Goodbye to Our First Home

We officially said goodbye to our first home.

For the first year of our marriage Kyle and I lived in a one bedroom apartment.  Then Labor day weekend of 2008 we moved into our first home.  We built this home from the beginning with a local builder.  We picked out lot, the floor plan, the brick, paint, tile, EVERYTHING!  I loved almost everything about this home.  There were a few things I would change but they had more to do with the floor plan than what we chose in the design stage.

I mentioned previously that we sold the home in April and rented it for 60 days afterwards. We moved out Memorial Day weekend however we have spent time cleaning and getting all of the remaining stuff out since then.  On Monday I walked through those doors for the last time.  I got a little sentimental and decided to take some pictures so years down the road I remember what it looked like.  I kinda wish I had done this with the furniture in it, but near the end we lived in chaos and it wasn't pretty.

Kyle and I redid this flower bed the first spring we were in the house.  We added the stone wall and different types of flowers.  We had big plans to do something different each year with it.  We quickly learned that we aren't 'yard people' and turned to perennials. Unfortunately our balloon flowers on the corner didn't survive the long winter.

Originally there was grass in that little strip down the side of our garage. We pulled the grass up, planted phlox, and then added some other flowers.  The phlox started off as 3 little chutes and turned into this full bed of phlox.  If you want to see what the phlox look like bloomed see this post from two years ago.

View from the front door with living room straight ahead. Hall to our bedroom and utility/garage to the left. Dining room to the right.

Dining room view from entry

Dining room view from kitchen

View of kitchen and entry from living room

 

living room

Back hallway with nursery, then Cooper' big boy room, and straight ahead is the second bath.

Cooper's big boy room (small secondary rooms and small closets)

Casen's room painted blue.

Master bedroom

Master bath

Master closet

View from back door (gorgeous and green)

View of the back of the house

I have mixed feelings about leaving this house.  I am a little sad because of all of the memories in that house.  It is where we brought our boys home to.  But to be honest, I am not that attached to the house itself because know the memories go with me.  The house is just a physical thing.  Right now, I miss it compared to our town home.  But I look forward to closing this chapter and moving on to the next one.  The next house will be bigger, newer, and closer to family!

The hardest part about leaving this house is leaving our best friends David and Jen.  They were only 5 minutes away and if we could drive a straight line it was about 2 minutes.  I know that this house and its close proximity to them is what started this friendship.  We actually lived in the area about 9 months before they did.  But since then the relationship has grown tremendously and they are like family to us.  They love our boys so much and they are always willing to help with anything. They would take care of our dogs when we were out of town. Come stay with Cooper in the middle of the night while we went to the hospital for kidney stones, a false alarm, and more kidney stones.  Check to make sure I really closed the garage door. Bring me ice cream during a pregnancy craving. Cut my hair and now our boys.  Help with our gender reveals and the boys parties. We see them on a weekly basis whether for dinner or just to stop and visit the boys.  They (especially David) go through withdrawals when they haven't seen Cooper and Casen.

They are just amazing.  And though I know they are lifelong friends and that won't change because of distance, I do know that parts of our friendship will change.  We are going to work harder and drive farther, but it will be worth it. 

I am so thankful for 6132 Bullhead Dr and everything it has meant to our family.

Now if we can just start building the new house! The estimated start date is the beginning of August.

Remembering Casen's birth

I just got done reading Casen's birth story and I thought I would share the link here in case anyone else wanted to go back and read it.  I loved reading it and remembering becoming a mother of 2.  Casen was such an amazing baby for the beginning. I am so blessed.

Casen's birth story

The announcement on my blog

Pictures from the hospital



Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Casen!!

Today my sweet boy is 1 year old! I can't believe it is already here. 

I cried last night as I put him in bed.  He snuggled in to my neck and I just can't believe how fast it has gone by.  I know my boys will be grown before I know it.  Some days I can't wait for bedtime and other days I feel like I just don't get enough time with them. 

Here he is in his shirt from his birthday party.  The party was Saturday and it was wonderful.  I hope to share pictures soon.

Quick pictures of my boys playing together at school.

I let Cooper climb in Casen's crib this morning as we sang him happy birthday.  Casen just laid there with the sweetest smile.  We had cupcakes last night left from the party and we have enough for more tonight.  Casen is a cupcake eating champ!

I have a whole post to write about weaning Casen, but here he is this morning drinking breast milk from a sippy cup as I left his class.

And here is Cooper and Aiden with their matching shirts.  We gave the shirt to Aiden and us mommies arranged a twins day for them.  They loved it!

Happy Tuesday.  I am hoping now that the move is over and the birthday party is over I can get back into the swing of blogging.

Busy, busy, busy

It has been almost two weeks since I last blogged.  I didn't mean to take a blogging break, but it just happened.  Things are crazy around here! We have so much going on that I just can't keep up.

1. We sold our home on April 4th.  We put it on the market in February and it was only on the market for 3 weeks when it sold but then we delayed closing on it so we didn't have to rush to find somewhere to live.  It worked for us and the buyers so that was good. 

2. We leased the house back for 60 days after closing so we are still in our house.  Again it worked for us and the buyer.

3. We are renting a town home for the next 4-6 months and we are moving this weekend.

4.  We are building a new home in the same neighborhood that we built a home in last year.  If you don't remember, we built a home and then backed out of it because our house hadn't sold.  The new home won't be ready until October or November because the developer is having to put in new roads for this new phase of the neighborhood.

