A Thanksgiving To Be Thankful For

Just two and a half weeks after moving into our new house, we hosted Thanksgiving Dinner. My sister & her family came along with my mom & bonus dad & Donna's parents. It was such a treat to have everyone in our new home for a holiday! 

We started the day with the usual prep work & getting the bird in the oven. I can't even tell you how happy I was to be able to have 3 of us in the kitchen cooking & setting up for dinner without tripping over each other or being in each other's way. It's so wonderful to have an functional, open kitchen!

The boys, especially Caden, had been eyeing the gingerbread house kit Grandma brought all morning, so we let them frost & decorate it while we cooked.

Caden, Kellan, Garren

Donna's mom's lhasa/pug mix Chucky, he's an interesting mix & full of energy even at 10 years old

Dinner was amazing! Everyone chipped in, My mom brought a broccoli & cauliflower casserole, waldorf salad & a pumpkin cheesecake, along with the table dressing. My baby sister brought a yummy spinach dip for us to nibble on while smelling the delicious turkey cooking. Donna's mom proved the pies, my favorite pretzel salad & she cooked the big ol turkey. I made sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes & spinach & feta stuffed crescent rolls. Everything was so so good!!!

  

My bonus dad, my sister, brother in law, Donna's mom & dad, Donna & my mom

Donna's mom & dad & Donna

My brother in law Steven & Donna's mom

My mom, bonus dad, niece & sister

The kids table! Caden, Kellan, my nephew Chandler & Garren

After dinner the kids had energy to burn, it was cold, breezy & wet outside so we moved the furniture & set up the bounce house.

Garren & Chandler

Grandma

Chandler & Garren

While the boys bounced & showed off for whoever would watch them, everyone else vegged in the family room, waiting out their food coma to have dessert.

Donna's dad, my bonus dad & mom holding Nadia, & my BIL

Donna's mom & dad & Donna

Steven, Autumn & Caden

Autumn & little Nadia wearing Aunt Da's hat

And the day wouldn't be complete if the boys didn't  get to eat their gingerbread house :)

Wonderful Wednesday; Thankful

Wonderful Wednesday Series

We NEED more positive in this world. It does not have to be elaborate, though that is always welcome, and can be a simple picture or a short few sentences of something, someone, anything, that you think is wonderful. If you feel inclined to do the same, be sure to leave a link to your Wonderful Wednesday in the comment section so others may enjoy it as well!

We have so much to be Thankful for this year! 

Our beautiful new home. 

Donna, her hard work & dedication to our family & her non-stop entertainment!

Family that who is there when we need them most & the safe arrival of Grandma & Grandpa T today.

Super supportive friends that have been there through good times & bad, especially this year. 

And our children, who make us crazy 95% of the time but who are sweet, smart, compassionate, polite, funny & so so loving!

I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving! xoxo

Project 52 Catch Up

43/52; A much deserved popcorn break

44/52; Littlest 'Coffee' Drinkers, they just think it's coffee, it's really hot coco :)

45/52; Finally riding their scooters outside!

Figuring Out The Light Switches

We have so many light switches in every single room! Seriously, panels of 3 switches side by side in some rooms equaling 6 switches! It's craziness trying to remember what switch does what.

As soon as we had the doors secured & the essentials unpacked we started hanging ceiling fans, window shades & replacing some of the lighting that came with the house. What better way to figure out what switch operates what?

Garren helping out MomMom 

 

Donna & all her little helpers

 

Funny lady!

 

I love this light & the matching one over the dining room table!

 

Matching one ;)

 

 

I think these are my favorite though

 

Gigantic 60" fans in the living & family rooms 

 

Slightly smaller fans in the bedrooms

 

I think we are getting the hang of the switches now, the boys most certainly have them all figured out since they practice with them quite a bit. 

I Need Help Deciding...

We had Fall Family/3.5 year photos taken a couple weeks ago, I know, more photos. I promise I'm cutting back to twice a year but sometimes I just can't help myself. Anyways back to the photos, I always have great intentions of keeping the photos to ourselves so the Christmas card photo will be something new, no one has seen yet but I have a terrible time deciding which photo to use so I'm posting them here on the blog & asking for HELP?!?!?!

 

Kellan, Donna, Garren, Caden & I

Kellan, Garren & Caden 

Caden, Garren & Kellan

I love the smirk on Kellans face, haha 

I love them all & love that they were taken here in FL just as we moved here. You can only see it in one photo but the truck has an old Florida license plate on the front of it. I didn't notice it the day of the photos but it kind of seems symbolic now :)

So which is your favorite? What should I use on our Christmas card?

