The New Castle de Drinks!

So you guys have been along on my "sell this house" drama-filled posts, but I haven't updated on our house search! As in--we have put in a contract on our new house! Well, new to us....the house is slightly younger than me, but extremely well built and all brick. So well built that when we did the house inspection, we didn't have to ask to have anything repaired. Nada, zip, zilch. We close on May 14th, the same day that we sell our current house....that will be a busy day.
So here are the details: 5 bedrooms (yes, you read that correctly), 3 full bathrooms (slight upgrade from the 1 1/2 we have now!), living room/dining room combo, completely remodeled gourmet kitchen with professional grade appliances and my first gas stove!, family room, office, and huge detached garage. The current owners were the original owners, and even though we will have to do some updating (dark wood trim--egads!) they did put in brand new carpeting throughout the top floor.
The house is set up as a split level, but not in the traditional sense--for our house, you go downstairs for the living areas and upstairs for the bedrooms. Just like a 2 story house, only sunk into the ground 5 feet :) And the previous owner was a master gardener who put in $60K worth of landscaping and flowers right before they moved. Lucky me!

View of very back of back yard. There is a picket fence around the patio area, a huge slab of concrete for the grill and patio set, and tons of camilas, butterfly bushes, and roses.

Kids' bathroom. Hall bathroom for upstairs. It has a huge walk-in shower with a bench. We will have to use our bathroom or the downstairs bath for the baby, but Garrett and Caroline may never leave this bathroom again!

Caroline's room. It's an odd shade of light pink that looks like it was last painted somewhere around 1985. Notice the outdated fan and dark trim?? First two things to go! Luckily, it's only little things like that--some paint, some new fans, changing out brass hardware, etc.

Emily's room--notice the fancy matching roller shades and valances--oy! My grandmother is rolling in her grave! I don't know why a large shadow on the floor makes it look like her carpet is all stained--this is brand new stuff. But the rooms are great sizes and no one has to share!

Timmy's pride and joy. I truly believe he would have bought this house if it was a double wide trailer as long as he got this garage. It's huge! And it has stairs to the top level, which has a floor and can be used for storage (I wouldn't try to build a room up there, but it will definitely hold the contents of our basement).

The brand new kitchen--gas stove top, professional hood, two sinks (!), new fridge, wall oven.....sigh. It has twice as many cabinets as our old kitchen. And the cabinets are soft-close, have roll out bins for spices, pots and pans, etc. and a huge pantry cabinet.

Living room/dining room combo. I won't lie--the layout is a little awkward because the room is long. So we will probably put the dining set in front of that big triple window and our couch and tv on the other side of the room (which you can't see). Rumor has it that the stove will heat the whole house and I love the big brick hearth!

View of other end of kitchen!

Another view of stove. Also, they put glass tile backsplashes in front of sink and stove. It looks like sea glass-absolutely beautiful!

Tangled

Caroline wanted her friend Lauren to sleep over and the girls were happy to play "hair salon" with their American Girl dolls for hours. After Garrett and Emily passed out, we decided to find something on tv. Luckily, Tangled was on Starz, so we were in for quite a treat. It is hilarious! I took the kids to see it in the theater, but that was a while ago. The dolls wore pjs, slippers, shared Carrie's doll quilt, and even got control of the remote!

Even Timmy joined the fun!

The girls were wonderful baby sitters to Emily.

Emily: Sixteen Months Old

Emily is 16 months old today, and you would think I had a 2-3 year old toddler on my hands! She is extremely active and energetic (code for: Mommy is exhausted) and loves to run, climb, go down the big twisty slide at the park, push her doll stroller up and and down the drive way, and generally stay extremely busy from the minute she wakes up until she goes to bed (kicking and screaming). We have established a very predictable routine, but sleep is still very hit or miss--we had three days in a row last week of straight 11-hour sleep (no crying out) and then last night she cried off and on for two hours in the middle of the night. So I never know what to expect. Emily likes: pushing her doll stroller and up and down the driveway for hours; going to the park; being outside all the time in general; putting on her shoes and socks, taking them off, and repeating multiple times; eating grapes and bananas with every meal; reading books; putting on my shoes and parading around the house (notice in the pic above that she is both wearing my shoes AND pushing the stroller)

Emily doesn't like: being told "no"; waiting to go somewhere; long car rides; napping in her crib; not having my full attention during play time

She's a handful! But she's amazingly smart and is learning new things every day. She saw a monkey on tv and said "oooo oooo" with her lips sticking out, just like a monkey! She can say "duck" (uck) and "quack" (ack) and dog (og) and woof (oof). Momma and Dadda are used ALL THE TIME! She is in the toddler room at day care now, so she's getting to play with kids her age and older instead of hanging out in the baby room. She's definitely more independent and tempermental.

Drumroll please..

Our house is under contract! SEVEN days on the market! We got an offer within a few thousand of our asking price, so it was a done deal. A few inspections to go, then closing on May 14th! And no, we have no idea where we are moving next....on with the next adventure! House hunting!

For Crying Out Loud

Tim and I decided that enough is enough. We have a baby who used to be a pretty good sleeper at night (before she turned one, that is). Then it was a steady decline from there. It started when she would get sick, or cut a tooth, and her sleep schedule would be off for a couple of days. It became commonplace for her to start waking up two or three times a night, and putting her down in the first place was getting harder. She would start springing up in her crib, climbing up me and gesturing toward the hallway and living room. I would think, "Well, she's just getting over being sick/cutting a tooth/being out town....". But in the past couple of weeks, it's been worse. I'm up three to four times a night with a baby that didn't want to go to bed til an hour past her bedtime. So Tim and I decided that Emily was playing us for a fool. We were going to do the old Cry It Out starting Friday night. Here's how it went:
Friday night: In bed at 8:10 PM, cries until 8:49 PM. Wakes up at 1 AM, cries for 15 minutes, goes back to sleep til 6:40 AM.
Saturday night: In bed at 7:30 PM, cries for....wait for it....half a second....then sleeps all night!
Sunday night: Doesn't even fight it. In bed by 8 PM, goes right to sleep.
Yay! Victory for the tired people!

Kidding Around at the Museum

Tim and I have had enough of being around this house (too much time working on everything!) so we took Emily to the Children's Museum in Richmond. She had the best time EVER running around, getting into everything and not being told "no!".

mirror tunnel

Emily is a very serious shopper!

And she's off! There was only 2 carts in the entire place and Emily was NOT going to give hers up!

Emily knocked a 7 year old out of the anchor's seat and took over the news position. She was being a slight bully, so we let her play for a few minutes in front of the camera and then made her give the seat back to the bitter and pouting 2nd grader.