Memorial Weekend Rehash

I enjoyed reading what some of my friends wrote about their Memorial weekend’s in review so I thought I’d also tell you a bit about ours. You already know about our house buying venture. That has been a trip.

Tonight the real estate agent came over on Wednesday night and took pictures so that we could put our house on the market (see pictures in post). So much of our weekend consisted of cleaning and de-cluttering. As many of you know already, I despise clutter, so I actually enjoyed taking things down and boxing them away. Some of them, I thought, I might as well throw away anyway! But then I thought I have a bigger house to decorate, so I thought I’ll revisit those boxes another day to decide.

On Sunday after church, we hooked up with my Grandma, who was visited my Uncle and Aunt and cousins in the Columbus area and took her to see the model of our new house then she traveled with us to my parents…and back home for her. We had a cookout at my Aunt Brenda’s house with all of the Memorial day fixin’s. It was nice to see the whole fam.

Then on Monday we went to the Pier in Huron and took a walk. I spent much of my childhood living in Huron, so the Pier and Lake Erie is always very nostalgic for me. It was the first time we had taken Isabelle to the Lake. She was in awe of all the people and the boats and the water. She sat forward in her stroller the whole time taking everything in.

Then my parents took us to Damon’s, which is a great place up there because it sits right in a marina, on the water…consequently, right by Cedar Point. We had a wonderful dinner and all of the servers came out to admire Isabelle. Of course, she’s in seventh heaven with an audience. One waitress said, “We see lot’s of beautiful babies here, but I think yours is the prettiest.” Well, we think so, what we are her parents…so what do we know!

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was our second wedding anniversary! Wow! What a wonderful two years we have had. I am in awe when I think about how blessed I have been. I love my husband more than I can describe in words...he is by far, God's greatest gift to me. Here is the beautiful roses Conrad got me for our anniversary. I didn't take a picture of the workout pants I got him...some how they are just not as pretty as the roses.

We had a wonderful weekend...and actually signed the contract for our new home! Yeah! Here is a picture of Conrad on our little plot of earth...where our house will be. And below it is a picture of the model we are getting building....

She's Crawling!

Yes, Isabelle has been crawling the last couple of days. She still will only crawl if she absolutely has too! She is so funny. If she is going after something, she'll go halfway to it, get down on her tummy and stretch and reach the rest of the way to get it!

On another note, I have some sad news, that I eluded to in a previous post...Isabelle's daycare is closing down. It's a great daycare and we are really bummed to see it close. Luckily we got one of the last spots at another church a few miles from home. But, we are also interviewing a stay at home mom for the job. Pray for us, as I know it's going to be tramatic for me (and her) to leave her in an unfamiliar place.

Have a great memorial weekend!

Pimped Out House

I know I have been a blogging slacker lately, but the last few days have been a whirlwind of activity. First of all, we found out about some impending changes that highly affect us. These changes propelled us to think about other changes. (and no, I’m not pregnant) Cryptic, huh? Okay, I’ll explain some.

We live on one side of Columbus, and our church is on the other side. We work kind of in the middle. We want to move to the other side. Besides, the school districts are better, and, as far as we know now, we will probably do the public school thing eventually. Right now, it takes us about 45 minutes to get to church! It makes getting too involved difficult.

So we decided that if we were going to move, we were going to move into a little bigger home so we can stay there for….well, for a while. You never really know with us tho. So, for the past couple of weeks we have been looking and looking and looking. Finally we found what we want. Actually we found a lot of houses that we want…but it also had to fit within our budget. We are going to build, and that will give us time to sell present home. We are praying for SOME kind of profit to put down on a home. As you probably know, it’s definitely a buyers market and not a sellers. So it works for us on one end, but not the other.

We spent the weekend going from one model home to the next. We probably drug our patient baby through fifteen different models! We found a few offering good deals and we liked their homes. On Sunday, we were driving around church and (quite on accident) ended up at a small community, probably with homes smaller than we’d like. But as we were looking at the model and talking to the sales guy, he told us he’d give us $50,000 in upgrades/options on any home purchase in a near neighborhood with larger homes…what?? No way! But, alas, it’s true, and so far, we’ve decided on a cool multi-level home that has about 3000 square feet. And it will be totally pimped out.

Whoo hoo!

Beautiful Flowers

This was my first mother's day present from Isabelle...

Celebrating my first Mother’s Day

We went to visit my family for the weekend and to celebrate mother’s day. We had a nice dinner with my parents and with my Aunt Brenda and Uncle Thornton on Saturday night. Isabelle is really getting into food, but HATES baby food. I think we ruined her, maybe a bit early. She will eat bits and pieces of anything you give her. Saturday she even had her first French fry.

On Sunday, we went to church with the fam, then went to the hospital to visit my Grandpa, then back to my parents for dinner with the whole family. It was a nice big Payne dinner, with everyone tittering beforehand about IF there will be enough food. (I never wonder WHY I am chubby…even though most everyone in my family is thin, they cook..and eat..like it’s their last meal...it must be a southern thing). But all of the women are always overly concerned about there being enough food at a gathering. Keep in mind, we usually have upwards of 15 dishes and 3 or 4 desserts at your run-of-the-mill family gathering (that is not like, Christmas. That’s a whole other ballgame). Sunday we only had two desserts…I know, highly disappointing.

But Isabelle was the belle of the ball, as usual, with her smiles and giggles. She did great the whole day, then slept hard for the two hour trip home. On Friday Isabelle brought home a Mothers day flower for me from Daycare. And Conrad got me a Massage and facial...geezzz…he ALWAYS gets the perfect gift:)

Sleepless in Ohio

Last night Isabelle decided to stay awake. Actually I don’t think she decided, I think perhaps her crowning teeth were keeping her awake! But that, of course, means we stayed awake last night too! She has been fussy for a couple of weeks now. Conrad has taken to calling her a koala bear, because she clings to me like a koala to a tree.

This poor kid tossed and turned and kicked and cried ALL NIGHT LONG. After a few hours we brought her in bed with us and she, in turn, just kicked us. Luckily I have a husband who has endless patience in the middle of the night with no sleep! So when my patience runs out, he comes to our rescue! Eventually tho, Conrad spent a couple of hours on the couch (after I did) *Sigh* I’m staring down the barrel at a very long day….

No matter what the night looked like tho, she always wakes up happy!

Happy 9 months Isabelle!

My mom came to visit us this weekend. It had been three weeks since she had seen "us" (i.e. Isabelle, her only grandchild) and she was having withdrawl. We had been waiting for her to come so that we could get some yard work done. We did a bit the weekend before, but it is rather difficult with a baby. She only has so much patience with us when we take her outside and sequester her to her stroller or play station while we work around her. She simply does not get WHY she wouldn't be the center of activity.

This weekend while Isabelle enjoyed completely undivided attention from her Oma, we removed mulch from the front flower beds, weeded, drove back the wayward grass, trimmed the bushes, mowed the grass, finished putting up the patio furniture. By Sunday, we were so sore we could barely walk. You really use muscles in gardening that you normally don't use.


Anyway, moving on to Monday. Monday Isabelle had her 9 month check-up...today she is 9 months!! I can't believe it! To give you her stats: she is 28 1/4 inch (that is 75 percentile), 16 pounds 8 ounces (20 percentile), and 17 1/2 on head cir. (which is 50 percentile). Indeed, I have a tall skinny child...how? I'll never know.