Closing

Today at 1 we close on our new house. This week is going to be insane, but thankfully my parents are here to help. We are going to try to paint a couple rooms before we move in. Will likely post pics later, but Hadleigh's room will be blue and Annelise's will be red, and their bathroom will be purple...yes, purple. It will look great people!

Movers come on Thursday to pack up and we will be into our new place in time for dinner on Friday.

The Elf Has Teeth

I cannot believe my eyes, but it is true. At 4 1/2 months, Annelise has her two bottom teeth. The other evening A was sitting on my lap sucking on her hand, and I heard a noise that sounded like a nail on a tooth. I pulled her lip down and would you believe that I saw two pearly whites? Dave freaked out and is now calling her his orally advanced baby. I actually cut my first tooth at 4 1/2 months, so she gets it honestly. HC was right on the mark and actually got her first tooth on her 6 month birthday.

This morning she rolled from stomach to back, so she has passed a couple milestones. I actually haven't done a lot of tummy time with Annelise for many reasons. One being that she mostly likes to be held when she is awake, and if I do put her down she tends to be less of a HC hazard if she is in her swing or bouncy seat...the floor just poses some threats. So before Hadleigh got up this morning I put her on her mat on her tummy and before too long she had rolled over. Exciting stuff!

Last Birthday Post

Dave's birthday was Friday, and although we still haven't celebrated it I did give him part one of his present. Our Baumholder buddies, Grant and Jess, have now moved to Georgia and started their own photo business. I asked Jess to come up and take some pics of me and the girls for Dave's birthday. You can check out the photos here. Thanks Jess, he loved them!

On a different birthday note, I forgot to post a pic of the cake that Dave made for HC's birthday party...it is a Monet.

HC also got her gift from Uncle Christ and Aunt Rubie...a coveted airplane. She doesn't like the fact that I won't let her take it to bed with her.

New Neighbors

Yesterday we participated in an Easter egg hunt in our new neighborhood. Sandy told us about it and I thought it would be a great time to meet some new neighbors before we move into our new home. We had great fun!

It took a few minutes for HC to figure out the whole egg hunt. When she found an egg she wanted to immediately open it, instead of putting it into her basket and looking for the next egg. One she did get it, she was an old pro. Dianne held a placid Annelise while Dave and I took part in the fun hunt.

We were able to meet several families, besides the two fams that we already know. We met both of our across the street neighbors, who are sweet ladies and fell in love with the girls. One of them exclaimed, "Oh, we have been waiting for a long time for you to come!" We also were able to meet two gals who live two houses down and babysit. Yes! Now I will be fighting with Sandy over them.

It was so wonderful to meet these folks and to see what we will be participating in for the next several years (decades). I really pray that the Lord will give me some wonderful relationships and community in this neighborhood.

Medicine

Recently Hadleigh has had some poopy issues which have led to some pretty horrible diaper rashes. She is now obsessed with "medicine" and "powder". She wants it on her little booty every time I change her diaper which is somewhat understandable. The other day I saw her walking around with the bottle of desitin...I should have known what was going to happen. "Medicine!"

The Elf is 4 Months

Annelise is now well into her fourth month of life. I think with everyday she calms down a bit, but it is just not quite as fast as I would like. Folks are either like, good grief, what have you done to that baby? Or, are you sure she is fussy, she is SO placid. It makes me laugh a bit, but anyone who has spent anytime with her, knows her delicate temperament.

The fourth month has brought a lot more smiles and giggles. She gets super excited when she sees me coming toward her, it is a major ego boost. She loves to run and is very dexterous, grabbing her toys, hair, necklaces, etc.

She loves Hadleigh and watches her constantly, and gets big kicks when Hadleigh comes over to ask her to play. Very sweet.

Her napping is still bit unpredictable. I know she will take some naps, but cannot completely know when the nap will be. That is a little frustrating, but I am trying to roll with it. She STILL is not sleeping through the night which is a bit frustrating. Last week she did sleep 7 hours two nights in a row, but of course I woke up wide awake at 3 each night. I know she can do it, so we will see what this new month brings.

When we were up in TN visiting Dave's parents we looked at Dave's baby pictures. Annelise is the spitting image of her Dada. Pretty wild!

New Stats

Both girls had check-ups yesterday. It was Hadleigh's two year check-up and Annelise's four month check-up. All went well, except for Annelise's five shots...ouch! Although Hadleigh got one shot, she did not even cry...such a tough chica!

Hadleigh weighed in just under 28 pounds and was 32.5 inches tall. That puts her at 60% for weight and 25% for height.

Annelise weighed in at 12lbs. 12oz. and 24.5 inches tall. That puts her at 60% for height and 30% for weight.