Our First Speech Therapy Graduate

A few weeks ago Garren's speech therapist told me that Garren was meeting all his goals, that if he continued to display meeting all goals for 3 consecutive weeks he would be discharged from speech services. On the third week, the day I expected to be his last appointment his speech therapist told me that it was time for his re-evaluation so she was going to go ahead & complete that before discharging him.

Yesterday his re-eval. was completed. Garren only had a slight delay to begin with so it was no surprise that he did just fine. So that was it, yesterday was his last speech session.

He is officially a Speech Therapy Graduate! :)

Securing The Perimeter

One of the first things we had to do when we moved into the house was childproof the exterior doors. In the apartment we were able to use knob covers long enough that the boys pretty much gave up trying to open the doors, that is until they came around and changed all the knobs to levers, then it was on! The boys opened & closed the door all the time. They also opened the door & ran outside quite frequently, most often in the nude! The apartment was small enough though that I could hear if the door opened from pretty much any room. The house is a whole different story though in size & number of doors for little escapees to get out.

So my bonus dad hooked us up with these cool, discreet little locks for the front door & the door that leads out to the garage.

The house came equipped with a handy little aluminum pole that locked the sliding door in place. It took the boys exactly 3 minutes to break it & 3 days to completely disassemble it :-/ So we had to find another solution for that door too. Some similar little flippy hinged lock did the trick there as well & now everyone is secured in the house & I shouldn't have to worry about any streakers running down the street :)

24 Weeks In; Closed & Moved!

What a whirlwind week!

We got the call Tuesday that our paperwork was finally back & we were ready to close, woohoo!!!

Wednesday was another lets induce a panic attack day with a phone call saying we were missing a notarized signature on our last bank statement. What?! None of them had had to have signatures let alone notarized signatures??? Anyways it was 3:15pm & we had 45 minutes to get to the bank & get them to print, notarize & email the statement back. Everyone involved on both ends stayed late to get the job done so we were not delayed any further.

Thursday we got the call from the title company with the time of our closing & the final number for down payment & closing costs. We wired everything off & got zero sleep Thursday night in anticipation of finally closing.

My mom joined us Friday, we wanted the boys to be with us at closing but knew they would be a handful for us to tend to while signing a bagillion papers so my mom was there to help out :) We finally met our mortgage lady/new friend, Amanda in person at our closing. She came with her husband & baby just for the special occasion. It was really great to meet in person after all these months of phone calls! We headed to lunch after closing & then to the house to get the keys from Roger, the head contractor.  Then it was back to Brunswick for a whirlwind evening of vet appointments,  truck rental, packing up the last bits & another sleepless night anticipating the move.

I dropped the pups off at the groomer bright & early at 7am Saturday so that they wouldn't be in the way while we were moving. My BIL, Steven arrived at 7:30 & he & Donna left to get the truck. My mom & bonus dad arrived at 8 with donuts & coffee & our sweet sweet friend Pat came all the way from Tampa to help out. A little after 10 Donna & Steven arrived back with the truck & our stuff that had been in storage already loaded up. The groomer called saying pups were ready about that time & the mattress company called to say they would delivering our new bed in an hour, so I loaded up the boys, picked up the pups & arrived at the new house only moments after the bed people. It wasn't too long after we arrived that everyone else showed up with all of our belongings in tow. The boys proved to be a bit of a hendrance running up & down the ramp of the truck so i loaded them up once again & headed out for pizza.  By the time we got back the truck was unloaded & everyone was hungry! We spent the rest of the afternoon & evening unpacking. My mom put the whole kitchen together, we unpacked clothes & got them hung up & we got the bathrooms put together.

My parents stayed the night so we went back to work Sunday morning hanging ceiling fans, blinds, & TVs. My BIL came back to help & my sister, niece & nephew tagged along so we could sing happy birthday & eat some cake. Today is actually my sister's birthday.

We still have a lot of unpacking to do & more blinds & cieling fans to hang, not to mention painting & all the new furniture to arrive! Its been awesome seeing the boys run all over the house playing, I love the giggles & voices I hear from different rooms as they play.

I can't wait to share some photos of finished rooms with you so I better get back to work!

Wonderful Wednesday

Wonderful Wednesday Series

We NEED more positive in this world. It does not have to be elaborate, though that is always welcome, and can be a simple picture or a short few sentences of something, someone, anything, that you think is wonderful. If you feel inclined to do the same, be sure to leave a link to your Wonderful Wednesday in the comment section so others may enjoy it as well!

There really is so much wonderful in the world right now but all I can really think about is...

WE ARE FINALLY CLOSING ON OUR BEAUTIFUL NEW HOUSE FRIDAY!!! 

This Friday, like day after tomorrow Friday!!! :)

We are beyond excited & aren't even worrying about painting before moving in at this point. We will close Friday & move in Saturday with the help of some wonderful friends & family.

Halloween 2014

I was hoping that we would be in our new neighborhood by Halloween & meeting many of our new neighbors while Trick or Treating with the boys but that wasn't the case this year so we came up with plan B. we thought we'd be staying with my parents as we were suppose to be out of apartment by the 31st so my mom inquired about festivities in their town & even though we didn't end up staying with them we spend the evening with them anyways.

Their town was hosting a Halloween Festival at the Rec Center. We headed their after dinner & it seemed that is where every kid in town was! They had a petting zoo, hotdogs for the kids, bounce houses & big slides & much more but the lines were long & thes don't have much practice at standing in line so they made it around to pet some goats & bunnies & slid down a big bounce house slide (twice because they were faster than the men at the bottom grabbing kids & putting them out, lol) & we decided to hit up a few houses that surrounded the Rec Center for some Trick or Treating :)

Woody & Buzz doing coloring bird houses :)

Woody 2 & Buzz watching a video :)

Caden & Kellan very quickly decided what they wanted to be for Halloween this year, they never waivered once other than to try each other's Buzz Lightyear & Woody costumes. Garren on the other hand started out wanting to be Jessie, then Bullseye. I was happy because they sort of chose a theme on their own. Well then Garren wanted to be Barbie, then Santa. The saga went on even after we went & picked out costumes in the store. There were so many sparkly costumes to distract them that at one point they all wanted some sort of princess costume. Garren finally decided he wanted to be  T-Rex & of course I couldn't find a dinosaur costume to save my soul. That was ok though because he also wanted to be Woody, so we left the store with 2 Woody costumes & a Buzz Lightyear only to find a dinosaur costume a week later that Garren insisted he wanted to be. 

Anyways, the oys wore their costumes all month long & loved being their characters, calling each other by Buzz, Woody & Rex. By Halloween night they were pros & we set out with 2 Woodys & Buzz. Poor T-Rex was left home.

The boys visiting their first ever house for Trick or Treating

The boys had a blast & it was really fun to see now that they really get what's going on!

23 Weeks In; Ready To Go!!!

Well we are ready to go but we are still waiting for our paperwork to come back, UGH!!! 

We had to give our apartment complex a 60 day notice that we were vacating the apartment. When we were given a closing date of Oct 15th in the beginning of September we got that notice in ASAP. We were to be out by Oct 31st. So last week we started to panic, not so much where we were going to stay but more what we were going to do with all our stuff?!? We had a small storage unit but it was full of what would normally be in a garage & the extras from our first house that we didn't have room for in our apartment. I inquired about a portable storage container but WOW are they expensive! We didn't really budget for a huge moving expense since we had anticipated just loading a truck & driving 45 minutes to our new home. We could store our stuff in my parents garage but that was an hour in the wrong direction, we really didn't want to move everything twice either but in the end we decided to rent a larger storage unit & just store everything there until we close. We packed up the apartment, moved our belonging from the smaller unit to the larger one & then got a phone call...

We could stay in our apartment until we closed, as long as it happened in the next week or so & of course we'd have to pay the rent. Well at least we won't have to move everything twice...hopefully!

make shift living room furniture

make shift dining room

It's been pretty interesting since everything is packed up. Since we had a closing date for October I sold or donated most of our furniture & scheduled pick ups according to our anticipated closing/moving dates. Now we are living it up on air mattresses, bean bag chairs, beach loungers & a kiddie table. Good times!!!

It's been a long time since Donna & I have packed ourselves. Our moves usually came with a job transfer & Donna's company always made the arrangements to have us packed & moved.

It's been interesting with 3 three and a half year olds to say the least. 

Packing boxes goes something like this: child - Why did you take that off the shelf? mommy - Because we need to pack it up to take to the new house. child - Why are you putting paper on it? mommy - So it doesn't break while we are moving. child - Why are we moving? mommy - Because we have a nice new house to live in with a backyard for you & your brothers. child - Why are you putting that in there? mommy - reapeats one of the previous statements. child - removes object form box & unwraps to inspect that it is still intact the same object. mommy - repacks same object at least twice. 

I've even gone back to rooms that were previously all packed up to find boxes knocked over, ripped open & contents removed, ugh... 3 year olds...

boys bedroom all packed up

You'd never know we cloth diapered, it looks like we have a lifetime supply of diaper boxes!

boys playroom all packed up

a sea of boxes in our bedroom

The reason for the temporary madness, or maybe I should post a photo of our mortgage broker Amanda, haha! just kidding Amanda ;)

I'm seriously ready to pitch a tent in the front yard, or back yard & camp out until we close. I don't think the neighbors would mind at all, lol