Way behind -- but what's new?? :-)

Well, I didn't really think our lives could get any crazier but I was definitely wrong on that one!! :-) We sold our house!! I can't believe it. It was on the market for 2 weeks when we had our first showing and that was that. We are closing on October 18th so now we have to figure out where we are going!! More on that later though.... this post was supposed to be done before we left for the beach last week but I never got around to it so I'm going to update the past few weeks in 2 parts.

Going back to Friday, Sept 10th. That morning, my neighbors Gail and Morgan (with her daughter Phoenix) came over for coffee and muffins. It was really nice to catch up and Noah and Kylie had a great time playing with Phoenix! We actually talked a lot about the house being on the market and how unsure we were if it was going to sell or not! :-)

Phoenix and Kylie

Noah and Phoenix

Later that afternoon, we spent some time out on the playset. The weather is cooling down a bit so it's nice to be able to get outside more! And Noah and Kylie are able to play together more these days, too... it's so cute!

Friday night, Waylon's parents came over to babysit and Waylon and I went to Durham for dinner and to see Lewis Black - a comedian that Waylon really likes. I got the tickets for him for our anniversary back in May so it was a nice evening out.

Saturday morning, we went out to West Cary (where we will move - eventually) to look at a few neighborhoods. We had lunch out there and really like the area so we are excited!

That afternoon was Mason and Frank's birthday party so after nap, we headed over to Maddie's house for the celebration. The older kids played in the pool even though it was a little chilly and had a blast. There was good food, good cake, and good fun.

I tried to get a bow in Kylie's 'hair'. :-) She's also doing really well with walking. Still just a few steps here and there but as soon as she decides to do it, she'll be off!

Noah and Stella Dot in the pool. Kylie wanted to get in so bad! :-)

Happy Birthday Mason and Frank!!

Noah loved these butterfly wings - we thought it was funny having them over top of the Redskin's jersey! :-)

Present time!

Then Noah got a hold of the camera... some turned out really great!! He took the following three pictures.

Mason's Oma played with Kylie for a while - she kept climbing up on top of the picnic table over and over! It was funny. :-)

On Sunday morning, Noah wanted to play games on our computer so we set him up at the dining room table playing games on pbskids.com. What a big boy!

Noah decided to nap in his boxers on Sunday and before he went down, he relaxed a bit on the couch. Waylon said he looked like he was 15 here. :-)

After nap, it was time for another birthday party! This time it was for Liam, one of his good friends at school. It was fun because a lot of his classmates were there. All the kids knew each other really well but the parents didn't!

Playing in the sandbox

Kylie liked the swing!

Noah's present for Liam. When I asked what Liam liked, he said 'Superman' and picked this out to give him. He was so excited about Liam opening it so they did it a little early. :-)

Liam, Noah and Kylie

That evening, we gave the kids a bath and put a robe and slippers on Kylie afterwards. :-) Too cute.

And some sibling love before bed. :-)

Monday morning, the kids played hide and seek :-)

Just thought this outfit was pretty adorable!

At lunchtime that Monday, we met Jacque, Elizabeth and Jacob for lunch at Chick Fil A. It was a long trip and we didn't get home until around 2:00 and Noah decided not to nap. We did have a breakthrough though and he stayed in his room (on and off) for 'quiet time'.

After nap, more sibling love....

Thursday, we had plans to head down to Ocean Isle for our annual beach trip with Waylon's family. It was a great weekend (see the next post for that story and pictures)! Before we left though... the house story....

Wednesday, while I was eating lunch, I got a phone call that we were going to have a showing at the house that afternoon. We were really excited for our first showing and Waylon went home early to make sure everything looked good at the house. That evening, we were anxious to get feedback on the showing and see what they thought. We were in the middle of putting the kids to bed when Waylon saw the feedback saying she loved the house and had just emailed over an offer!! We started going crazy and immediately called our realtor. She was in the middle of getting her kids to bed too so she said she'd call us back with details. We somehow managed to get the kids to bed and were so hyper waiting for her call. Turns out, the offer was very low and she wanted to close in 2 weeks!! So we made a counter offer but didn't have much hope she'd come up much since her first offer was so low. We also said that we needed at least a month until closing. So we went to bed a little calmer (and a little disheartened).

The next morning, I had not packed one bit for the beach - I was taking the day off and my plan was to drop the kids off at school, run some errands, pack, and get everything loaded in the car by noon so I could head to a hair appointment. Then the plan was to leave town by 3. Well, so much for plans right!? Just after I got my errands done, I got the call from our realtor that this person had made another counter offer that we decided to take! I was totally out of my mind. I was excited, scared, sad happy... everything at once... and I hadn't packed one bit!! It was madness for a few hours. I wish I had a video of what I looked like trying to pack cause I wasn't getting anything done but I know I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off!! :-)

I actually made it with the packing and made my hair appointment but we had to sign the contract that afternoon so we were a little late leaving for the beach but we were out of town by 5:00 so that's not too bad! Turns out, going to the beach was a great thing cause it allowed us to take a little bit of time to calm down and let it all sink it. We also had time to get a game plan together. We think we are heading towards building a house so we are pretty sure we are going to end up in an apartment - but this weekend, we are going to go out for a marathon house hunting weekend to see if we can find a perfect resale.

