First day of school

Enough already! I know there was once a time in my life where I wished that my children would grow up faster, but I quickly realized the error of my thinking and changed my mind! With Sam in kindergarten, Luke in preschool and Afton on the move, it seems as if my children are already halfway out the door. Before I know it I will be reduced to stalking them in high school parking lots, work and even their own homes......sad!!!! I must verbally express this remorse often because Sam will periodically say, "I'm not going to grow up too quickly, right Mom?"

Despite my best efforts these kids are continuing to grow. It was a strange feeling dropping off Sam on his first day of kindergarten. Even though I did not cry, I felt empty walking away from the school without the child who has continually been by my side for the last 5 1/2 years. I also felt resentment. I resented the school system for taking my child away from me for such a long period of time. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't resentful enough to consider homeschooling, but it is odd to think that aside from Saturday and Sunday, I now only have a few hours to spend with him each day. I guess we'll always have our summers.

With that said, Sam loves school. He is excited to go each day and when he comes home he often goes up to the office to create "worksheets" that he and Luke complete. I'm sure that will change once he starts getting homework in a couple of weeks. He has a wonderful teacher and I really couldn't have asked for a smoother transition.

Luke also started preschool this month, but he seems to be having a harder adjustment period. There is usually one small meltdown on the way home from preschool, but I'm optimistic that these will end soon. Aside from that, he seems to be having a positive experience and is extremely proud of the art work he gets to bring home. After two years of watching Sam attend preschool I think he is thrilled to have finally entered this stage himself.

The good news- my boys will now stand still and pose for pictures.

The bad news- they both have developed awkward fake smiles. I guess its hereditary.

Family Reunion 2009

If you ever find yourself planning a family reunion around the Mid-Atlantic I would highly recommend looking into Oglebay. It's where we've had our last 4 family reunions (on Andrew's side), and where we plan on having the next one in 2 years.

Located in Wheeling, West Virginia, Oglebay is an all-inclusive family resort which has just about everything you need to keep everyone in the family happy. This year we opted for one of the "premium cottages" with 8 bedrooms, 6 1/2 baths, 2 common areas, 2 refrigerators, and a washer and dryer, which more than comfortably accommodated our 12 adults and 16 children. Some of the on-site activities include a zoo (complete with a train), nature center, miniature golf, large playground, horseback riding, lake with paddle boats, indoor and outdoor pool and plenty of hiking trails. And that's just for the kids. Oglebay is comprised of 3 golf courses, as well as an 18 hole par 3. Remember, this is West Virginia we are talking about here...so the golf is CHEAP. And if we are being honest, golf really is the main allure for the 30-40 year old males in our family.

And of course, what reunion would be complete without a family picture? This typically painful process was particularly painful this year due to our color scheme choice (who would have thought it would be so hard to dress everyone in pink and green?) and the insane amount of time it took our photographer to pose the family. By the time we were situated for the picture various 4 letter words were on the tip of each adult's tongue (and possibly some of the children's). Most of the pain from this experience has since been forgotten and we are now left with beautiful family pictures. All worth it in my book.

It really was a wonderful reunion, made memorable by everyone's planning and contributions. Grandma, Grandpa and Peter had special outings with the grandchildren based on their age groups. Andra planned nightly activities which included the unveiling of the "wall of shame"- a wall covered with 8x10 pictures of everyone making their goofiest faces. Sunday, which usually is a lost day since we don't do any outdoor activities, was perhaps my favorite day this year. After attending the Wheeling Ward for church (which was a branch when we first attended meetings there 4 reunions ago), indoor activities were planned to occupy our time. Crystal and Tim had everyone make homemade pretzels, Jen had the children make tie blankets to donate to charity, and Andra put on a pretty cool shadow puppet show.

It was a great reunion (even if Afton refused to sleep at night) and we look forward to returning in a couple of years.

The boy cousins rocking out their pink family pic shirts

The boys making pretzels

Uncle Matt leaping in front of "The Wall of Shame"

Shadow puppet show

Waiting for the train at the zoo

And the winner is...