OK, these are my rough estimates based on a growth chart I found, because my pediatrician will not tell me percentages...I guess he is trying to minimize the worry.

The House

So, I thought I would write a couple words on my new house. It is in a cute little neighborhood that I actually used to go walking in when I was single. There are two families from our church who live in the 'hood and we hear that there are several families with kiddos under four years old. That is perfect for us!

It has 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, as someone mentioned yesterday I am going to go broke buying shower curtains. This will give Annelise her own room until she calms down and decides to start sleeping through the night. At this rate I think it might take until she is 5. There are three bedrooms on the top floor and one on the main floor. Other than bedrooms it has a living room, a dining room, a kitchen with a breakfast area, a family room, a "media" room (this is for Dave's coveted projector screen TV), laundry room, etc. The yard is cute and flat and fenced, and it is all all preped and ready for a screened in porch. All the bathrooms are mostly white (not pink or green or orange) which is super nice. The kitchen has new appliances, though the cabinets leave a little to be desired, but all in good time. So, basically the house is the perfect combo of done and needing to be done. We don't have to gut and rebuild, but Dave will have several projects that he will enjoy doing...bathrooms and kitchen. I am so glad I married MacGyver.

I am excited about the large living spaces because it will give us more room to host things, which we love doing. It just feels super tight in our current digs. We might be able to fit all 16 folks from our CG into one room comfortably.

Of course the downside to all this is we have zero furniture, so the rooms will look bare for a while. But I refuse to let my house be overtaken by toys...I actually don't have enough toys to take over a house...thank goodness! On that note, I am a little toy-averse, but that is a whole other story.

I have booked our movers, so as the lady told me yesterday I don't have to do anything to get ready for this...I LOVE that. As my good Baumholder friend, Lisa told me, one time they packed a bag of trash and unloaded it at their new place. Not that I want them to pack trash, but the point of paying someone else to pack is that I don't have to do one single thing. Of course we will prepare, but that is because I want to, not because I have to.

That is the story, we continue to pray that the Lord would be glorified in our new place, that we will use it to honor him, and that it will be a safe, peaceful place to all who enter.

We move in on the 4th, 4 weeks from today.

House Inspections

I have heard varying reports about home inspectors, but yesterday I was convinced that our home inspector was awesome! Our realtor, Daryl Sims, is an old MTW buddy of mine. He was a missionary in Romania for two years and then came back to the office and worked in my department. A few years ago he left and became a realtor and when I heard that I knew we would want to use him. He is also very meticulous, so when he recommended our inspector I knew he would be good, I just did not know he would be THIS good. If you are ever in the market I can make the connection. Even Dave was impressed, and it is hard to impress him about these things because he knows so much about houses.

Yesterday at playgroup someone asked me what made this house stand out among the rest, and my answer was a little funny. This is the first house we visited that did not have mold. Dave has an amazing sniffer. He literally walks into a house and says, "hmmm, mildew!" It was so annoying when we were looking at houses. I finally just told him to stop talking about mold because every house in Georgia is going to have mold with its generally wet, humid weather. But don't you know, our inspector who is mold certified remarked how surprised he was that he did not find mold. Score for Dave.

So, after our lengthy discussion with the inspector he told us how impressed he was with our choice and the house. He said the potential and the possibilities were great. I took that as a compliment since I figure this dude sees a lot of houses, and a lot of crappy houses. So, if he thinks it is good I am happy. Turns out he is also an architect, so Dave said this morning that he wants to hire him to draw up a couple of our home projects, namely the kitchen and the master bath. We hope to see him again.

That is all good news on the house front as there is nothing to stop the show. There are still two tests that will come back next week, lead paint and radon, but we are hoping for the best. We know the house has lead paint...because it was built before 1978 and everything built before 1978 has lead paint, but we are hoping it won't be extensive. Also the cross ventilation under the house is amazing (according to dude), so he was hopeful that the radon reading would be OK, though apparently you never can tell.

It's just got to make you feel good when the inspector tells you it is a great house. Yea! We are super happy.

Offer Accepted

Well, after several disppointments, we found a house on Friday, made an offer and are now in contract to close on March 31.

Miss Hadleigh Claire Turns Two

This past Friday, Miss Hadleigh Claire turned two. Can it really be that I have a two year old? We had several celebrations, the first was with Dave's family last weekend. She got a new pink and purple bike, and Aunt Angie gave her a pink rabbit ("yabbit" from Build-A-Bear). Tuesday playgroup met here and I made little cupcakes. Wednesday I took cupcakes to her school. Saturday we had a bunch of friends over for a partay! I was all excited because I found a great deal on a jumpy moon walk and thought it would be great fun to be outside with a cookout. Although it was 70 on Friday, it was 25 and snowing on Saturday, so we had to cancel the moonwalk. Ah well, Dave still grilled and we still had friends over, so all in all it was a success.