So lots of unknowns right now and I'm going to be very sad to say goodbye to this house.... we have so many memories here!! We moved in 2 months after our wedding and have since brought 2 more little people into our lives! Amazing. We also have the best neighbors and are going to miss them so much. This is going to be a great thing for all of us though and we know we are making the best decision for our family. Stay tuned for updates!

Also, stay tuned for beach pictures!

A Huge Post!

As usual these days, it's been way too long since I've posted! I meant to get in a post before we left for the lake for Labor Day weekend but it just didn't happen. Both kids have been sick, Noah started a new classroom at school, Waylon was out of town, and we got our house ready and put on the market!


Going back to the week we got back from our beach trip -- Noah woke in the middle of the night with the classic croup cough. He never seemed to feel too bad - just tired, hoarse and had a bad cough. We thought he might have to stay home from school on Tuesday but he was definitely getting better. Turns out, three other kids in his class had it the previous week. :-( We thought at the time that Kylie had avoided it.... no such luck. She got it later that week although her's came on a little more gradually.


That following Friday (Aug 27th), the kids and I had to get out of the house for the cleaning lady so we went to the park with the Keenan triplets. It had been way too long since we'd seen them so it was really nice to spend some time together. I didn't get any pictures while they were there but I did snap one of Noah pushing Kylie on the swing before they got there.








On Friday night, after bedtime, my parents arrived to help us for the weekend while we went out looking for houses and finished up the last touches on our house to get it market ready. Saturday, we took off with our realtor to check out some houses. We got some good ideas of neighborhoods that we like so we'll see!

While we were gone, Grammy and Papa had fun playing with the kids. Noah decided not to nap so he was super tired. We went out to an early dinner and Waylon carried him into the restaurant and he actually fell asleep on Waylon's shoulder!! :-) It was really cute. When he woke up, a table of people were looking at him and smiling and he somehow decided he wanted to sit with him and had a fit about it!! It was really funny. :-)


By Saturday evening, Kylie's cough had gotten pretty bad and she woke up around 10:00 with the Croup cough and 'stridor'. Although we didn't have an 'episode' where we had to get her in the steamy bathroom, it was very scary sounding and I ended up sleeping on her floor for 2 hours. I'm probably extra sensitive to the kids getting Croup because we ended up in the ER with Noah when he was 9 months old! She was fine the rest of the night though.


On Sunday, Waylon mowed the lawn we got final things taken care of in order to get the house on the market. In the afternoon, he and my dad headed off to the airport. Waylon was off to Houston for a business trip and my dad flew home so my mom could stay with us while Waylon was gone. Here's Waylon saying goodbye to Kylie (she looks so sick, huh??). :-)

On Sunday night, we had a movie night with Grammy. Noah watched (what else?) Cars! Grammy had never actually watched the whole thing though so she really enjoyed it. It really is a cute movie. He was excited cause they had popcorn and juice in the family room! :-) Sunday night was always Chinese food and movie night at our house growing up so it was a fun thing to do with Noah and my mom. :-)

I honestly can't remember what we did on Monday but I feel like we ran errands and just kept busy around the house with my mom. That night, though, we ended up having some impromtu playtime in the sprinkler. It was hot and Noah wanted to play in the water so we just let them. Kylie had fun, too!! :-)

Kylie seemed to be better on Monday but had a rough morning on Tuesday. I decided to take her to school but she didn't have a great day and still had stridor even during the day so my mom went and picked her up early afternoon. I got her a doctor's appointment for that afternoon and met her and my mom at the office. Everything else checked out okay (chest, ears, throat, etc) but the doctor said she had some 'pretty impressive stridor' and was surprised that we hadn't had a middle-of-the-night episode. She put her on oral steroids to make the swelling in her throat go down and she was much better by Wednesday morning. After the appointment on Tuesday evening, I went to get Noah and fill Kylie's prescription and got the run around trying to fill it - they needed a confirmation from the doc, then needed my insurance card, then didn't have enough of the meds, etc etc etc. It was after 6:30 by the time we actually made it home! Crazy. Good thing my mom took Kylie home and got her dinner. Noah was really patient and good with me (he'd had a rough week before that attitude-wise but I excused him most of the time because he was sick and also had moved up to a new room at school).

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful but we did get the house on the market!! Very exciting.

Waylon got home in time to say goodnight to the kids on Wednesday night so they were excited to see him. Thursday evening after work, I packed up while Waylon had some quality time with the kids because we headed out Friday morning for the lake with my mom for Labor Day weekend.

Friday's trip was good. The kids were great as usual in the car and we stopped for lunch and groceries before we got to the house. It was a long trip up but they were troppers. Kylie napped quite a bit in the car but Noah didn't nap much at all. He was so excited -- stopping almost everyone in WalMart saying, 'I'm going to the lake house! Grammy and Papa are going to be there!' It was so cute.