After 3 months of searching, we FINALLY have a contract on a house. Andrew likes to emphasize that this is still not a done deal, but our offer has been accepted, we've had the house inspected, and the loan is approved. Unless some unforeseen intervention occurs we should be settling on this house in 12 days. Its been an exhausting journey with too many houses, compromises, and details to remember, but here are the highlights of our house hunting process-

House #1: The Handy Man Special

This little gem was located in Sherwood Forest, right off of Locksley Lane, just a couple of blocks away from the Robin Hood swim club...need I say more? Seriously, this neighborhood was amazing. It also had great schools and was extremely close to the metro, which were two of our highest priorities. The average home in this neighborhood was about $200,000 over our price range, so when this foreclosure popped up, we jumped all over it. To say that this was a fixer-upper would be a severe understatement. This home boasted roof damage, water damage, mold in the basement, an 800 year old water heater, and lacked ALL major appliances. In the end we were outbid, and I think Andrew and I let out a sigh of relief once we got over our initial disappointment.

House #2: The Change of Heart

Despite it's rough exterior, this was a great house. Like the previous one, it was located in a very nice neighborhood with fantastic schools. It was also on a 1/2 acre lot, had 4 large bedrooms on the main floor, and one of the nicest basements we saw during our entire search. The downside? It was further out from the city then we would have liked. We made an offer, but after a couple of days we withdrew based off of Andrew's work commute.

House #3: The Stalemate

We never actually made an offer on this home, but I wanted to include it just because Andrew hated it so much. I saw this home first and told our Realtor that I was sure "Andrew would love it". It was cheap, and had most of the other criteria we wanted. Andrew, however, HATED it the moment he walked though the door. I'm still not completely sure why. Maybe this house wronged him in some other life.

House #4: The Heartbreaker

Like a bad break up we've tried to block this one out of our minds. The bottom line is that this was an estate sale which was extremely underpriced. It was a great house, in a great neighborhood, with great schools, at a great price. There were multiple offers and everyone (including us) kept upping their bids while the sellers kept dragging their feet. At one point we were told that they accepted our bid, and while I was faxing back a document to our Realtor, a higher offer came in. It was a sad day when we learned we were outbid.

House #5: The Standup

We initially (naively) thought that a short sale meant that the seller was short on time and wanted to sell their home quickly. That notion could not have been further from the truth. In reality, a short sale means that the owner has to sell at a price lower than what they currently owe on their home- meaning they are short on funds. The tricky part is that with a short sale your offer has to be accepted by both the owner and the owner's bank. On average, this process takes about 60-90 days. Our offer was accepted by the owners, but we waited 2 months (while putting offers on other houses) to hear back from the bank. We never did hear back, because on day 60 we withdrew our offer. This is what leads us to...

House #6: The Winner

And here we have it, our soon to be (fingers crossed) home. While we were waiting for house #5 to go through, house #6 came onto the market. Located in Andrew's brother and parent's neighborhood, this was a neighborhood we loved, but never thought we would be able to afford. When we found this house (a foreclosure), barely within our price range, we told our Realtor we wanted to check it out. The problem? The listing agent did not want this house shown until the next Monday and we were leaving the Sunday before to go to Cape May for a week. Our solution was to sign a contract before we left, and have Andrew's mother and sister-in-law go look at the house for us. If they liked it, then our Realtor would submit our pre-drawn contract. As it turned out, they did like it, and our offer was submitted. About one week later we found out that our offer was accepted on the house we had never seen.

Crazy? Yes, but I'm glad it happened this way. I can't even begin to describe how terrible it is to put an offer on a house and then wait, and wait and WAIT to hear back. It is all you think about. Every time the phone rings your heart stops. You lose sleep thinking about neighbors and projects that need to be done on one particular house. All of this stress, only to find out that your offer was not accepted. It is horrible. Since my mother-in-law and sister-in-law were the ones who saw this house, they were the ones stressing and losing sleep over it. It was a very welcome break for us!

We've since seen the house, and all I can say is that we love it. We're still losing sleep thinking about neighbors and house projects, but at least we know this will be our home.

