Moved In! ...sort of.

So, we've been in our new house for about a week now. We still have LOTS to do, but we are pretty much settled in. We still have a garage full of stuff. But lots of it will go in the storage building, which has yet to be purchased. We have lots of yard stuff and things that just go in a garage. We still live out of a few boxes and I need to get going on unpacking some other things that are laying around. Our new frige is in and making some good reverse osmosis water and ice. I don't really care one way or the other but Daddy sure has a preference. He loves it. Our new kitchen floor goes in on Friday and maybe some new appliances then as well...a new dishwasher for sure and probably a new stove and microwave. We still haven't picked the ones we want yet but we've narrowed it down at least. I still need to make a trip to Ikea and get a desk for our bedroom. The computer is sitting on a few boxes until then, and I'll also pick up some light fixtures for the kitchen, maybe dining room, and entry. I will also be hanging blinds in the kitchen, dining and living rooms. Fun... Hanging blinds is not high on the list, but the other ones are gross. I finally put up the Christmas tree on Sunday and Papa Joe and Daddy spent most of the day Saturday on some random repairs and upgrades on the house...e.i., some extra outlets here and there, a new potty for our bathroom (the old one was fine, Daddy didn't like the shape of it much), and they also put up Christmas lights on the house! It looks great!

Anna LOVES her room. I hear her, when she is supposed to be in bed, rummaging through her toys and her closet looking for things to drag out. The funny thing is at nap time she tells me, "Mommy, turn tha light off!" She has a big window with one of those half circle things above it. The light really comes in her room during the day. I tell her that I can't turn off the sun during the day. Her room at the other house was pretty dark during the day with all the foliage covering her windows. But out here in new house land, there are hardly any big trees. Sad, but I'll compromise since it's a new(er) house!

I'll post some pictures once I get the place looking like we really live here and aren't just spending the night. :)

Chef Anna.

Nana has a little kitchen that Anna just loves! She has been cooking us bacon, hot dogs, and warm milk. Yum. Oh, and calling Daddy and having hilarious conversations with him on the phone.

Moving day...

SO yesterday was the official "get the heck out of the house" day...the day before our scheduled closing. We had to have everything out Thursday night since the new owner of our house would be doing his "walk through" the next morning at 8:30. We have been been slowly moving into the new house over the past week and man, we had lots of crap. Although I knew that before we started packing.

Note to self: don't buy another house with three garages and a storm cellar if you're not planning on staying there forever.

We have the most amazing friends and family. Nana has been back and forth all week either tending to Anna or helping pack. Papaw pulled his flat bed trailer over and helped load yard and garage stuff and move it to the new house..then pulled it back today after closing. Papa Joe came to help with repairs to the roof as well as other random things. Grammy also pitched in by helping with Anna, packing and cleaning. Our freakin' awesome friends helped with tree trimming and roof repairs, and all of them came over last night to clean the entire house after getting everything out. They all were working as soon as they hit the door last night and had it completely clean (spotless!!) in about an hour and a half. That includes baseboards, blinds, ceiling fans, spots on the carpet, and the garages have virtually zero dust thanks to Matt's shop vac. Thanks SOO much guys for everything. Andrew and Cristin, aren't you sad you missed it? Ha! I was exhausted by the time the movers got done moving the furniture (@ about 7pm)and was SO grateful we have such great friends to help clean up. We would have been up all night.

We got to meet the buyer of our house at closing. He is a single guy, a colonel (apparently by his title on his checks), young, and is extremely excited about his first house. He looks like a guy that will take good care of it. We thought it was a law student and his wife that were actually going to live there, but it turns out that the wife of the law student is the single guy's sister. She helped him find the house. Get all that? Either way, as long as I think whoever is going to be there will take care of our cute little house, I'm good. And like it matters... But we're pretty attached as you can see.

Right now, we're officially homeless. On Monday we'll close on our new house and until then, we'll be staying with Nana and Papaw. So if you need me, my cell phone probably won't work.

Our last night.

It's the last bath in the bathtub-less bathroom... The last time we put Anna in her bed for the night in the only room she's ever known... The last time I'll only have to walk 6 steps to her room to give her cough medicine in the middle of the night...

