It's Official!

 

We've sold our house and now we get to pack up all of our belongings so we can move them 1.8 miles. At the end of February, after four weeks on the market, we got an offer. We are moving on March 29 and closing on both houses April 1. Holy smokes, this has been a lot of work. We are excited to be settled in our new home and forget about showings, purchase negotiations, home inspections, pest inspections, radon tests, appraisals, plumber bids, moving bids, painter bids, flooring bids, and about 5 million other things. I've started packing and I have been shocked to see how little progress I'm making. I pack up 4 large boxes and then look around the room to see that it doesn't look much different then when I started. I guess that's what happens when you've lived in your house for 10 years and have every nook and cranny jammed with stuff! It seems a little silly that one of the things I am most excited about in the new house is a jumbo storage room!

I'm Going to Kansas City...

...Kansas City Here I come.

 

Evy and I tagged along with Scott to his conference last week. While he was in sessions we played! We left Charlie home with Grandma and Grandpa because I had no interest in wrestling an 18 month old in a hotel room, in and out of the car, and all around during our adventures. No thank you! I had a great time with my big girl! Evy was a breeze--loving age 4!

 

We hit the new Sea Life Aquarium in Crown Center. The aquarium didn't get great reviews online and I'm glad I was prepared with low expectations. It under delivered for the price, but Evy was thrilled and it entertained us for an hour. After the aquarium we grabbed a snack--tator tots, of course!

Evy has been talking about ice skating a lot. So, I decided to give it a go at the Crown Center ice arena. We hung pretty close to the wall, and I mostly carried her weight around while she "skated", but she loved it! 

 

This is how I carried her around the rink. Seriously, all 40 pounds of her. My back was killing me and I had to stop frequently because I was dying. LOL! I think we made it around the rink 3 times.

 

After skating Dad joined us for fondue. Also, a martini for me to help relieve my back pain! Evy's favorite course was the desserts dipped in chocolate.

Hallmark's headquarters are located in Kansas City and their campus is in the heart of a shopping/entertainment area called Crown Center. One of the attractions is Kaleidoscope and it was great! It's a funky room filled with Crayola art supplies and scraps from Hallmark. You get 40 minutes to create anything you can imagine. Totally free. Totally awesome.

Redemption

 

Monday was a total Mom fail. It was pajama day for Evy at school and even the bright yellow note that I hung on the front of the refrigerator door on Friday didn't do its job. Totally forgot. After school, in a disappointed voice Evy said, "Mom, you forgot that it was pajama day." Failure! I knew I could redeem myself on Wednesday with silly hat day. Evy reminded me it couldn't be just any hat. It had to be silly. So, I used the 3% of craftiness that runs through my veins and sewed Evy's toy lions on to this old hat of mine. She beamed as she entered the classroom and was still wearing it when I picked her up at 5:15. REDEMPTION!

Snow Day!

Public school snow days have no bearing on our work and daycare schedules so it has to snow on my regular day off for us to have a snow day. Today, we had our first snow day of the season! We played outside twice and made it around the block on our sleds. My back is killing me and I was sweating like crazy at the end of it, but that just goes with the territory.

 

 

Char had a hard time walking through the deep snow, but liked being outside.

 

Evy would have stayed outside all day. She kept eating the snow and I had to keep reminding her not to eat dirty snow. Luckily we have no pets to make the snow "dirty".

 

Snow ice cream. I used the cleanest snow I could find, but it's still kind of a gross concept.

This experiment really ended up making more of a mess than it was worth. Oh well, the girls thought it was fun and we can check it off the list for this year!

Maniac

 

I was attempting to make dinner. Evy was sitting at the table eating blueberries. I turn my back for five seconds and Charlie has climbed up on the table to swipe Evy's berries. This kid is making up for being a piece of cake infant.

Making it Work

Our house has been on the market for four weeks and we have had several showings. Of course the showings are never on days when I'm at work and the kids are at school. The showings only occur at times that we are forced out of the house. We've spent some extra time at Costco and we've eaten fast food a little more frequently than usual. On Friday, we had to be out of the house right after lunch and I didn't want to hassle with cleaning up a lunch mess on top of all the other cleaning I have to do to prep the house for a showing so we ate lunch at McDonalds. The girls like dipping their apples in ketchup which is totally disgusting, but they end up eating more apples than fries so I guess that's a win....

*This is Charlie's "cheese" face. She looks more like a pirate than a little girl who is saying "cheese".

Excellence

Scott and I just returned from a 10 year anniversary celebration trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. It was muy bueno. We didn't leave the resort. We didn't do any excursions. We rested so much that my rear end got tired of sitting. That my folks, is a pretty good way to spend a vacation!

Dinner at the resort.

 Drinking a coco loco at the pool.



 Enjoying a day on the beach



Special door "banner" and flowers for our anniversary



Scott making friends with the birds---he'll talk to anyone!

Who knew Target had a Dominican outpost specializing in cigars??

Postcard perfect beach.



Waiting for the evening entertainment. I think it was disco theme this night!

Thanks to the grandparents for watching the girls so we could enjoy a great vacation!