5. Casen turns 1 on June 3rd and we are having his party on May 31st.  It is going to be at my parents house because I didn't want to have it at the rental.  It is awesome to not have to worry about having the rental ready by then but it is still stressful trying to plan a birthday simultaneously with a move.  I have had a theme for his party since before he was born.  If I had known life would have been this crazy I should have planned the whole thing then!

6. I have moved into a new position at work as of a week ago.  I am still working heavily with the group in Argentina, but now I am working in a special projects role.  I get to do more 'big picture' stuff instead of the day-to-day things.  I am excited about this new challenge, but also a bit overwhelmed with the transition period.

7. Casen had a stomach bug this weekend, then my mom got it, and yesterday I had it.  Casen came down with a fever today and Kyle is at the doctor with him now.  I suspect ear infection based on the fever, runny nose/cough/allergies, and he hasn't been sleeping like he normally does.  All of this sickness going around has not been good for packing and moving.

Whew I am tired just typing all of that.

We have some other things going on that have also made life busy.  I realize that I work best under pressure so hopefully that stays true....I wrote this blog in less than 5 minutes while waiting for my boss to come back for a meeting.

I have several more blogs that I need to do but they will just have to wait.

Friday Randoms

Earlier this week I took this picture of Casen.  Doesn't he look huge in that carrier.  We have ordered Cooper's new car seat that converts to a booster so that Casen can move up to Cooper's.  I have been preoccupied and was being cheap and we should have done this sooner.  Why is my baby so big?

*Casen's feet are red from rug burn at school. They were fine the next day*

 

Each morning during the week I get Casen up (I wake him up) at 5:00 to nurse and he falls back asleep in our bed.  Then I pump and get ready for my day.  I go back and wake him up around 6:15 to get ready for day-care.  Well this morning he woke up on his own and fell off of our bed.  Our bed is pretty high off of the ground.  He cried for quite a while.  I didn't see any marks and or broken bones.

However when we got to school I noticed the red mark by his left eye.  You can barely see it but I wonder if it will look worse this afternoon.  My poor baby boy.

Me- Let me see your eye.

Casen- What?

Me- I am trying to get a good picture of your eye.

Casen- oh you want a picture? (smile) I am fine.

Casen- okay that is enough!

Today was Muffins with Mom (Mommy) for Mother's Day. Cooper picked out a double chocolate chip muffin (smart boy) and had almost finished it by the time I left. He did share a little with me and Casen.

Tonight my parents are keeping the boys for a slumber party.  I am so excited.  My boys are great sleepers so I am not sure why I am so excited.  But I am.  Maybe it is because even though my boys are great sleepers they still get up at 7 or so.  So if we stay up late watching a movie until midnight we don't get much sleep.  Therefore we normally go to bed around 10 even on the weekends.

Kyle and I have no clue what we are going to do. We considered a movie since we haven't seen one in over a year, but we aren't sure.  We might be wild and crazy by just doing dinner and still being in bed at 10.  No matter what we do I am looking forward to a night just the two of us. 

Plus we will get to hangout most of the day tomorrow together until we meet the boys at Tinsley's birthday party that afternoon.

Happy Friday Everyone!

Things Cooper says...

I have been wanting to write this post for a while...months! But I just never took the time to record some of the things Cooper says and now I regret it.  But oh well.

Cooper loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  He used to call it Mickey Mouse Blublouse.

When Cooper says a word wrong I say 'look at my mouth' and resay it a time or two.  Now if we don't understand something Cooper says he says 'look at my mouth'.  It is hilarious.

When I ask him a question sometimes he says 'Hmmm' and taps his chin with his finger.  He got that from MMC.

Cooper- I heard a toot in my butt

He still says 'lello' instead of yellow.

He often says 'tank to' or 'dank do' instead of thank you, but he knows how to say it right.

He has a little lisp.

He calls himself Cooper Scott.

When Casen has a dirty diaper I call him stinky butt.  The other day Cooper looked at Casen and said 'hey stinky butt'

Cooper- Oh! It's getting light outside. The sun in coming up. We like Mr. Sun. We like the moon too. He went down because they take turns. Right, mommy?

He has recently started calling me 'mom' and I hate it.  At first I would simply say 'momma' or 'mommy', but now I just leave it alone.  I still call my mom 'momma' and I wish Cooper would too.

After I take a bath he says 'Can I feel your wet hair? Yep, it's wet. I like your wet hair.'

Ooohhhh, Daddy! That is a cool jacket!!

If we ask Cooper what his Daddy's name is he says 'Daddy's awesome!!'  What about mommy?  'Mamasita' 

He often times calls his little brother 'Casen Andrew.'

I need to record his night prayers because they are so sweet.  He says them with a thick country accent and I have no clue why. 

I am going to try to do posts like this more often because I really want to remember these things.

Who does he look like Part 2

When Cooper was about 9 months old I did this post

A lot of people tell me that Casen looks like my father-in-law.  However I think he looks a lot like me or my dad when we were babies.  I see it most when he is doing his full belly laugh with squinty eyes.

So I wanted to do a little comparison post after seeing some pictures this weekend at my parents.

First here is Casen wearing the same picture as Cooper.  Casen was too busy to sit still for a good picture this morning and I was in a hurry.

They don't really look alike, do they?

So here is a picture of me and I definitely see resemblances of Casen.  Even the hair!

I think Casen has a longer face than me and also a longer face that Cooper had at this age.  Of course Casen has darker features that Cooper also.

It is fun to see how the boys are different.

What do you think?