the house

so, i wanted to throw a couple of quick pictures up of the house...but i havent been able to upload all my pictures yet. so, instead of some pictures of the cool characteristics of our house, you will get the following...
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well, this is an okay picture. this is our living room. it has a tall ceilings and a large window with a pretty stain glass window at the top. ( a little hard to see, its a night time picture)

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ok, here is a lovely little feature. there is a room on the main floor that we will be using as an office and guest room. it comes with two closets...one of which boasts a toilet.
(i know! wronger than wrong! with carpet and everything) :)


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this is sydney's carpet. I know i posted about this before, but i love this carpet. it is oh so cool.






other unique features include a lightswitch outside the room it is lighting, outlets half way up the wall, and rigged up electrical work that would make an electrician weep. :)
actually, it is not that bad considering it's age and that modern features like electricity and plumbing had to be added later.

it actually has a lot of cute features...but you will have to wait until i upload more pictures for that.

sarah and eric

My sister and her husband came up from North Carolina a couple of weeks ago. It was sooo much fun to see them...had not seen them since a quick trip in May...otherwise it was Sept. '08 the last time we saw them for any real amount of time.




Sydney is a little intimidated by Uncle Eric. I dont think I got any pictures of him with her.


Elijah on the other hand simply loved Uncle Eric.

Sydney also decided to get camera shy and refused to have any nice pictures taken. This is the best one with Uncle Eric and Auntie Sarah and the nieces and nephew.

This is one of the better pictures of the cousins...nice, huh?

Elijah says, "I'm trying to do the right thing, but the girls keep distracting me!"

merry christmas and moving

merry christmas everyone!

Well, we moved into our house Dec. 20th with the help of a bunch of lovely people from our church. We had a handful of people come early to help us clean and get the house ready and about a dozen + people there to help with the unloading of the van...which was a good thing, because it was a 26-footer!

(here's my dad helping load up)

it was such a blessing to have everyoen show up to help...we evenhad people from church we didn't even know helping us out! what a great body of believers

be the carpet so humble, there is no place like home

tomorrow is the day we buy our house!

this is a good problem, right?

we went into our house today (well, closing is on friday, so it is not 'ours' yet technically) and got some measurements from a couple rooms where we want to replace the carpet. the laundry room has carpet and we are going to try and replace it with vinyl, ourselves! yup, we are going to give a little 'do-it-yourself' remodeling a try. we are also going to replace flooring in two small bathrooms (they have carpet [as ernest p. wherl would say 'eh-hewwwww'].

i did a quick measurement in our room and it is about 15 feet by 13.6 feet (i know, amazing!). the problem is, the room is too big for a remnant piece of carpet. (to do this ourselves we are looking for remnants, which as a rule are no wider than 12 feet...so we will not be able to do this room on our own).

so, the room is too big...bummer.

that is a good problem, right? :P

this is a pic of Sydney's room...check out the carpet, is that not the most psychedelically awesome carpet ever! i love it

rock and...

ROLL!!!

GO ELIJAH!

laugh or cry

did you ever have one of those days where one 'last straw' event feels like the end of the world? something just so odd/annoying that you have to either laugh or cry?

I had that moment yesterday...

I call it
Circle of Melted Life



I had to laugh...if I had cried, this would have been called Bleeping Microwave with Cheesey Stupidity . . . and that would not go over well.

Cloth Diapers - the sewing phase

(lots of pictures below)i mentioned earlier that we are looking into cloth diapering once we move to our house. it is mostly a financial decision (80+ bucks every month or so in diapers...and that is buying in bulk from sam's club!). but, i must admit, i like the opportunity to buy something! we've been buying only the essentials for a while now because of the house, so it was like an adventure to go and hunt down the perfect fabric for cloth diapers. yes, that is right. not only are we going to try cloth diapering, i am going to be making them. i bought a few diapers from a store in Menominee Falls, just to get an idea on the fabrics and make of the diaper, but the rest, my mom and i are making.



(if you haven't ever seen a 'modern' cloth diaper, google cloth diapers sometime...it is pretty amazing. brands like gdiapers, bumgenius, fuzzibunz [yes, fuzzibunz] and even a brand called happy heinys are among the more common brands, but there are hundreds out there)

Anyway, cloth diapers cost anywhere from 18-28 dollars each (not per dozen, each), so i quickly realized that getting what i needed for two kids up front was going to be a challenge. (cloth diapering is still cheaper in the long run, just more money up front). hence, the making it myself idea.
i went to salvation army family store and for the price of one Kissaluvs All In One Diaper ($22.95) i got two flannel sheets, a Nautica bath towel, 5 t-shirts, a hospital bed pad, a floor mat, and a windbreaker jacket...out of which (plus a flannel sheet set i already had and one from my mom) we were able to make about 18 medium diapers for Elijah, 16 large diapers for Sydney, 3 diaper covers for Elijah, 4 diaper covers for Sydney, a large stack of inserts and a pile of cloth wipes. all for about 30 bucks when you include the elastic from WalMart.

