House Hunting

Travelling with a baby is never an easy task. Last weekend we packed up our family and began the 10 hour journey to Rome, NY to spend 3 days walking through other people’s homes.

Jackson did fine the first half of the drive, but by the end, the poor kid was over it, and I can’t say I blame him. He was cutting one of his top teeth as we drove. Literally. He left with zero top teeth, and arrived with one. I spent the second half of the drive distracting him however I possibly could. I had toys, snacks, and a little Baby Einstein in my arsenal. A few stops and a ton of patience, and we safely arrived in Rome by 6:30pm.

I think we managed to see just about every house in the area that was within our budget and
requirements. All day, for three days we toured homes. Some were awful. By awful, I mean dead mouse in basement, awful. Some were amazing, by amazing, I mean over our budget why are we in this house, amazing.

Some just wouldn’t work: that pool takes up the entire yard, or, that guest room won’t fit a bed.
But some would work, some would be plain amazing to call home. In three days we saw more homes than I can count, learned all the different areas, met new friends, and received really great advice.

Sunday evening, we had plans to meet even more new friends to watch the Broncos crush the Chargers. After another full day of house hunting, we were exhausted. We were all spent. We ordered some pizza, got in our sweats, and curled up on the hotel couch to escape our foggy house-hunting brains and watch some football.

Monday morning we packed everything back up, and were on the road home. This time, Jackson did
incredible. Unbelievably incredible. We only stopped twice, and there were no tears. He happily slept
and played and was an all-around trooper.

As the dust settles on this whirl-wind of a weekend, we are imagining how our lives will be changing
in the coming months. Picturing ourselves in a new home, with new friends, in a new town. It’s all so
bittersweet as this move is becoming more of a reality every day. In the coming days, we’ll be crunching numbers and deciding what is the best fit for us.

Fingers and toes crossed that we’ll soon find the next Stubbs Shack.

10 Months

(Disclaimer: this post is quite late, and not entirely accurate anymore.)

This month, we celebrated your first Christmas. You had no real interest in the unwrapping of anything. You did however, enjoy climbing on the gifts before we ended all that fun and actually opened them. You were SPOILED. You didn’t know what to do with all your toys (however, they were much needed, as you are growing out of the infant toys you had).  The single best thing about the entire holiday season this year, was sharing it with you.

In other news, you are doing some fun (and some not so fun) things!

-You want to eat everything off our plates! This is fantastic, because now when we go out, I am more conscious of what I order, so you can have some bites too. Healthier food for everyone!

-You get mad when we take things away or won’t let you have what you want. Like, really mad.

-You are a pro at pulling yourself up and sitting back down. You are so mobile, all over the place. Currently, your favorite thing to do is make a bee-line for our wine rack, which is entirely not kid-friendly.

-You stood all by yourself for about 4 seconds a few days ago. That’s right! We are going places, people!

-Your top two teeth are STILL working their way in. We cannot be more than a couple days away. Seriously, we can’t be, right?!

-You are ticklish. When you’re being mad, all I have to do is tickle you and you give in. I especially adore that you’re ticklish on your upper back. I just think it’s the cutest (and I can get you when you least expect it)!

-You walk around furniture pretty well. You’re still figuring out the whole “one foot in front of the other,” but you’re well on your way.

-You have begun to seek me out when you are upset, especially when you’re teeth are bothering you. You start whining or crying and crawling my way. I can’t get to you fast enough. I scoop you up, and you actually bury your head in my shoulder. It’s the sweetest, most heartbreaking thing. I so badly wish I could take that pain away.

-You are working on waving, clapping, and saying “mama”. By this, I mean we clap and wave to you regularly, and are constantly saying “mama” and “doggie” too. You love all of this, except you’re not yet willing to participate yourself. That’s just fine buddy, you take your time!

How can we possibly be 2 months from your first birthday? I think I say some variation of this every month, but it’s truly mind boggling how quickly it all goes. We’ll be spending the next 2 months taking in every moment of this fleeting baby-ness.  

 

 

 

 

Ringing In A New Year

New Year's Eve looked something like this:

-Food, lots of food.
-Babies
-Guitar Hero
-Heads Up
-Apples to Apples
-TWO toasts
-Lots of laughs
-Good friends
-Champagne
-A kiss (or two)

Here's to a fresh start, and a new year. Bring it on, 2014. You have quite a lot to live up to!