Grandma & Grandpa come to visit

Grandma and Grandpa were our first overnight visitors in the new house. Their timing was great--they arrived 5 days after our belongings did and spend a long weekend entertaining the boys, helping unpack, and, in Tom's case, stripping wallpaper in the kitchen (thank you Tom!). We're so glad they could come see the house and we're so grateful for the help! 

 We also celebrated Thomas' 3rd birthday. It's a Transformers fire station! It came complete with a coordinating book (called Optimus Prime!), which has been read approximately 297 times and I think both TJ and all of his willing readers have memorized it.

 I made dirt cake in his dump truck. I was very excited about this. As it turned out, more excited than Thomas. But it was fun and it tasted good!

 Grandma and her boys

 Thomas has become quite the photographer when he gets his hands on my camera. This is one of about 30 similar shots that he took, but it's pretty good!

 Grandpa created the "Jojo Corral," fencing the little guy in between his legs, the couch, and the stool. Jojo could stand to his heart's content with support when needed. A great solution!

 Jojo's checking out Thomas' train tracks.

 We got a little snow on Saturday (Sunday? I can't remember.) and Ed took TJ sledding on our hill again.

Thomas had so much fun one day and skipped his nap. He fell asleep while Grandma was reading a story before dinner.

Our new house

It's time to officially introduce the new house...I kept stalling until a few more rooms were "photo worthy," but realized that might take too long. So without further ado, here we go...some photos from marketing the house before we bought it, and some taken by us, boxes and all! 

 Our new house! We love it!

 Side view, with the big sunroom windows

 Here comes our moving truck! Thomas watches it round the corner. (Yep, note the snow...that wasn't in the other pictures!)

 Our stairs--two short sets with a landing in the middle, perfect for 3-year-olds who want to slide down because there isn't time to gain momentum!

 The kitchen--this was one of our big requirements--a large kitchen for lots of cooking, and an adjoining family room/play area so we could keep an eye on the kids. 

Another angle on the kitchen

 The eating area, just off the kitchen, filled with boxes. Note that the wallpaper has already been removed. Hoping to paint this next week...

 Jojo sitting among the packing paper, wearing TJ's Davy Crockett hat. 

 Our bedroom, with one entire wall of (mirrored) closets. 

 Plus a bed, dresser, and boxes!

 Ahhh...the master bathroom.

 The toy room. Needless to say, it was no-brainer to unpack this room first. Previously, this was the family room and the adjoining room was the living room. We don't really need both, so this room, straight off the kitchen, is the kids' room, and the former living room is our family room/tv room. There's a fireplace that opens both ways, into this room and the family room.

 The family room, looking into the toy room

 This was probably the only house we looked at that could comfortably house our enormous couch. The drapes came with the house and will stay for now.

Here's your bedroom, when you come visit. Please do!

 The boys' room. Haven't done much in here yet because I'm planning to paint it next week. 

Then we'll finish unpacking and get it organized. 

 The guest bathroom.

 This photo is out of season, but gives us plenty to look forward to. Here's our back deck! The kids have been having picnic lunches out there these past few warm days. Can't wait to eat outside all summer long. (There aren't mosquitos in Michigan, right?!)

 The sunroom, complete with toasty southern exposure and openings into the playroom and family room. The plants are not ours, which is good because I am not known for having a green thumb. 

At the moment this room is primarily filled with boxes, both empty and full.

Speaking of boxes...the bonus room, which will serve as my office and sewing studio. (Yes!) Somehow I didn't get a photo of this room after the movers left. This is only partway filled. We have closets along both sides, so we're storing baby/kids' clothes and Christmas decor up here, as well as ALL of my fabric, so the room was pretty packed. I'm making headway on sorting it, but as anyone who has unpacked knows. it gets worse before it gets better. 

This isn't every room, but the ones I didn't show are not really worth seeing right now. We've actually made great headway on the boxes, but it's still a work in progress and will remain that way for a while. Just wait until I get my hands on some cans of paint. I have great color plans for inside this house and cannot wait to get started! I've come to realize that I must think a house isn't truly mine (ours) until I've changed the wall color in at least half the rooms. :) Since only two rooms in this house have any color at all, I have a 2-month, 6-month, and 2-year plan to get all the painting done. And that includes exterior trim this summer. It doesn't look it from the first photo above, but the trim is a bit flesh colored and the front door and garage door are rose colored. 