When we got to the house we unloaded and went right down to the beach. Kylie loves the water and sand just as much as Noah does - she even tasted it a few times! :-) Noah is doing really well with swimming and can be trusted a little more which is nice.

Just a cute shot of Kylie being tickled from Friday night! :-)

She also started pushing Noah on this truck push toy. It was so cute. They both loved it. It's fun to see them playing together more and more.

Both of them were very tired and went to bed easily that night. The whole weekend was very pleasant. Noah was super cooperative and happy and both kids slept well and were just really enjoying themselves. We are hoping for a repeat of the good attitudes and sleeping when we go to the beach with Nana and Grandad next weekend.

My dad and sister arrived late on Friday night and it was nice to see them both. Saturday morning, Noah was ready to go fishing right away, so he and Papa left bright and early for the store to buy worms! He always says, 'I love worms... but I don't love dirt!' (I have quite a few pictures that contradict that statement but it's cute nonetheless.

A little later in the morning it was time for a boat ride but it was a little choppy so we didn't spend much time out there. Kylie is still not thrilled about being out there, so it's hard to spend much time on the boat these days. I wish they could figure out an infant life jacket that is more comfortable!!

She did enjoy helping Papa drive though! :-)

After the boat ride we went straight to the beach for a little while, then back for lunch and a nap for Kylie. Noah, Leah and I went back to the beach and around 2:00, Noah was wearing down. I had decided not to push naps with him and let him dictate it. Well, he sure did! I asked if he wanted to lay down under the umbrella on the beach (not thinking he would) and he did! He slept there for about an hour. I was actually bored! Can't remember the last time I was actually bored! :-) I hadn't brought my book down cause I didn't think I'd have time to read. It was nice to just relax though.

After an hour, he woke up and jumped right back in the lake again! It was nice.

Late Saturday afternoon, we set up the baby pool out on the porch, set out some appetizers and sipped on margaritas while we watched the kids play. It was really fun for everyone!

Then Leah decided to show me some acrobatic yoga!! It was quite interesting and all of us were laughing (except my mom who was freaking out yelling at us to stop!). :-)

I love this picture of Noah looking at us. :-)

Then, we had a dance party!!

After dinner, time to wind down with books and iphone games. :-) My sister always lets Noah play games on her phone and he loves that! It's actually pretty cool... some of them are fairly educational and he's pretty smart -- even my sister says so (assistant prinicipal of a private grade school in Georgetown!). :-)

Here's a good example of Kylie wanting to play with Noah though... she wanted in on the iphone action and Noah was getting annoyed. It was so funny and I love this series of pictures. :-)

On Sunday morning, we just relaxed at the house most of the morning until Waylon got there. He stayed in Raleigh for the first NC State football game on Saturday and then joined us on Sunday. When we got there, we packed up a lunch and headed for the beach. We spent a few hours out there and had lots of fun. Waylon hadn't been to the lake in a while so it was really fun to have him there!

Someone had set up a slide in the water and Noah loved that. Kylie tried it also!

Her first (AND LAST!!) pole dancing experience :-)

Noah and I hid under the float and were scaring Papa. I think this picture is funny. :-)

Daddy even got in on the slide action!! :-)

After dinner on Saturday, we went back out for a sunset boat ride. It was beautiful!!

Saturday night, after I put Noah to bed, we started a movie and there was music playing at the beginning of it. All of the sudden we hear Noah on the stairs saying, 'What's that music, mommy?' I went to put him back in bed and he said, 'I was in my bed and I M, you need to be quieter so I can rest'. It was hiliarious. Then he asked me to sing again and I was in the middle of Twinkle Twinkle and he said, 'Mommy, I need to tell you something.' I asked what and he said, 'Tell Grammy and Papa they need to be quiet so I can rest!' It was so funny!!!

Sunday morning, Papa, Leah and Noah went out for an early boat ride while Grammy, Waylon and I packed up and cleaned up (Kylie slept through it all!). :-) Papa and Leah left around 10:30 or so and Waylon, the kids and I left just after lunch time. Grammy stayed to finishe cleaning up and getting ready to go back with other guests on Thursday!

We got home around 2:30, unloaded, unpacked and then it was time for Nana, Grandad, Andrea and Savanah to come play! We hadn't seen them all in a while so it was fun to catch up and let the kids run..... literally.....

Kylie wants to join so bad!!!

We ordered in mexican (easier than going out to eat with 3 kids) and plopped the kids in the jacuzzi tub together. I wasn't sure how it would go with Kylie in there, too but she held her own! She loved it. She kept sticking her face in the bubbles and at one point, she did it and I called her name and she looked up at me with a bubble beard, smiled this huge smile and dribbled water out of her mouth. It was so funny. :-)

After I got Kylie out, we turned on the jets and the bubbles were out of control!! It was so funny and Noah and Savannah had so much fun.

After everyone was lotioned and PJ'd :-), the kids piled on Grandaddy to watch Dora before it was time for Savannah to leave and everyone to go to bed.

This week, it's been back to work and hopefully more 'normal' life. I always put that in quotes because I have no idea what normal is these days. :-) The only thing constant in life in change, right???