Congratulations!!

Stephen called me a little bit ago to tell me his twin brother Chad and wife Julie welcomed a baby girl into their family today at noon! We are so excited everything went well. Ada woke from her nap a minute later quite upset. I calmed her and since she was still half-asleep and Odessa was asleep in the bunk above, I laid down on my bed with her on my chest. I was surprised when she fell asleep again since we never really do that sort of thing. I couldn't help but think of Chad and Julie's new baby and compare Ada now and then. Her 30+ pounds made it difficult for me to breathe and her legs stretched almost all the way to my knees. Not my little girl anymore. It was hard to imagine she was ever tiny enough to curl up on my chest. It was such a precious moment I even turned off the phone when it rang although I saw it was a call from our real estate agent. I didn't want to wake her and ruin the moment.
Later I listened to the message from our agent telling me we have bought a house. Wow. That's a crazy feeling! With some inspiration from my sister's experiences we came up with a new plan last night that I thought would make both parties happy. And I guess it did. Papers are signed! Surreal. New babies, new houses, I feel like there are so many new chapters in everyone's lives these days. Happy day.

We are buying this . . . . .

. . . . . so we can get this . . . .. . . . . and this view across the street- unbuildable green space

Peel me off the ceiling

My agent warned me she would have to peel me off the ceiling when she told me what the counter offer on the house was last night. I didn't get that upset . . . . initially. Then I started thinking about it later and I admit, I got a bit huffy. Does this woman want to sell a house or not? Because she is not acting that way.
We asked her to fix a few things and also adjust the negotiated price to compensate for the things we would have to fix. Not only is she only fixing one item (the rest she says are fine) she changed the price to make up for the things she is fixing!! Essentially, she gave us a WORSE deal than we had before! Unbelievable. So we are giving her one more chance and if she doesn't come around, the rambler is history and we move on to other houses. Gotta start looking around again. . . .

no news yet and 2 seasons in one day

I realized I said we would know by Friday about the house. She asked for an extension so she could get some bids on the work we are asking for. We should know by Tuesday.
Stephen was going to go snow camping with the Young Men in the Stake this weekend with a friend who works with the YM, but there turned out to be more leaders than youth, so Stephen and said friend stayed home. So both families went sledding instead. It was a blast. Even though I haven't squeezed into my snow suit for a couple years, I was able to magically somehow zip it up and roll around in the snow with the girls.We came home to Seattle, sunny and warm like Easter weather and Stephen got the hankering to clean up the yard. He worked on it with kitchen shears and a hand saw. Awesome. Gotta get that boy some yard tools if we are going to get that house. Odessa and I took our cameras up the street to take pictures of the house on the corner where there are crocuses popping out of the lawn everywhere, it makes it look just like a Easter egg hunt - like they scattered eggs in the lawn. So pretty.
Stephen discovered that Odessa can sound out letters and make words. She wanted to know the name of a video she was holding, so he taught her to sound out the letters T-R-A-M-P. So the first word Odessa read was Tramp- awesome Stephen. But now she is spelling M-O-M, and that is much nicer. I take pictures of their best work in case it gets lost.

(that's my belly-button, cavernous eh?)

We informally work on one word a day. Tonight she wanted to find the book Good Night Gorilla.
Me: What letter makes the sound "guhh"?
Odessa: G!
Me: Ok, what makes the sound "ouuuu"?
Stephen: This is kind of a trick question. (we both were sure she didn't know)
Odessa: hmmmm . . . . . O, O ?

Naturally, Stephen and I erupted in cheers at this point.

Me: How did you know that??
Odessa: Just using my super smart brain. (pointing to it and making that face that says "silly mom" and "I feel so smart" at the same time)

Listening to her monologue from the dining room while she searched for the book was hilarious and one of the highlights of my week.
Odessa: Guh, guh, g-o-o-d . . . . . . no! This one has a picture of a cow!

Weightier matters

I've been fretting about this house decision. I'm worried about putting too much money down and not having cash for repairs. I've been wringing my hands over the owner being "taken aback" by our list of "fix it now".
Then last night Stephen and I attended the temple. For anyone who isn't a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I encourage you to check out this website so you can read more about them. Last night, we took the place of many couples who died a long time ago and were sealed together in their names. They have the choice to accept this sealing ordinance or not. As I listened to the promises given to these people through us, I realized this whole house decision is really insignifigant in the grand scheme of things. Life is a small dot in the eternities and making a house decision is a tiny speck on that dot. So what if we don't finance the house perfectly? Does it really matter if the owner fixes one thing and not another? I know that these things do matter and we should research and take our time making these decisions, but when you have an "out of body" glance at your life from a million miles away, the weight of these things seem to lift off your shoulders and just float away.

headaches

My long-lived, unloved virus moved from my chest to my nose last week and took permanent residence there. I have not smelled or tasted much since last Tuesday. Wow, what a sensory impairment. And right on Valentines Day. Hope you enjoyed your steak honey, I can't taste mine at all. . . .
Anyway, sinus headaches and radiating pain through my whole face and teeth finally drove me to the Dr today and I got some antibiotics. yay. My sinus headache was so bad Friday night I was actually wishing that I was just giving natural birth again- seriously. When the PA asked me today on a pain scale how was my pain, I told her that and she just ran out and got me a script and offered to write one for codeine too. Turns out I am a big weenie when it comes to my sinuses.