We've been so busy packing, cleaning, and fixing things lately. I thought we'd never sell our cute little house, and we had begun plans to close in the attached garage (we had 2 more anyway) to make a master bedroom and another bathroom, as well as split the sunroom in half and make a big laundry room and mud room. With all those pricey estimates lingering in my head, we were off to Orlando and BAM! Two calls from a realtor telling us she was showing the house. Then another one letting us know she was showing it again to the same couple. I thought, "YES! Finally someone who appreciates the character of an older home...and it's quirks." Then when we got back from Orlando, we hear from our realtor that we'd have a contract coming in by the next day. I think my heart did sink a little. Daddy's did as well. So after a couple of counter offers we accepted what they proposed and off we went. Then came the feverish search for just the right house...and FAST. We looked at almost 30 houses in just a few days before finally settling on a great one. It's much larger than the old one and Anna's bathroom is almost 3 times the size of the ONE we have now. AND it has a bathtub...check that...TWO bathtubs. ...Well, not two in Anna's bathroom... The master bath has a garden tub. Words such as "master bath" and "garden tub" were enough for me.

Everything seemed to fall right into place for us after we wrote a contract for the new house (built in 1999, not 1956!). They accepted our offer right off the bat (which was ridiculous we thought, but wanted some wiggle room), and they are letting us do just about whatever we need to do as far as moving goes. The house is vacant so they let us move stuff in a week early. We have movers coming to get the furniture tomorrow and we don't even close on the house until Monday. We close on the old house on Friday so that makes us homeless for a weekend. We'll be staying at Nana's house. Anna won't have any problem with that.

Speaking of Anna and her problems lately. Her world has been turned upside down! Almost literally. We all are living out of suitcases since our clothes are in the new house, most of her toys are also at the new house, she wants to go potty at the new house all the time (she loves her new house), there have been many different people in and out of her domain in the last week that she's not too sure about, and now she has to adjust to sleeping in a strange place...but a COOL strange place. Her new room is super cute with a vaulted ceiling and HER OWN CLOSET! That's right friends, she didn't have a closet...OR and bathtub! It's a sad thing. The great thing about Anna Banana is that she doesn't care one bit. She's been in huge air-flow tubs and still comes back and loves her bubbles in her toddler tub that she hardly fits in. I guess that's just kids for ya.

Wish us luck at both closings and that we'll get ALL of our crap out of the old house in time. Yikes!

This girl's a pro.

I would consider Anna technically potty trained. She hasn't had an accident in days and goes to the potty by herself whenever she needs to go. I don't have to ask her anymore, she just either tells me and goes, or just goes on her own. She's been doing great and she even took a nap in panties yesterday and stayed dry. It's also pretty pointless to put a diaper on her ever anymore since she just pulls it off to go to the potty and finds panties to put on. She DOES NOT like to potty in a diaper. She even held it while we drove from the grocery store to Lowe's and then had to walk to the other end of the store to find the bathroom. Such a big girl. She has been either dry or almost dry in the mornings when she goes to the potty after she wakes up from the beginning so we'll be just putting her to bed at night in panties very soon. I woke up today not feeling the greatest ever, I got Anna her milk and told her if she needed to potty, she can take her diaper off and put it in the trash and then go. I laid down on the couch and dosed off for a little while. (You know, one of those half awake/half sleep naps where you can hear everything that goes on). When I (sort of) woke up, Anna had put her diaper in the trash, gone potty several times (I was in and out for about an hour and a half....I know, bad mom), and was about to go again all by herself.

We are pretty much good to go on the poop issues we had early on as well. She sometimes still thinks she needs to poop, then sit on the potty, nothing, then says she's done. She repeats this several times until she finally gets it all out. But lately she has realized that when she needs to go, she better go and get it done. YAY! We go see Daddy's family tomorrow which involves a 3 hour drive. I guess I'll just take her little potty with us and pull over when she tells us she needs to go. I'll let you know how it goes.

