Monday, September 9, 2013

New kid in town

I started this blog to share the joy my kids brought me. And somewhere along the way I abandoned my intentions of capturing those awesome moments that I never wanted to forget. Kids get older, we all get busier, milestones become less frequent. And those feelings of complete and unconditional love are a constant, everyday thing in your life, so documenting it doesn't seem that necessary anymore.

Today I felt those things again. I spent a few hours with my great-niece (great in many, many ways), Hazel. It was probably only the second time I've spent time with her in her 13-month life. I had forgotten how wonderfully sweet this age is. And she's so, so different than my boys. She's a smartie for sure. And amazingly well behaved and independent. She accepted me like we see each other every day (although I got a few questioning looks during our time together). She is just cute. SO cute. And sweet. And funny. Sarah and Chris won the jackpot with this little angel. I told Chris I'd drive to Omaha just to babysit her again, and I wasn't kidding. So this blog post is dedicated to Hazel, the little sweetie I fell in love with today.

Check out her funny expressions.
 
This was taken as she was making puppy sounds, which kind of sounded like an owl. "Oo, Oooh, ooh."
I couldn't stop touching her hair. So soft.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

New house

A few people have asked to see pics of our new house. I snapped a few tonight in it's full glory, with toys and crap laying around and the kids watching Star Wars.

It's definitely a work in progress. Our to-do list includes painting, landscaping and decorating, but that will all happen in due time.

Here's the view from the curb. We still have a bit of organizing to do in the garage, but it looks much worse in this pic than it actually is.



Here's standing near the front door looking into our foyer and living room.

 

Front door looking at stairs.



Living room.



Dining area looking into kitchen. The woodwork isn't as red as it looks here. It's more of a medium neutral brown/tan.

 
 
Standing in the kitchen looking into dining area. The kitchen, dining area and living room are all connected and very open. The door with the white curtain goes out to the deck.
 
 

Standing in the dining area looking toward garage. That's a bathroom next to the wine rack. Around the corner of that little hallway is the laundry room, hooks to hang coats (yay, no piles of shoes in the kitchen anymore!), and a closet. The room with the wooden door is the office.



Standing near the dining area looking into foyer. We'll eventually paint that lime green wall. Not that there's anything wrong with lime green walls.



standing in the living room looking toward front door. The double doors go to the office.



Master bedroom. This is the one paint color we actually like. We even replaced our comforter to match. There are 3 more bedrooms upstairs.



The basement is unfinished and has daylight windows. So far it has served as a t-ball field, basketball court, nerf gun shooting range, and a tornado shelter.

We've been here for about 6 weeks and so far so good. The neighbors all seem very nice, normal and easy to get along with. Lots of kids including a little boy across the street who Cohen will be going to kindergarten with this fall.