Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Christmas time is over

Ever since Halloween Cassidy is fascinated by holidays. It was Halloweentime (yes, everything has "time" attached to it). Then Halloweentime was over and it was Thanksgivingtime. So this morning when she asked about presents I said "Christmas time is over!"!  I'm already itching to get the tree down.  There was quite a few decorative items we never unpacked because we immediately put up Christmas decorations. I'd like to do that and get settled here.

 
Christmas Eve was spent at my moms. Cassidy enjoyed playing with her cousins. Which was good since they're 8 and 12 years older than her! She's the only little one in the family.




 
My grandmother got her the cutest doll wearing PJ's and matching PJ's for her!  So cute!
 
 
After she went to bed mommy & daddy had to put together Santa's present. Thankfully it didn't take long. The reaction in the morning was awesome! video below
 
 
We had a nice low key day.  No cooking - we got chinese food - and we rented Ice Age 4 with my parents and Cassidy.  I am off from work for 2 weeks and Bill is off this week so we're going to try to do some fun things!
 

Monday, December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve 2012

Christmas is fun with an almost 3 year old. Everytime she see's Santa she asks "where's my present?"  I've talked about how Christmas is not all about presents and it's about spending time with people you love. And she says "yeah, where's my present?"

Santa visited her school Friday so I brought her. She didn't look happy. She said that she was happy though when she saw the picture. She also said a book was "always what she wanted for Christmas"

 
She's touched and looked at all the presents under the tree. One of hers is round and I found her sitting on it watching tv yesterday!
 
Today we went to the playground after running some errands. It was only 37 degrees but sunny and not too windy. There was no one else there so that was awesome. We both went down all the slides. Even the big ones!  She shot down some of the big ones so fast she landed on her butt at the bottom!
 

 
She is talking up a storm and comes out with some funny stuff. We made cookies for Santa this morning. So after the playground I ask her what she wanted for lunch?
She says "cookies"
I say "no, we don't eat cookies for lunch, that's not healthy"
She says "mommy, you're ruining my perfect day"
 
WHAT?  She repeated it a bunch of times. It was really hard not to laugh. I don't know where she gets this stuff.
 
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

Friday, December 21, 2012

All moved in, just in time for Christmas

Moving was stressful. Things went wrong a few days before causing us to change all of our plans. but I'm not going to dwell on that.
We moved with lots of our own backbreaking labor!  Big thanks to Lenny, Lisa, Keith & Devahanna for helping us move.  And my parents for watching Cassidy and Jake and helping us unpack!

Pictures from moving day

 
Our outdoor decorations at the new house

 
 
Getting organized and getting  ready for Christmas. Love my new curtains!



 
The house is so big. It's great! I almost can't believe we live here. I never imagined we'd be able to buy a brand new house. We're having awesome dance parties in the kitchen!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Cassidy's first real haircut

A few well meaning folks had been pressuring me to have Cassidy's hair trimmed. I was unsure because it's still so short. But it was many different lengths so it was a little crazy. After talking to my hairdresser I decided to bring her. Oddly, her hair looked pretty good that day.

 
She was definitely nervous but she didn't cry at all and she did really really well. I was very proud of her! After she was very silly at home so all further pictures are blurry (well, most of my pictures are blurry lately - she doesn't sit still!).



Meanwhile we're busy packing and buying things for the new house. You don't think about the things a brand new house doesn't come with. Window shades, curtain rods, toilet paper holders...  we've been really busy. The move is in 11 days!
 
 

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Thankful


This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for most of the same things everyone is thankful for, health, family, friends and pets. Every day is an opportunity to laugh and enjoy life. That’s what I try to do and I’m doing a pretty good job at it.  I never worried that I would die from cancer, but even the remotest possibility made this life so much more precious. Life is great! 

3 weeks until we move so I'm hoping to get some packing done this long weekend!

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Bowling fun

Yesterday we went bowling with my sister and her family. We had a great time. Though we all stunk on the 2nd string. We thought we'd do better but, Cassidy beat quite a lot of us!


We all helped Cassidy. She loved bowling but only would use solid colored balls.





 
We played boys against girls (girls had a bumper).



 
After we went out to lunch. On the drive home I said something about being tired and Cassidy chimes in from the backseat "I'm not tired, I'm not tired" and not 5 minutes later she's sleeping. LOL.
 

Friday, November 9, 2012

Moving in 5 weeks!

The home inspection on our house went well. We were nervous about the age of our roof but apparently it wasn't an issue. We did test positive for Radon (slightly) so we do have to pay to have that fixed. They are coming today.

