A Wonderful Christmas

What a joy it was to experience Christmas with a One Year Old! We traveled North (In TWO separate vehicles because our one little station wagon will not hold 2 adults+luggage, 1 baby+luggage, Christmas presents and food, and a dog.) had Christmas with my side of the family Christmas Eve. It was lovely. We visited, ate, opened stockings, Ella opened presents, went to a great Church Service at Calvary Chapel (PS: their nursing mothers room is THE BOMB...every church NEEDS one!) came back with a sleeping babe, opened the grown up gifts, visited and headed on home. Christmas morning we drove to Jason's side of family. We ate, opened presents, skated on the lake whilst towing little Ella in her new sled, ate, visited, ate, went in the hot tub, ate, played cards, and ate. (Did I mention that there is never any shortage of delicious food there!?)

10 pounds heavier, we headed out the next morning to visit our friends Brian and Erika and I managed to drive my car into the ditch on their road....going approximately 5 miles an hour....because I was admiring their house and thinking about how pretty all their window candles must look at night. Yeah. That's one for the books! The boys had fun bonding over getting my car unstuck. Ella napped, we had a lovely visit and then timed our departure just right so as to catch J's family for a bite to eat at Ruby Tuesdays. And since we've been home, this has proven to be Ella's favorite new "toy". :)

And we are home. Safe and sound. Goodies unpacked, settled back in and so grateful for friends, family and a wonderful time celebrating the best gift of all. The Birth of Our Savior! Happy Birthday Jesus!

What's this? Forward progress!? Yippeee!!

Holy Hannah! The seller actually got back to us by the deadline we set! Not used to such a fast moving process after the month long wait on the first one! They countered our offer. We accepted!!! Now the bank just has to approve it because it's a short sale. Here's hopin'! And here's a little picture of the living room to give you a taste of where we just might live some day...or not. You never know!!!

I Take it Back!

I said I wasn't gonna give you the details of the house we just offered on. But I must! It's just TOO MUCH! And it's NOT boring anymore.

So we looked at this house 2 months ago. It's been on the market for FOREVER. Not an offer on it that I know of in that whole time. It's a GORGEOUS house and we can only dream of affording it because it's a short sale (we're talkin' 5 bedrooms, an office, separate kitchen and dining 2 1/2 baths, 9 ft. ceilings, wide pine floors, tiled kitchen, woodstove hearth) but it's on a slab which doesn't work for some people, the yard isn't fabulous...Oh, and it needs a new leach field.

After much prayer and consideration we decided to offer on it and are SUPER excited about it. As we headed out the door to make the offer this morning I told Jason that I had had a dream last night that Gesine (our realtor) had called and told us there was another offer coming in on the house. We both chuckled...as if that would happen. We wrote up the offer and left with a spring in our step and a prayer in our heart that it might all work out and this could be our "forever house".

About 15 minutes ago Gesine called to tell me that there is another offer coming in on the house.

You've GOT to be kidding me!!! Gotta love the Real Estate Roller Coaster! All I can do is laugh!

'Tis The Season...

...to be merry! I feel much better than when last I posted. Our offer on the house in Kennebunk was accepted! And then we turned it down! Yes, it was just too small...just not the right house. We had no peace about it and felt MUCH better when we decided not to go with it. We don't want to rush into anything (as my favorite teacher of all time used to say "Haste makes waste" ~Ms. Hutchins). The right one is out there. And I bet we made someone's Christmas when they were told their offer wasn't accepted on the house in Kennebunk and then we backed out and they were told they got it! Oh how fun it would have been to see their faces! See...God had a great suprise planned for someone all along!!!

We are making an offer on another house tomorrow. It is one that we looked at in the beginning and LOVED but it was out of our reach for a few different reasons. Well, things have changed and now it seems it might be within reach. I won't bore you with details. I'm just continuing to pray for God's will and am excited!

Christmas service at our church this Sunday was FABULOUS! Found out that our church alone sent out 700 christmas boxes for Samaritans Purse!!! And our angel tree (presents for needy families in our community) got picked clean 4 TIMES!!! I LOVE how our church puts Christianity into action, by loving others and meeting real needs! So this morning, like one gazillion children from ages 6 to 13 were baptized, sharing their testimonies of how they have accepted Jesus into their hearts and want everyone to know. Yup, cried tears of joy at every one! Beautiful music was sung and heard, a short but great and true message was shared and a candle lit song ended the time.

My schedule is completely clear this week. Free to reflect on the birth of my Savior...of the Savior available to all who believe! Free to cuddle with my loves, drink egg nog and tea, knit in a cozy house lit by twinkling white lights, smell the pine and balsam, listen to the Christmas music playing in the background! Oh how I love it!!!

I do so look forward to a game night gathering with fabulous friends and then Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with Jason's. Can't wait to experience it afresh and anew with a child of our own! ...God gave his ONLY child... so that I could be forgiven...can't ever quite wrap my head around that. Having a little one of my own gives me a whole new persepctive on this...that kind of love I cannot fathom...that kind of love I am forever grateful for!

Have I mentioned I LOVE Christmas!? Oh I do! Wishing you a wonderful Christmas filled with the unfathomable love of God!

Freakin' Out!

We learned yesterday that we did not get the house we've been waiting on for a month now. We were the highest offer but the best we can determine, someone else had more cash, had not even the contingency of a home inspection, or was going to get their loan through the bank that was selling it. Oh well. I am bummed, but I prayed all along that God's will would be done and I am believing that it has been.

SOOooooo, another house came on the market Wed. It also, is bank owned. It is listed by the same realtor as the last one. And just like the last one, we looked at it the day after it was listed and made an offer. And just like the last one...so did several other people! AAAarrgg. This is getting frustrating.