Other headaches this weekend included the inspection on our would-be home purchase. What a deer-in-the-headlight experience for a first time home buyer. Yes, we reached mutual acceptance last week with the seller on a price. That led to the inspection on Friday. There were more things wrong than we suspected, but our inspector and realtor kept assuring us this was a normal length list. I just started imagining all the things we would have to fix as home owners. Stephen saw his Saturdays being sucked into home and yard care. We are not people that would shy away from this responsibility, we come from long lines of people who worked hard to improve their homes and had huge gardens and tons of yard work. I guess renting has spoiled us a bit. I had a hard time focusing all weekend on the numbers game: what are we going to ask her to fix and what monetary credits will we ask for? Stephen kept changing our loan scenarios and I had to just excuse myself and lie down once in a while. That guy just can't sit still when he's home. Good thing we are getting him the biggest project- ever.
We'll know in 3 days if she accepts our terms or not and I should know by then if this antibiotic is helping me kick this for once and for all.

don't ever read this book to your kids

We used to have a real problem with demanding little girls. A while ago Stephen started shouting "NO!" at the girls when they DEMANDED something like "get me more milk" without saying "please". It always shocked them and only took a couple times for them to learn to say "please".
Then I checked this book out from the library without perusing it first:

It's called Eat Your Peas Loiuse and this little girl won't eat her peas until the very end when her Dad says "please?"
Now Odessa says "No" over and over when we ask her to do something without saying "please" every time. Drives me nuts and if you are of the opinion that parents shouldn't always have to say please, I recommend avoiding this book when you see it.

fun facts

• the girls got some hand-me-down princess shoes from an older girl in the ward. They LOVE wearing them around. I get to act out the part of the ugly step sister all the time whose feet are too big to fit. It's great. Flashbacks to being called "big girls" on basketball teams (i.e. "big girls practice posting-up on this court")

• the girl's other new favorite game is wrapping presents for themselves and me and opening them. Odessa hunts around for something you already own, wraps it and makes you close your eyes until she presents it to you with a "Happy Birthday!". Then you open it and act very surprised. She can use the tape and tie ribbons by herself too.
  

• a couple of days I tried sleeping in because I was particularly sick. I learned just how independent my girls are: Odessa: "Ada, let me help you. You can't wear those leggings. I'll do it . . . . . because mom is sick!" They get themselves dressed and Ada takes off her night diaper and puts it in the garbage (or dirty clothes hamper, we are still working on that one).

• Odessa would come and consult me on something and then pull up my covers and say "you go back to bed mom, you're sick" and then shut my door.
  

• Ada crawls into bed with me and whacks me on the head "GET ME SOME CEREAL".

Houses

My cough continues to keep me home except runs to the grocery store (and house hunting). My appetite came back just in time for all the super bowl foods to go on sale. Super. We had a "party sub" for dinner last night. How can you pass up a 2lb sandwich for 4.99? Baby back ribs tomorrow night. I realized I haven't even read many stories to the girls lately, it triggers my cough. Before this we were going to the gym almost daily, this really bites. Thankfully the girls are getting better.

I think we have decided on a house! It was hard, it was one of the first houses we saw and we always thought we needed to keep looking although it kept drawing us back. It's still the only house out of all the ones we've seen that we feel warm and fuzzy about inside. That's probably because an older lady lives there now and it's furnished and smells just like a grandma. Warm and fuzzy inducing, for sure. The smell in the kitchen yesterday was EXACTLY like my grandma McKay's kitchen and I almost started crying. Amazing how the smell of toast mixed with roast and old curtains can sell a house. It's a 3 bedroom 2 bath rambler, so not huge. We kept thinking we needed to try and get something bigger, but the sacrifices we had to make to get more space weren't worth it. The other house we were considering has 3 sets of steps to get in to the house and only street parking which is always muddy. The neighbor doesn't drain his property properly and it always makes a cesspool (according to the other neighbors). I stepped in it to launch myself into my car and instead slipped ALL THE WAY down my backside and kept sliding under my car! Could have seriously hit my head. As it was, I got mud all over me, a goose egg on my shin and pulled all kinds of muscles in my back. Imagine the girl's surprise, one minute I was trying to calm them down (they had been sitting in the car for a while) and all of a sudden I disappeared under the car! That was the point I realized that getting kids in and out of that car and all those steps was NOT going to be worth the extra space the house has. Besides, it had a puny yard. ppppfffffttttttt. Now to get all the offer stuff done . . . . I'll let you know how it goes.