We are buying a house that we can see from our house. Right around the corner! It's brand new. Just built this summer! We're getting excited!

 
2 car garage!  The house is on a tiny dead end street though for so those people who come to Cassidy's birthday party - the parking situation could be even worse than on our existing street!

Big kitchen with a nice deck to the backyard. The yard has lots of trees so finally shade for Cassidy.

All new appliances! granite counters. honestly, these are things I don't really care about. We had fairly new appliances and the granite is nice but... not my deal. I'm really just happy to have more space. Open concept, new & level (nothing in our house is level haha).


 
This is the dining room. Very open to the kitchen.
5 weeks to moving day! I can't wait. We're going to have an awesome Christmas in our new (forever) home!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Halloween is awesome with a 2 1/2 year old!

Cassidy has been talking about Halloweeen for weeks. "Mommy is it Halloween time?"
Practicing trick-or-treating in the house - you knock 9 times on the office door (9 times because thats the secret code on Team UmiZoomi which she's obsessed with) and she gives rocks for treats. We practiced saying "Trick-or-Treat" very loud (which for her is a normal persons volume)!

We carved Jack-o-lanterns a few days before Halloween.

Cassidy was Minnie Mouse



She loved trick-or-treating!  She had the most adorable smile and after each house would say "Look at all the candy I have!"


She's so innocent and sweet! It was a really fun night.


Friday, October 26, 2012

Change is coming

I had hoped that our house would sell quickly. I didn't imagine it would sell in six days.  It went on the market on a Monday. We didn't allow showings until Wednesday. We had 7 showings between Wed and Sunday and an open house on Sunday. By Sunday night we had 2 offers! You would think with that activity we would've gotten asking price but we didn't. But we never expected to so we're okay with it. The buyer is having their home inspection tomorrow so hopefully that goes smoothly with very little findings.

The house we liked sold the same day ours did. We were pretty disappointed. We went out house hunting with the realtor already and have some prospects.

In the meantime it's been busy with staying out of the house and I can't believe how few pictures I've taken in the last 2 months. I feel really lucky that Cassidy is so laid back. The first day we had 3 showings. After school we went over to my cousins house to kill time. She ate dinner and played there. We headed home only to people still looking at the house. She was very cool about it. We parked down the street and chatted for almost 15 minutes waiting for them to leave. She's a trooper and its nice that she's so easygoing.


I love this t-shirt

 
She loves to have pretend birthday parties. Sometimes its her birthday, other days its her animals (Violets was yesterday, the babies were today). She's a great hostess and everyone has to have a piece of fake food and a beverage.
 

 
 
 

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Making Strides for Breast Cancer - Boston 2012

Had a great 5 mile walk at the Making Strides for breast cancer walk today. The weather was a bit cool and drizzly but at least no downpours. My mom walked the whole 5 miles! And at the end she said "Next year will be better weather".  So I guess we're walking again next year.

It was a nice time and as a group we raised approximately $800!





Saturday, October 13, 2012

Big Changes

We've been busy. Really busy. We decided, kind of spur-of-the-moment, to try to sell our house. We will absolutely take a loss on it but with interest rates so low we could have a bigger mortgage for not too much extra a month. And new houses in our town suddenly are in our price range. So we're going to see what happens. Our fingers are crossed that our house sells fast because many of our things are already packed as a result of staging! 

Last weekend we packed (Thanks Renee for letting us put stuff in your basement and thanks to Keith for coming over and helping!). We did minor repairs. We cleaned. We donated and threw away a lot of things!  We packed some more.

 
A friend gave me the idea to go to a liquor store and ask for boxes so we did. It's not obvious in this photo, but we look like total alcoholics with all beer boxes.
 
In addition to all the work we did on the house, we squeezed in a trip to Topsfield Fair. Which wasn't much fun. Too crowded for us. We made a mental note to always take a day off and go midweek in the future. We did however pet some donkeys and cows so that always makes me happy. Oh and of course Cassidy went on the Merry-go-Round. Twice.
 
I don't remember anything happening but it sure looks like that donkey startled us both!

 
This weekend was more cleaning and stowing our personal items (apparently everything is a personal item) to stage the house. The realtor came today to take photos. Luckily she used my camera so I have them too!
They asked me to paint the kitchen. It used to be a beautiful blue. now it's blah neutral.




not my wall hanging or fake plants. The realtor brought all staging items over!




 
It's not going to be easy to live like this. We are very lucky that Cassidy is very laid back. We cleared out so much of our basement that we were able to put our spare couch down there and make a little playroom. She's so cute when she asks if she can go play in the basement.  I really hope it sells fast. There's a couple houses in town we'd love to buy.