Everything feels so rushed with these dirt cheap bank owned, multiple offer deals that I don't even know how I feel about the place!

It is in Kennebunk which is a really nice town. It is on a dead end in a nice neighborhood, but still rural. It is on one acre of land, wooded all around with a walking trail out the back. It was built in 1994. It needs NOTHING except to replace the carpet and paint. It has a beautifully landscaped rock wall planter along the whole front and a great big, flat yard that would be perfect for family fun. It's a very good price.

But it is small. It's a typical ranch and all the rooms are just pretty small. And the way it's laid out would make it very difficult to rearrange the floor plan. Jason says we'll finish half of the basement into family room and guest room. He says we'll build an addition down the road, but I'm sketched out about rooms in basements and I'm still not sure that would fix things and not make the floor plan feel funky. And I'm skeptical that we'd even build that addition.

It would be great for us right now, it would just fit all of our things. It's just. We talked about this being our last move. The house we'd be in until we retire. I don't see enough space for another baby, for growing kids, for birthday parties and Christmases, for get togethers with friends, for family reunions, for guests and family to come and stay.

I don't know. I just don't know. My head is reeling as I revert to my typical worrying, overanalyzing self. And that is why I'm Freakin' Out! Sorry, no pictures, no cuteness, no funny. The end.

I see in my furture....

I see in my future...a much messier house! It is becoming more and more of a challenge to keep up with my little one as each day passes. She grows in stability, agility and bravery by the second! She can now reach the top of the desk and table when she stretches and stands on her tip toes and has figured out that she can pull treasures down if they're close enough to the edge!

She's on a tear with the crawling and goes from one thing to the next...to the next...to the next. She found the presents under the tree pretty fast. She has now learned to leave them alone and obeys me 90% of the time!

She often crawls over to me and pulls herself up on my leg and stares up at me or reaches up for me. It absolutely melts me heart. This is the view I see 50% of the day. Best view in the world!

It is beyond awesome to see her develop! Here's a little video of her saying dada and roaring like a lion! Hey...it's a really good roar for a 1 year old!

1 Year Check Up

Just had our one year check up. After going through two doctors since we've moved, I really like this third. I think I'll stick with her.

Ella is 29 inches and 18lb. 11oz. She is 60th percentile for height, 80th percentile for weight, 75th percentile for head circumfrance and negative 25th percentile for foot size. Okay, so they don't really mesure and rank foot size, but if they did, I'm quite sure she'd be in the negative 25th percentile.

Seriously, this child's feet are minescule. If they don't grow, she'll be teetering around on tiny little toothpicks pretty soon. In reality though, this does create one real problem. All the shoes that fit her are made for infants...infants who's favorite activity is NOT standing anywhere and everywhere, infants who have no use for any kind of tread. Thus all the shoes that fit her are lacking some serious grippiness...which leads to some seriously slipperiness for my little munchkin. Dude, she already hits her head enough and she already has to manage to keep her balance on ridiculously proportionally small tootsies, she doesn't need the added challenge of zero friction to keep her upright.

And this leads me to one my endevors today. I am trying two things. #1)Using puffy paint to put little tractions dots all over the soles of her shoes and #2)Using that grippy tread stuff made to put on the soles of slippery high-heels. I'll let you know which one works better!

Happy Birthday Jason!

Today is my wonderful hubby's birthday. Besides the fact that he had to snow blow 12 inches of soppy wet snow when he got home, I think it's been a pretty good birthday. The little lady of the house was bathed and asleep by the time he came in and we managed to have a fabulous dinner just the two of us!


I made him a delish dinner, bought him a gift for fly-tying and made him one sweet cake. Seriously, between the fondant lady bug cake for Ella and this here beauty, I think I've pretty much out done myself as far as cakes go this Birthday season. I don't know where the heck my motivation came from, but expect nothing but diappointment in years to come. I think it's all down hill from here!

One Year Old!

Today (Dec. 8th) our baby girl is officially ONE YEAR old! Before we had her, there were all sorts of unknowns about what life would be like with a baby and how we would handle those changes. Yes, there are major adjustments to be made all along the way, but we absolutely cannot imagine our life without her! There is a whole new level of joy that she brings to us, and whole new sense of purpose and fullness. It is indescribable.

She amazes us more every day. Here's what our little one year old is up to!

Signing: She now signs, "more, done (she says done too), sleepy, please" and from time to time will do "dog, and eat".

Mobility: She is crawling all over! Hallelujah! She's a happy camper and so are we. She also pulls herself up to standing on everything and anything!

Eating: Everything....and lots of it! The only thing she doesn't eat is milk, nuts and fish, which we'll start introducing soon. I weaned her to two nursings a day (morning and night). There are some feelings of sadness as we move further towards total weaning, but it also frees up a lot of possibilities for me now that she can go the whole day!

Sleeping: Always has been and still is a champion sleeper. Likes to be in bed by 6 or 6:30pm and sleeps until anywhere between 6:30 and 8:30am! Still taking two naps a day, but the second one is getting shorter.

Learning: She loves music, knows where it comes from (toys, cd players, computers) and lets you know when she wants to hear some! She constantly crawls to her books, takes them out and shoves them towards you with a questioning little grunt like, "Read to me?" When you ask her to point things out to you like, "Where is the kitty/doggie/froggie/birdie?" she does it correctly (even if it's slightly different looking in a different book)!

Super Cute Stuff: If you ask her where her belly or head is she points to them correctly. If you ask her where her tongue is, she sticks it out. When I say, "kisses" she leans in for a kiss from me. She still hugs everything in sight. If you ask her what an owl says she goes, "hoo, hoo". And if you say, "Go Patriots!" She throws her hands up in the air and makes noises!

Here's lots of fab video of all the fun stuff she's up to!