Oh, that’s right.

It’s Brendan!

This weekend was Brendan’s 4th birthday, and birthday party. We had a great time at his rocket/space themed party

We had rocket cupcakes, pin the rocket of the planet, and a rocket pinata. Brendan was in rocket heaven.

We normally don’t really post much about us on here… normally just general family things, and stuff about the kids. But I’m too excited to not share

Since late in ‘08, I’ve started eating healthier and working out (pilates, weights, some running, and a lot of walk training for the 3Day). So far I am down 20 lbs!

before:

after:

This last weekend we got SO much done between the rental and the new house.
One thing that got checked off our “to do list” was finishing painting the Master Bedroom. 3 of the 4 walls were already done, but then I got pretty sick and didn’t want to be around the fumes while recovering. But on Sunday, we went ahead and finished it off!
The rooms went from Builder Beige to a light Grey (”gentle rain” by behr). We love it… as did the kids… especially while it was being painted.

just because this photo is too cute to not share

This happened like 2 weeks ago, but I didn’t get to blog it at that time

We took Lily down to our HOA pool for her first swim!
She loved it, and got to wear her new bathing suit.
Brendan has a tad apprehensive at first, but got back into it pretty quick.

Well, it’s taken long enough… but we are finally settling into the new house. Things are starting to come out of boxes (I know it seems extreme that a month later we are still living out of boxes, but it’s wedding season so I’m gone nearly every weekend, and it’s hard to paint and unpack with 2 kids under foot during the day.)

We’re gotten the master bedroom completely painted a really pretty light grey called “Gentle Rain” by behr

Our closet has been repainted “eurolinen” by behr, with white trim/shelving.

And Brendan’s room will be next to go under the paintbrush

The playroom is all set up, FINALLY, though it’s a total mess b/c things haven’t found their natural spot yet (we have yet to figure out how the room will flow when the kids are in it).

The dining room table is completely refinished as of today. It’s in the dining room, but not yet set up as we have a few more boxes in there to take care of.

We are LOVING our new living room furniture.

Our couch

Love seat

and table set

The living room isn’t quite done yet as we need to purchase a wall mount for the TV, so we can get rid of the tv stand and put in the shelves JR is building… but we’re getting there.

As I said before, it’s wedding season. So I’m very busy and very behind on editing.
Jr is doing well. Work is good… keeping busy.
Brendan is being his normal crazy self. Today he’s decided he’s afraid of mice. And that his dad is a big scary robot monster.
His birthday is this weekend and his birthday party is going to be space/rocketship themed. We are so excited!!
Lily is starting to talk a lot more. Not many people understand what she’s saying, but she sure does!

And that’s our recap for the night.
Lots of work left to do, so i’m off!

We moved on Saturday into our new house. We started packing up the truck around 8 am, headed out towards the new house just before 2, and finished unpacking the truck around 8:30ish. It was a long day, to say the least.

e are stil basically living out of boxes right now. But we are also at a standstill. I’m allergic to the pet dander left behind by the previous owners, so i’m sick as a dog (today I sound like I have laryngitis, but feel like I have strep throat). We can’t really unpack much stuff till we get all the carpets deep cleaned, and I’m kilz’ing and painting the house, room by room. We started with the Master Closet as that was one of the worst places. We’ve already shampooed the Master Bedroom (the worst, carpet-wise) andthe closet,and I’ve kilz’d and painted the master closet. I’m hopin to have that finished today. Then onto painting the master bedroom

For the time being, JR and I are sleeping on the mattress ont he play room floor. Hopefully that’ll change soon.

We finally have possession of the house! YAY!
We went last night and brought Subway and had a picnic in the living room.
It was fabulous, and the kids got to play in the backyard for a bit. More on that in a bit
For the time being, here is our empty house

Kitchen and Living Room:

Dining room:

going upstairs:

playroom/2nd living room:

master bedroom:

master bath:

master closet:

Laundry room:

Lily’s room:

Brendan’s Room:

the kids bathroom:

The half bath:

The kitchen floor (linoleum) has some staining. I guess I’m just going to have to suck it up an deal with it until we put in the new floor. It may be a while, though. We’ll se

So we had a nice little dinner all in the living room

Brendan enjoying his room

Lily enjoying hers

We also had some fun playing in the backyard

When we first walked out, we saw a mama bird flying away from a nest up in the top of our porch. Aside from the mama squawking away, I heard nothing from the nest, so I assumed it was full of eggs.

Since my vision is so bad, I took a photo so I could zoom in and see better

I shooed the kids out of the patio so the mama (who was circling overhead) could come back.

And then I snagged this photo right before we left for the night

So we have 4 new family members, and brendan wants to build them a bird house Can you tell he’s my child?

Wow, what a day.

This morning the kids and I ran to Richardson to have lunch with Dad. We came back home, had naps, then ran to Plano to drop some stuff off to our friends. You see, we were supposed to go to a birthday playdate, but instead we were all sick. So we dropped off 2 bags of clothes to Amba, and tried to take a mattress to Beth (no such luck).

We ran home so that we wouldn’t be late for our appt with the realtor, and ended up coming home way early. The kids were antsy and I knew going home wasn’t really an option as we don’t have many toys left out at this point. So we hit CCA and went thrift store hunting

When I got back, I headed to Brendan’s room to pack up his closet. I noticed that the musty smell in the closet was getting stronger. It’s been there for a few months, and when we first noticed it, we gutted the closet, cleaned everything and found no leaks. So we chalked the smell up to the closet never being opened (it’s just storage, as there is no light and brendan can’t reach the closet bars to pick out his own clothes) and the air being stale. But today, there was more. Today there was mold on the ceiling, the top of the wall and across the back wall. It damaged Brendan’s laptop, a pillow, a blanket, his baby rattle (*cry*) and his Ron Jon Surf Shop infant shirt he got on his first vacation to florida.

Dad got home, so we packed up our stuff and headed to Denton for our final walk through of the house. Things look great and they are mostly packed so that’s a good sign.

After that, we ran to Canes for dinner then headed home for more packing. We gutted Brendan’s room (due to the mold) and moved a storage drawer thing from his closet, only to find even more mold and more damaged belongings.

We’ve begun gutting Lily’s room, but it’s a work in progress.

The mold smell was so horrible in Brendan’s room that it had me sneezing and battling wattery eyes, so I had to leave. I decided to wrap up some photos from the living room. While finishing one, it fell sideways, slicing down onto my big toe. It immediately turned black and swelled up shortly after. I still have no feeling in the tip of my toe, but i’m able to flex it, so who knows what is wrong.

I swear, it’s one thing after another around here lately.

It’s almost 1am, and my dad will be here in 8 hours to watch the kids while we go sign for the house.

Wish us luck.

“Brendan, please don’t ride on your wagon. It’s not strong enough to hold a boy. It’s only for toys.”

“but moooooom.. the wagon REALLY wants to be a car! It WANTS to!”