The Cepica Family

I needed a serious break from the potty business and this family so kindly asked if I'd do their family pictures for them. It was a quick session and we had some fun throwing the frisbee and chasing the geese. Well, the kids did. And these boys, Grant and Graham, are SUPER cute. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Boot Camp: Day Six & Seven

Day Six: Parent's Day Out. Hmm. Well, I thought this day would either go very smoothly or would be a disaster for Lindsey and Nicole, Anna's teachers. Lindsey, the fearless, told me to put her in panties if I wanted and that they'd be able to handle it. I had no doubt they'd handle things, although I doubted Anna's ability. So we went in panties. I gave instructions as best I could and off I went. Anna's stubbornness had once again kicked in the day before and she didn't poop at all. So I thought there may be poop issues for Lindsey and Nicole to deal with. I didn't feel good about that at all. But, nonetheless, warned them about that and they were fine with it. I came back that afternoon and learned that Anna had had two accidents and only pottied for them twice. Not horrible, but not great. I asked what kind of accidents and of course one was poopy. Yuck. Poop in panties?! I should have just told those girls to throw those panties away if that happened. But Lindsey, the fearless, kindly cleaned them and placed them in a bag for me. Anna also pooped again in her diaper during her nap. So, no poop progress that day... But I figured that there was just too much happening around to worry about going to the potty very consistently.

Day Seven went alright. We've just had horrible timing it seems with the sale of our house and trying to find another one to move into. We had to find one quickly since the closing date of our house is November 30th! Happy Thanksgiving to us! That comment was sort of sarcastic and sort of not. So between hauling Anna with us while we house shop and/or having her stay with Aunt Jenni, there's been a little inconsistency for her first week of boot camp. Aunt Jenni is a pro with her 4 other kids and Anna does great with her, I just feel like carting her around everywhere and sometimes having to put her in a diaper just in case has not been beneficial. So we'll keep going. We went to Old Navy, Chili's and the Mall yesterday. She told me a couple of times she needed to potty, I took her, and she went! And another time, I took her without her telling me and she went then as well. So there is light at the end of the tunnel. She's getting much better. It has just been a tiring and stressful week for all of us. I'm going to try a little MyraLax in some juice today. Nurse Jenni says that'll cure the poop issues right up! Temporarily.... ha!

Boot Camp: Day Four & Five

Yesterday went GREAT! Not one accident. Well, we won't count the very small amounts of wetness she had in her panties after yelling at me and running to the potty so I can help her get on her seat. She is really starting to realize when she needs to go and that she can hold it for a little longer. Today went alright. She was great all day even while I have to cart her around and kill time while our house was being inspected. She tried to go potty at Target and at the mall but no luck, but no accidents. She even fell asleep in the car in panties and didn't have an accident. I took her later on to look at houses...no accidents and I never took her to the potty. Although the problems have begun when she needs to poop. She hasn't quite mastered that one yet even though she did it several times when she was 18 months old or so. She will tell us every couple of minutes that she needs to poop, runs into the bathroom holding her bottom, sits and does nothing. I'm not sure if she's been holding it in all day and it begins to hurt her or what. But that's usually when she'll have the little bit of wetness in her draws. Who knows. Maybe I just need to give her a ton of fiber and help it out in that way. She also had a couple of (just wet) accidents tonight while playing a little too hard. I think it was also poop related. Poor thing will be carted around tomorrow too when we go look at more houses. I hope she does alright.

Boot Camp: Day Three

Ok, yesterday by about 11:00am I was ready to quit all this potty mess. Really. But after her nap, she did kind of alright. I decided that I had been putting way too much pressure on her and myself and letting everything get to me. I mean, she has never not been in a diaper her entire life! I forget that part. So this morning, Anna woke up with a pretty nice cough and runny nose so we decided to let Daddy stay at home with her while I went solo to church. A nice break for me as well. Daddy is MUCH more patient with her and she seems to respond well with him helping. He and Anna met me and some friends for lunch and he told me that Anna had done great all morning. Since then she has had NO accidents! That's what I said...NONE...all day! She went almost every time I or Daddy took her to potty and even told us a couple of times that she needed to go. Amazing?! I think so. I'm trying to not get my hopes up because who knows what tomorrow will bring. And I still don't need to put so much pressure on everyone. Deborah, the Boot Camp Queen, gave me some encouragement at church and reassured me that she really will get it soon, and probably sooner than I think. I just need to be consistent. So wish us luck for another good day!

Boot Camp: Day Two

I need a serious pep talk.

p.s.-Thanks for the advice Jenni. I need all the help I can get.