So, now I will update on Hadleigh. She loves to jump. I'll say, "one, two, three, jump" and she will do this sort of skip step with a HUGE grin on her face. She still isn't terribly coordinated (hmm...crazylegs jr?), but she likes to "run fast" which basically means she moves faster than a crawl. She has become proficient on steps. I also began to notice this month that when she walks she leads with her belly which makes her waddle. It is pretty cute.

Her vocab is widening everyday. She will count to ten when she feels like it. SHe now consistently answers "two" when I ask her how old she is. Sometimes she would say "be"...I don't know? I love listening to her read her books as she goes through each of them naming each thing she sees..."oooh, monkey (then makes the monkey noise), star, hand, frog, frog? frog". If she cannot find something she puts her two hands together with her palms up and with a questioning voice says, "giraffe?" as in where could it be? She also likes to play peek-a-boo with us. She will ask us where something is, while all the time it is behind her back. She knows her shapes and she knows her colors (though she likes to call everything yellow or pink).

Naptime used to be a favorite time, but now when I put her down she cries, "play, play, plaaaaay" which makes me giggle a little.

She loves her little friends and it is sweet to hear her talk about them and give them hugs and get excited when she sees them. She loves Jacob and Brennan the best.

Dancing is still a fav past time in this household. Her fav CD is by our church buds, Jeremy and Laura with her fav song being "Star of Bethlehem." We just got the ABC album by They Might Be Giants, so I think that might quickly become a favorite too. When she wants to dance she says, "Shake? Shake?" That is mostly because I tell her to shake her booty, that is in honor of Susan Nichols from my days are Reach Out.

I cannot remember when this happened, but she puked for the first time recently. It was super pitiful, as she was in her crib all three times. OUt of the blue we began to hear shrieks "yucky, yucky!"

She still loves Annelise and wants to see her and play with her. On Saturday I had Annelise is her swing and when I walked into the room, Hadleigh had stopped it from swinging and was leaning over the seat into Annelise's face talking to her and laughing.

Reading is still the fav past time. Some of her new favs incluce Marvin K Mooney and the new Elmo counting book she got for her birthday.

She adores Sesame Street and knows most of the characters. It is super cute because she treats the characters like animals...as in when she says monkey, she always makes a monkey sound to go with it. When she sees Count, she says, "Count, ahh ahh ahhhh" and Elmo is, "Elmo, la la lala". She also lives Ernie, Berk and Grover, which she cannot pronounce so she just squeals when Grover comes on the screen.

Alright, the little miss is up, and she is asking to "Shake!"

Too Much

I know...I have much to catch up on! We have had four monumentous events in our household that I need to cover.

1. Last weekend Miss Annelise Louise got to meet Miss Asher Elizabeth. I actually need Elaine to send me pictures of this one, and actually I do not even think we got a pic of the two babes together. Drat! Picture or not, after almost 14 years I was finally able to meet little Asher. My best college bud, Elaine, has been wanting a daughter named Asher since I met her on our first day of freshman orientation (we were next door neighbors...Second Glide!). December 16, Asher arrived in this world, so when we heard she was traveling down to Gatlinburg for spring break with her fam, we just had to go up and meet her.

We were able to hang out with Dave's fam on Friday and even had a little birthday party for Hadleigh Claire who is now TWO! It was great fun, and Dave's nephew, Jacob even cut out of school early on Friday to take part in the festivities (I am sure he wasn't too disappointed about missing school). She was very concerned that Boppa (which is what she calls Dave's dad) was within eye shot at all times, and had a great time playing with everyone. She loves her bike with the fancy horn and streamers!

Saturday we drove out to Gatlinburg and hung out with Brian and Elaine and their kiddos Todd and Asher. Dave and Brian quickly headed to the golf course while Elaine and I spent all afternoon talking and holding babies.

2. Annelise Louise turned 4 months on Sunday. I need to devote a whole post to that event, but I will mention it at least.

3. Hadleigh Claire turned 2. Wowee, I cannot believe it! I will write more about that later as well.

4. Today we made an offer on a house. Holy Crap! It is true. Who knows what will happen, but at least we have been able to come to some sort of agreement. I suppose we will either get this house, or not get this house. Those would be the two obvious outcomes. I suppose we will have more to tell early next week.

Those are the happenings around the McNay house. I hope to have more time to blog and time to post pics in a few days.