Too much to do, too little time

I honestly don't have time to sit at my computer right now and blog...that's as good as my excuse gets right now, and it's true...my hands are full, and my head is full. I know several people that I can count on for a post almost daily, and I don't know how they do it...But I'm going to catch up a bit right now.

We closed on the house on Friday...we are homeowners. I found that once we crossed into June, I could feel that I was really, truly excited...because close of escrow was so close. We were in escrow for about 6 weeks, and so it didn't really seem real until June came. What a long process, that's all I can say...but I'm glad it's over...the next check we write will be to ourselves to start paying for the house...that feels good. When our agent called and said, "congratulations, the house is yours!" half of me wanted to jump through the roof with excitement, and the other half said, "oh crap." When Andy walked in the door, I asked him, "so, how does it feel to owe $800 and something thousand dollars?" (what it will be at the end of the 30 years...certainly not our purchase price! We took possession of the house today (the ex-owners had a few days to move out, and then rented back from us a few days...so this was the first day that we could have walked in with our own key. But we didn't...that'll come tomorrow when I meet our first contractor at the house tomorrow to get started on a first-of-many projects. We're going to paint and clean, and possibly do some re-plastering in the next week and a half, and then we move on the 28th...good bye little pink house...we have truly loved you and all that you've done for our little family...we've loved your rent, we've loved your yard, we've loved your 3-car garage, we've loved loved loved your central heat and air (which is fantastically blowing right now...you'd never know this place has central AC at first glance), we've loved your prolifically-producing lemon tree, we've loved watching our 2 kids gets big here, we've loved the 3 Christmases we've spent here, we've loved helping our 96-year old land-lord find her missing tooth in her bowl of popcorn (Andy might disagree...it was his job)...this is the longest we've ever lived anywhere, and this little pink house has been such a blessing to us, and we will miss her (at least a little). May you be as good to K** and her sister as you've been to us...

Hello big white house...hello dishwasher, hello garbage disposal, hello bigger Central heat and AC, hello big yard, hello huge apricot tree in the back yard, hello 3 big orange trees lining the curb out front, hello swing set that my kids already love, hello sprinklers (yeah!)...oh yeah, hello mortgage and insurance payments!

I have no pics of the house right now, but will try to remember to take some tomorrow...I have been busy trying to pack and sort through and organize, and the worst of all jobs--switch utilities and addresses...many, many hours on the phone...Here are some photos from the past week or so...

Some of these require no explanation---just the product of having 2 little kids...I walked into the bathroom to find this...Lauren in the bubble bath...I honestly can't even remember the circumstances around it...


Lauren's end of year preschool program...she has done so well, and we are really proud of her...she will be changing preschools when we move, but it's been a good year for her at JCP


Again, self-explanatory...Kate likes to run nude after her bath, and sometimes it's just easier to let her...I walked into the kitchen to find this little naked helper...

Once we found out we were having a boy, the girl-clothes-purging began...in cleaning out bins from the garage Lauren found this Tigger costume that she wore when she was 2...it was 90 degrees this day, and clearly it didn't fit, but she insisted on wearing it...I'd post the original Halloween picture from 2006, but it's on a CD that's packed...
To reward the girls for not eating one bite of their dinner, we took them for ice cream. I felt really old when I walked into Rite Aid and exclaimed, "these cones were 25 cents when I was a kid"...Allison Syphus can attest to that. Lauren picked out cotton candy flavor...honestly the most disgusting ice cream I've ever had...but good to a 3 year old.



I can't fail to say that today, the 18th, is Lauren's 4th birthday...I will post all about it tomorrow (hopefully). It's been a multi-day, multi-event affair, and worthy of being documented with more time and energy than I have right now...