I SO ROCK!!! and SO DOES MY MOM!!! (i did the cutting and she did the sewing)

front, back and then the cover of a Sydney diaper - made out of a junior's tee shirt

front and back of a tee-shirt diaper for Elijah, complete with army tank to carry his loads :P


this windbreaker will become 3 or so covers for Elijah's diapers

Here are some of the diapers made out of flannel sheets:

ducks for Elijah and flowers and purple stripes for Sydney

this pattern is called the Quick Snap Flap Wrap

(no, i did not come up with the name, but i love the concept)

when the pattern is cut, it uses only 2 (or you could use 3) layers of fabric (which means it washes out better and drys faster when you clean), but when it is folded up, it becomes 6 layers for better absorbency.

lay it flat, place an insert (for additional absorbency) in the center

fold the right side, fold the left side, place the baby

hold together with a little thing called a snappi, you could use a pin, but i don't feel like poking the babies, or more likely, myself!!

here is a cover, with waterproof interior from the hospital bed pad

that goes on top of the diaper, secures with Velcro and ter-done! (as Sydney would say)

these, along with about 8 diapers i bought from the baby store, and another 10 i bought off eBay (still have not arrived, they are coming from China!), i think i have enough diapers for both kids for the rest of their diapering days, all for around $100 total. (not bad considering Sydney is absolutely refusing to be potty trained and Elijah still has a solid two years of diapering ahead of him).

our christmas tree

I love decorating for Christmas. Every year, my mom and I would decorate the tree and house on the day after thanksgiving. Somehow, over the years my brother and sister worked their way out of helping, and I think my dad would go take a nap; so it was just the two of us. Having 'my own tree' these last few years with Wayne has been exciting as I pick out the ornaments and lights to try and make a decorating sceme for our tree. (yes, one's tree needs a decorating plan! last year I bought pink and purple lights on clearance after halloween and made my own tree skirt so that our tree is way cool with pink, purple and lime green colors on it).

anyway, since we are at the apartment and dont have room for a big tree (not to mention, putting up a tree and then taking it down to put back up again does not sound like much fun), we put up our little 'charlie brown' christmas tree.

Yes, this is literally the "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree...I got it last year at ShopKo. I think it is so awesome....especially since we don't have the big one up. Although, I wish I had some christmas lights up...it is a little sad without the lights.

(yes, if you look closely, there are ants on the 'tree skirt'. it is actually a homemade table cloth with ants on one side and hot dogs on the other side.)

Thanksgiving - Nov. 26

The Cook

The Food - there was no way we were going to attempt a turkey dinner after just moving...I don't even think we have a pan here to put the turkey on and even if we did, I know all our tupperware/leftover-holders are back at my parents house waiting the big move to our new house. For now, we are in an apartment waiting for our house to close.

breakfast bagels...yum

3 months old - Nov. 25

Elijah at 3 Months

(i know, i know, i am so far behind because of the move...but better late than never)

house update

Well, the inspection went well last week. For a 1890 house, it has held up fabulously. Honestly, I was worried that there would be foundation issues or some other major problem, but no! There were just a few little deferred maintenance type items. Leaky kitchen sink, the electrical box still had a fuse instead of all breakers, and we found out one of the toilets was leaking when we went into the basement (not a major leak, just poorly installed, the flange and or maybe the gasket will need to be replaced). Those were the 'big' ones...items that qualify as a 'defect.'

get ready for some legal mumbo jumbo..."a defect is defined as a structural, mechanical or other condition that would have a significant adverse effect on the value of the Property; that would significantly impair the health or safely of future occupants of the Property; or that if not repaired, removed or replaced would significantly shorten or have a significant adverse effect on the expected normal life of the Property."

Yeah, so anyway, because these three things are a 'defect' we can ask the seller's to repair (cure, in real estate terms) at their expense prior to closing. Now, the seller is not obligated to accept our request that they repair the problems, but thankfully they did accept the terms! (actually, our realtor, Betty, told us that the seller's realtor was with the same agency. Betty said to us, "I told the other realtor that they will accept the request and fix those repairs." are you kidding me!?! go Betty!)

And, just yesterday our lender gave us a call...just needed one more thing (again :P ) and we may be able to close as early as next week!!! That would be awesome.
Hopefully we will hear today when we can close on the house.