingers crossed. Toes crossed. Arms crossed. And anything else crossed would be appreciated…
Birthday party mom texted me this!
He’s a little big for that toy…but he looks happy!
TiVo friend visit
A TiVo friend was in the area so he came over for a visit with his wife and two of his kids. Tom and I had met him before in 2008 at a big TiVo meet but we wanted the boys to meet. 🙂
The kids all had fun in the police car, except it was a little crowded so the threesome didn’t last too long. 🙂
His son, Josh, is one month younger than Owen. By now you shouldn’t be surprised at size differences. 🙂
Refrigerator #3
We’re taking our awesome refrigerator with us, so (long story) we had to replace it in case we got renters. This is the third refrigerator we’ve bought in three years. 🙂
Katie didn’t like the door being off—at first. She was confused yet surely thinking about how she could escape.
Then she realized she could play with the buttons!
It looks nice, but we hate it (compared to our AWESOME one).
Building frustration
Owenisms 46
Owen: Daddy’s late.
Me: Yes.
Owen: Does he have a meeting?
Me: Yes.
Owen: Maybe it’s where they’re all sitting in a circle holding hands?
Me: Maybe. 🙂
Tom was pouring rum to make a drink and Owen wanted to smell it.
Ugh. It smells like medicine!
Tom: Owen, tell mama to suck it up.
Owen: Mama, don’t suck it.
At bedtime, I asked Owen if he had to poop. He grabbed at his crotch and said “FIRING UP!”
Me: Do you want some cheese?
Owen: Yes, I’d like a string of cheese.
Ta da!
She loves these jammies. She walks around saying “TA DA!” and pointing her toe. 🙂
Bath reflection
She traded places with Owen and discovered her reflection!
Happy but blurry!
A typical Katie pout
She was frustrated because she couldn’t get Owen’s underwear on (she had both of her legs in one hole).
So we got a typical Katie pout:
