Can You spell WHIRLWIND?

The past three weeks have been crazy. Good. But crazy. The closing on our house went with nary a hitch. We spent from the 12th to the 19th getting everything ready - storage shelves in the garage, extra shelves in the downstairs closet for the stereo equipment, painting, moving everything we had in storage BEFORE we moved the apartment goods...

On top of that I had my last 2 weeks of physical therapy for my knee, and life is getting back into full swing.

We still have a fair amount of boxes to go through, but we are making serious progress. The kitchen, bathrooms, linen closet, pantry, laundry room and Maggie's room are done (there is one wall in Maggie's room that needs a 2nd coat of paint). The guest bedroom is mostly done. Our bedroom is about 50%. The office needs the most work - boxes of books everywhere! The landing/bonus room is 50%. The garage is 80%. This weekend we hope to pound through the remaining major boxes and minutiae that don't have a home seem to collect on every surface as boxes are emptied.

On to pictures:
Here's our house with SOLD in the window and our name on the sign out front.
See all those colored dots on the carpet? Those are Maggie's beads. The week we were painting, etc. she kept herself quite entertained by growing wheat and gathering grain. We has read in her kids bible about how Ruth went into Boaz's fields and collected the leftover grain...

I painted our office a calming shade of green this time - not Kermit the Frog green like our last house!
Maggie asked for yellow walls, but pink goes better with the bedding she has - so I did both. The yellow is pretty bright during the day, but it looks great with the white furniture. I'll have to post another picture - I didn't take pictures of the house until Maggie was in bed tonight.
The magnum opus of our house, the garage shelves. My dad designed and built these great shelves in just 3 days {can't say it enough: THANKS, DAD!!!}. It really replaces the attic in our old house: Christmas decorations, baby stuff, flowers stuff, camping stuff. We would have had to get rid of so much more stuff if we didn't have these shelves. Or not park in the garage. Which is not an option, according to Tyler. This weekend we'll be putting up yard-tool racks, and a peg board for Tyler's tools. Then hopefully we'll be able to park both cars inside. Right now just I get to park inside (because I am home more often to get the good spot!).
More pictures to come!

Last Weekend Check Before We Move

We went out to the house for the second-to-last time before we own it officially (have to do the walk-through inspection). It was so neat to walk through it with carpet and 90% of the finishing touches up/in/on. I am really loving the front porch. it will be a great place to sit on warm mornings with my coffee and bible. I'm going to have to find some nice chairs!

From the edge of the kitchen/dining into the living room. That's the front of the house.
Maggie in the cupboard under the stairs (get that Harry Potter reference?).
Dining room and stairwell. Maggie got loads of fun out of the tape measure attached to the key for the house.
View of the dining room into the kitchen from the stairwell.
The powder room downstairs. I plan on painting this room some shade of peacock blue/green. Just for something a little unexpected. We'll see how it turns out.
Maggie had to check out the bathtub in the master bath.
Tyler imagining what his new shower will be like.
Stealing Daddy's hat...
Checking out her own tub.
We are supposed to close this coming Friday, 2/12. We will be moving in the 20th.

French Braids

I have a love/hate relationship with French braids. When I was little, my mom used to do my hair that way nearly every day (at least that's how I remember it). I would cry everyday, too, because they hurt, and I hated them. Then my mom cut my hair short because I was such a pill about brushing it and generally taking care of my long hair, but that's another story.

But I love seeing little girls with their hair in French braids, and have waited waited waited for Maggie's hair to be thick enough to hold them. This morning after her bath, I tried them for the first time in several months, and they worked on my first try! I plopped her down in front of PBS, and with nary a peep out of her, I got them done. It took me about 30 minutes to do both sides, but they look good and have stayed in so far! Maggie was really excited, as you can see, about her braids!

Her Party Was On a Snow Delay

On Friday the South was hit with a really bad snow and ice storm. Northern friends, you go ahead and laugh at the 3 inches that brought Tennessee to a standstill, but the freezing rain that blew in after the 3 inches was a doozy! We were completely iced in under 3 inches of nearly solid ice disguised as sweet, beautiful snow, until Saturday afternoon. Her party was supposed to be Saturday at 11, but we changed it to Sunday at 3:30. Thankfully the sun came out blazing Sunday morning and turned most of the icy roads to slush, and some places were bare and dry when we went out to check on the house progress (no pictures, I forgot the camera, but the site agent wasn't there and the doors were locked).

Anyway, this afternoon we had her party.

I saw these cake pops on a blog I read, Bakerella, about a month after Maggie's 3rd birthday. I always wanted to do a Hello Kitty birthday, and these cake pops sealed the deal. Although Tyler and his parents looked at me like I had gone bonkers when I was making them (they are not difficult, they just require a lot of time and attention to detail), I loved every minute of it. I love making a big deal out of Maggie's birthday because I want her to know just how special she is to me. Her parties are just my thing, I guess, that I love to do for her. Do you see the BOY Hello Kitty I made?Here's the birthday girl and her Hello Kitty bow cake. She informed me earlier in the week that a candle wouldn't sit on a cake pop. So on top of the cake pops, I made a cake. I know, I'm full of crazy!
The party scene. The living room had pink and white streamers. The big mess in the middle of the picture are a bunch of swirly flags on sticks that were part of the party favors. I got them on clearance this past fall at the grocery store for 50 cents each! What a great deal!
My mom sent us some candy-necklace making kits for her party. The girls worked on them while we watched some Hello Kitty cartoons.

Here are the girls: Nyah, Maggie, Aubrey and Zayli. In dress-up clothes, of course!
We played Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty. Here's Maggie checking out how she did on the game. Boy did she cry and pitch a fit when she saw that she had not gotten it right on the bow. Didn't see that one coming!!! She just about had some discipline coming her way during her party for that fit, I could barely get her settled down. Once she saw the other girls go she was OK.
Nyah won that one though I neglected to have some sort of prize for the winner. Oops!
The girls were a little too young to "get" the dinner I made. It was all cat-food-type foods: chicken nuggets, kitten chow (tater tots), goldfish and catnip (broccoli). We are short on space and chairs in our apartment, so the girls ate dinner on the floor. Not classy, but they didn't mind. There wasn't room in the living room for them, either. Tyler was playing Star Wars Wii games with Seth and Jamin.
Biting into those delicious cake pops!
The guys biting into the cake pops. I made 42 pops, sent 3 home with the girls, and there are less than a dozen pops left on the table now. We ate a LOT of cake pops!
I somehow captured this face of Tyler's as he was eating a piece of the bow cake. I promise, it was not a gross cake. He just refuses to smile for my camera.
Maggie had a great time at her party, and was so sad when everyone had to go home. She's already asked for a princess birthday party for next year but I think I'll delay working on it until AFTER we move into our new house!

Mommy, I'm Four!

Those were the first words out of Maggie's mouth the morning of her birthday (Wednesday). So sweet! Here's the birthday girl right after she woke up.
I couldn't wait for the short time between dinner and going to AWANA to open her presents, so this year we all got up (Tyler's parents came for her birthday) so she could do her presents in the morning. Tyler and I got her a bicycle for her birthday. Can you see the theme yet? {Hello Kitty}
She was excited for the bicycle for a couple of minutes, until she saw the new baton we got her to replace one that had been broken. Then she saw nothing but her baton.Before the excitement wore off, she took it for a quick spin around our living room.
Gifts from my parents showed up for her with the mail and UPS during the day. Tyler took off work early so she ended up having plenty of time to open those gifts before we went to AWANA. I love the look on her face here. She had such a great time opening up all her presents. Each one was greeted with an "Oh!" or "Oh, wow. I love it!" or "Wow, mom, this is great!"
I know I've watched Maggie grow from the infant we brought home from the hospital to the little girl she is today, but WOW. Here she is just moments after birth.
Maggie, from the time I first found out you were growing in my tummy, to your "grand" entrance, I've loved you more than just about anything else on this planet. And I and your daddy continue to love you more and more as you grow into the little person you are becoming. We aren't perfect, we will not raise you perfectly, but our greatest hope is that you will one day come to love the God we serve with all our hearts, and that you will do the same. My beautiful girl, I love you more than you can ever know, and that is just a trifle compared with how much God loves you. Don't forget your AWANA memory verse: "God loved us and sent His Son."

Stickers for Daddy

Wow, am I behind on posting! That thing called life...

Maggie has gotten a sticker sheet with all the parts of the nativity on it. Super cute, but hadn't been used before Christmas. She decided to decorate Daddy one evening a couple of weeks ago. She put them on all by herself! It was about a week before we could stand to take the stickers off so Tyler could have his undershirt back, it was just too sweet.

Getting there!

Last week it has been raining for several days by the time Saturday rolled around and we could check out the house. The driveway had not been poured, so the dirt was just a field of thick mud. We didn't dare brave the mud, so we just gazed at the house for a while and turned back.

Today when we drove up: driveway, patio and front steps were poured this week. The garage door looks great, too!
The patio has been poured. This is the view from the wrap-around corner. I am going to put a chair and little table in this little nook, so I can have my coffee there in the mornings. Oh, wait. That would mean I'd have to look presentable. Nevermind.
Maggie and Tyler on the front patio.
The light fixture in the dining room, which I am so loving! Painters were working today, so you can see the color of the walls. We picked the darkest color they had, which is really just a shade of off-white, but it's better than white. The paint on the walls helps me see everything better, too. I was drawing a blank on the custom painting we'll be doing, but now that I see everything a little better, I think it will be ok.
The fireplace and mantle. Looking good! I wonder if I get to keep that "heatilator" cardboard cover up when it's finished? It's such a nice touch, it will blend nicely with the new TV.
THE KITCHEN!!! I am so loving the extra tall cabinets and their extra storage. Just amazing. The countertops are covered in dust and dirt, but I promise they look really great. Same with the linoleum. We still need to pick out a fridge - better put that on my to-do list!

The bathroom cabinetry was also in, and all the faucets, the shelving in the closets, and my laundry sink. Everything is coming together so nicely. Our close date got bumped back by a week from 2/5 to 2/12, but we should be moved in before the lease on our apartment is up.

Dancing for joy!

Also when it snows, it's a good time for light sabers

We have several Star Wars games for the Wii. Tyler and Maggie play them quite a bit! For Christmas he got light saber attachments for the joysticks. In this shot, Maggie is "shocking" Tyler's character (you can see he is holding both of the nunchuks, controlling hers when it's her turn).

The light sabers light up, too, so most of the time they start out having a sword fight in her bedroom or bathroom with the lights off, then they get on the Wii and duke it out with their sabers and the ability to use the force.

Tyler has often remarked that Maggie's love of Star Wars will make her every geek's dream. That's fine, but I plan on purchasing my own shot gun by the time she is 10.

because Starbucks is the place to be when it snows

We got back from our Christmas trip to Seattle and were greeted by super cold temperatures! I've lived in the South long enough that cold weather is a problem now... then it snowed. The entire mid-state area shut down for just a spitting of snow. This is about the extent of the snow. The next morning the ground and pavement was just barely covered.Well, my knee has kept me pretty house-bound, and with the cold Maggie couldn't play outside, so on Saturday Tyler decided we needed to get out of the house. Where to go when it is "snowing"?

Starbucks! He even let Maggie leave the house with her princess dress on.
Maggie is probably laughing at the fact that she got to wear her dress-up clothes in public, have a hot chocolate and that she walked over to a group of college girls sitting and talked their ears off for about 20 minutes. They were kind enough to entertain her.

We've got brick and drywall!

Look it! Can't wait until the rest of the front is completed. Just imagine the driveway, green lawn and landscaping, brick steps up to the porch, white posts and rails... somebody get me a white rocking chair!
Saturday we got up and headed out to the house to see the progress. It was so exciting to drive down the road and realize that the house we were seeing from afar is nearly ours! This visit was the first time I could walk through the house - there were actual stairs into the house from the garage instead of the single 2x6 plank ramp that had been up for several weeks before we left for our Christmas trip. There was no way I was going to try to walk up the 2x6 on crutches with a bum knee before, so this visit was a real treat for me.

I was completely overwhelmed with what an amazing blessing this house is to us when we got upstairs and walked through the bedrooms - I spent several minutes crying with happiness and thankfulness (I know, poor Tyler. I am so emotional!).

The living room from the front door. Very excited about the fireplace, especially since right now it's about 20 degrees here in Nashville and it will probably still be cold when we move in.
Here's the view from the kitchen into the dining area, stairs going upstairs.
And here is the view of the kitchen from the dining area, living room to the right. You see that silver circle in the upper middle of that back wall? That my external fan vent over the stove. I cannot tell you how happy that vent makes me. Now I can cook all the stinky garlic and onions and curry and Thai that I want. Oh wait, I already do that. Or, more accurately, did that before I tore my ACL. I feel sorry for the apartment that backs up to our kitchen... Now I can stink up the neighborhood!
We'll be heading back out this weekend to check it out some more, and more pictures to come!