Jojo on the move

Check out these big smiles!

Wiggles, rolls and push-ups 

Zerberts...need I say more?

And he crawls! (just a little)

Josiah - 7 months

I'm jumping out of chronological order here to post some 7-month pictures of Jojo. This kid is growing like a weed and never stops moving. You may wonder why several of my pictures look blurry, especially if you look at Jojo's legs. Not the camera--that's bicycle boy, who is constantly pumping up and down. He will be a natural on a bike when the time comes! 

Much larger than the bear

 

 This picture is getting harder to take--he was trying to eat the blocks. Also--interesting to point out--when we left St. Louis, I only brought one of the two number blocks (which has 1-6 on it). I figured there was no way I'd need the block with #7 before we'd move and have a house. Ha! We made it by two weeks. And really, the whole selling a house and buying a house process went pretty quickly, so it appears that I was just naive back in September.

 Blue-eyed cutie!

This is how you'll find Josiah much of the time these days. He pulls up to standing. He's now getting daring and letting go, which ends in a wipeout. This morning, it seemed like a switch flipped--he gets into crawling position, and instead of going backwards, he's making forward progress. He also (I think) went from crawling to sitting, though I didn't see it happen. I just saw the before and after positions, and I highly doubt Thomas helped him. The only "help" Thomas gives Jojo is to knock him over or pull on an arm to tip him over.

New house sneak peek

 We closed on our new house on Friday, February 24th and celebrated that and TJ's birthday with pizza and ice cream sandwiches at the new house.

 First dinner at the house!

 Our family in front of the new house

TJ's birthday present from us: a new bike. An empty house was the perfect place to learn how to ride it! Now that we have furniture, he's relegated to the basement. 

We're now 12 days in to living at the new house, and we love it! Space, light, a garage, a blank slate of cream walls just waiting for me to add color to...!

There is still plenty to unpack, but we've made lots of progress. More pictures of the house, the boxes,  and our first visitors to follow in the coming days.

Random pre-move pics

A few more pictures from before the move:

 The boys helped pack. Not really...Thomas kept emptying boxes of packed clothes. Josiah just wanted to stand up next to the boxes.

 As Josiah gets older/bigger and more interactive, we've had so much fun watching the boys react to each other. There's still a lot of pushing, hitting, and taking away of toys, but there are also tons of hugs and love.

And don't forget a little wrestling! Jojo gets manhandled by Thomas, who definitely doesn't understand the size difference. But 90% of the time, Jojo has a big grin on his face.

 During the packing process, Thomas decided to lay in the drawer I'd just emptied in his room.

 I *may* have closed the drawer while he was in it (just for a few seconds). Not a popular move!

 Here's our big stander. Josiah's new philosophy is "why sit or lay when you can stand?!?!" He locks his legs when you try to make him sit. He is very proud of his standing abilities.

Ed and I bought this hat in Peru a couple years ago. We meant it to fit TJ the winter he turned 2. We were a bit off on sizing, but realized it fits Josiah now. Could this kid and hat combo be any cuter?!

Jenn and Pat come to visit

I'm back at blogging...packing/moving + 5 days of technician visits to get the Internet functioning properly + unpacking + work deadlines = some blog downtime. Time to catch up!

Jenn and Pat came to visit us on our last weekend in the apartment. Thanks for coming to visit us! When you come see us at the new house, we won't make you share a room with Thomas! :)

 We celebrated Pat's 30th and TJ's 3rd birthday with another construction-themed cake.

 Their gift to Thomas: plastic food to go with a surprise gift that's coming soon (betcha can't guess what...!). Both boys really love the food.

 Apparently we don't feed this one enough! Here he's gnawing on a chicken leg.

 And Josiah also decided he'd like to be more mobile. With Jenn's encouragement, he pulls himself up to standing. She also caught him scooting backwards.

Standing on Uncle Pat.