Little Miss Go-Getter

We have a nickname for Ella (one of many)--we call her out little Go-Getter. She has a determined personality which is very different than Dylan's laid back personality when he was this age. Ella's break through this week is that she's officially crawling! She's not to the point of motoring across the room or anything, but she does do a few little crawls before stopping and laying out for whatever she's after. Again, this is crazy to us because Dylan was on the late end of the spectrum (11 months), so we've just never experienced a baby crawling before then! Crawling early, crawling late, it's all fabulous, and it's fun to watch the differences (and similarities) in their little personalities develop.

Gotta go potty!

We are about to enter that wonderful stage of potty training (second only to driver's training in terms of parenting stress), and I'm trying to figure out the best potty chair to try with Dylan. I've read that we should let him pick one out that he likes, but I don't want him to pick out some fancy, expensive chair that is uncomfortable or doesn't work well. There is quite a range out there...anyone have any advice?

Macker

We just got home from yet another Ludington Macker. Matt played with his usual team: his brother Brandon and friends Ross and Jon. The guys didn't have the greatest year as far as playing basketball goes, but we (the girls) still had a nice time enjoying the beautiful weather. As they say, there's always next year!

It's a miracle!

We had the kids' pictures taken last week, which is usually asking for trouble. On top of it all, I wanted to have both of the kids' pictures taken separate and then together. On top of all of that, we were driving an hour and fifteen minutes to Lansing to try out a new portrait studio by my brother and sister-in-law's house. We had a few low points, but overall things went really well (we weren't shooting for perfection, just half-way decent).


The studio we went to is called Portrait Innovations, and I highly recommend them if you have one near by. They do all the things right that the other studios don't quite get (their slogan: "We've totally re-invented the studio experience") The kids got to move around and they took their time which is a definite bonus, especially when you're dealing with a toddler. I'm hoping they'll come to Grand Rapids soon (right now they're only in Brighton and Lansing in MI). You can click here for locations.

A day at the lake

We spent Father's Day at Pine Lake with Matt's family. I didn't end up getting any pictures of the kids with their dad (oops!), but I did get some cute ones of them with Uncle Chad and Aunt Cara.

Our kids are blessed to have so many people in their lives that care about them--nana's (five, including great nana's!), pa/papa's (four, including great papa's), aunts (three), uncles (four), cousins (two), and the list goes on.

Another day...

Another day, another crazy cleaning/picking up session, another showing. To top it off, I got to have some dental work done right in the middle of all that and now my teeth hurt. We've heard that the people who went through our house yesterday have already sold their house and have their choices narrowed down to our house and another house. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I'm concerned we might end up homeless if our house sells too quickly (I know, a good problem to have).

I'm ready for life to slow down, but I think it's going to be a while before that happens.

We're in the game

We put our house on the market yesterday (*sigh*). Our realtor is actually on vacation this week, so we were going to wait until next week, but he said he could get it out there before he left. I figured I had at least this week (or longer) to clean my house and organize things before anyone would be coming through (we don't even have any pictures up yet).

I came home today at 2:30 with a message from Matt saying someone would be coming through at 5:30 (and the second call our realtor got on our house today too). I know three hours sounds like a long time to clean your house, but let me tell you that it definitely is NOT. I put the kids down for naps, made a frantic phone call to my mom (who was here in 10 minutes flat...thanks Mom), and turned into a cleaning machine. We got pretty much everything done, although I could have used another 20 minutes (and couldn't have done it without my mom).

While we were cleaning, I looked up and saw a couple driving slowly by our house taking pictures...not sure if they were the same people or not, but it's nice to have some interest. Hopefully, things won't be so crazy before every showing, but we won't complain. We would love continued prayer, especially that all the timing issues would work out. Thanks for your support!

Not sure about the first aid kit in this picture, but it might have come in handy today because I thought for a bit that I was having a heart attack.

There's no place like home

We are wrapping up a pretty eventful weekend. Besides celebrating Father's Day, we also put in an offer on a house and it was accepted! We are very excited, but there is a part of me that has a really hard time thinking about leaving the house we're in now. Once you are a mom, there is just something about the house that you brought your babies home to...it makes me teary to think about leaving. We know we are making the right decision though, and once I get through my little emotional breakdown, I'll be fine. The house we're buying is our dream house and we got it at an amazing price. It's the house that our kids will grow up in and that's fun to think about. It's also a great house for having people over, so we're looking forward to having you all over and hosting more get togethers. We close August 31 and we're putting our house up on the market tomorrow. We would appreciate any and all prayers that our house would sell soon and that the entire process will continue to go smoothly (and that my emotions will level out soon :) ).

Anyone want to buy a house?

Rah Rah Rah

Ella has been hard at work perfecting her kicks and cheers. She's still working on her smile.

Buying and Selling

Matt bought a blue G6 GTP sedan last night on the internet (long story) that he is planning on leasing for the next couple of years. This is happy news because he got a great deal, but sad news because we have to say good bye to his beloved red Grand Prix. We bought that car a couple of months after we were married and it has been babied by Matt ever since.

In other news, we are going through a house tonight for the second time. We have been going back and forth for a couple of months trying to decide if now is the time to move or not. The house we're looking at has almost everything we're looking for (once again, happy news), but we would then have to deal with the stress of selling our house (sad news).

So, if you know anyone in the market for a great car or a great house, let us know :)

Folks, we have a climber...

Dylan climbed into Ella's crib the other morning while she was taking her morning nap. It was one of those moments where I wasn't sure if I should be mad or just laugh, so I went and got my camera while I thought it over. In the end, I decided to laugh (but also to buy those door knob covers so he can't get into her room while she's sleeping anymore.)

Crazy cool cakes

My friend Katie has this super cool talent of making the best little kid birthday cakes. She helped me ("help" isn't really the right word...she did all the work and I stood there and said encouraging things) with Dylan's first birthday cake, a giraffe. She just sent me a picture of the fish cake she made for her own son's first birthday a couple of weeks ago. Look and be amazed.

A (much needed) night out

Saturday night, everything finally fell into place--we had a babysitter, a baby who happily takes a bottle, and a reason to celebrate (my friend Katie's birthday). We finally had a relaxing night out with friends that didn't involve dashing back home to get the kids as soon as possible.

Celebrating Katie's 28th...we first met as three year olds in Sunday School :)

Look! No kids!