Independence Weekend Fun

There are 5 boys in Andrew's family. The youngest, Peter, has Downs Syndrome. While there are many things Peter enjoys, he absolutely LOVES when all of his brothers are together. This happens at least twice a year, and when it does, Peter walks around with the most gleeful smile you could possibly imagine. To put it mildly, Peter is in "brother heaven".

One of these get-togethers typically falls on the 4th of July. I'm not sure when this tradition started, but it has evolved into something I really look forward to each year. There is a neighborhood block party, parade, pool party, slip-in-slide (for the kids) and LOTS of great food. Best of all, my children are in "cousin heaven". With 15 of them, how could they not be?

The block party and parade take place in Andrew's brother (Grant) and parent's neighborhood (they live in the same neighborhood, just a few blocks apart). And now, in about 2 weeks it should be our neighborhood as well. That's right, we finally have found a house. If we get to settlement without any glitches, we'll be moving to the street behind my in-laws...more to come on that later.

A few of the cousins (below) with their "slip and slide" game faces. Obviously they take this very seriously.

Cape May, Father's Day and our Anniversary

I'm very fortunate to have low maintenance men in my life. There's never any pressure to find the "perfect gift" for birthdays or holidays because no one expects anything more than a phone call (ok, maybe Andrew expects a little more, like a card or something, but you get the point). It really makes my job as a daughter and wife quite nice. Both Andrew and I have wonderful fathers who are extremely easy to love.

This Father's Day we ended up in Cape May. Andrew's work took him to NYC for the week, so I decided to hightail it home for some beach time...or so I thought. It actually rained the majority of the time we were there. The weather, however, was compensated by the fact that my sister Ashley was in from Utah. I was also able to spend some girl time with my best friends from high school, Kim and Jill. Andrew joined us for Father's Day weekend (which involved taking a train to Philly and then a bus to Cape May), and the rain finally let up on Friday- giving us at least one good beach day.

The Monday following Father's Day was also our 8th wedding anniversary. Yes, that's right, its been 8 years (I had to do the math several time to make sure I was correct). Its unbelievable that so much time has already passed. I'm not one to be overly mushy, especially on a public forum, so I will leave it at this- I feel extremely blessed to have such a great catch.

Luke with crazy Aunt Ashley

Luke with his make shift sling (he hurt his arm)...we are a classy bunch I tell you.

6 Months: The Magical Age

Afton is now 6 months old and hands down, THIS is my favorite age. Why you ask? Babies at this age are just plain sweet. They smile, discover new things each day (like their toes), sleep during the night and most importantly....they are immobile. There is nothing not to like about this age- especially when you are comparing a six month old to a 3 and 5 year old.

At this point in the parenting game, I feel that Andrew and I have been exposed to the majority of what a toddler and preschooler can offer. We’ve been mortified by public meltdowns, Poison Control is programmed into our phone, we've made ER visits, cleaned up insane messes and made enough apologies to last a lifetime. The bright side is that these incidences seem to be dissipating the older my kids get. I’ve been excited at the thought of having children who only become more reasonable and mature with age. What I was not expecting, and what has caught me totally off guard, is the back talking. Suddenly we have a 5 year old who loves to use the word “hate” and says things like “I don’t like your rules. I want to live in MY OWN house”. He now also feels the need to articulate his little observations.

No, I still maintain that 6 months is my favorite age. What a shame it is so short lived.

Attack of the Butterflies

Every year from May until September I see a large sign advertising the annual butterfly show at our local conservatory. Every year I say I'm going to go, and every year I decide that $6 for adults and $4 for children is just WAY too much money to spend looking at butterflies.

Well, every year except for this year.

This was the year that I finally broke down and decided that it was high time we saw those darned butterflies. Can I just say that it was the best $14 I've spent in a while? I wouldn't even be able to guess how many butterflies they had packed into that greenhouse. (hundreds? thousands?) We literally had to duck when we first walked in to avoid all of the swarming butterflies. Pictures could never do this place justice. Maybe a video would adequately capture the butterfly insanity. Hands down, our favorite was a large black and blue beauty which refused to stay put for more than 2 seconds. Others weren't so flighty, which allowed for closer observation, and we even had a few land on us.

Who knows, attending the annual butterfly show may have to become a family tradition.