April 30: Blogger Fail

I have been working on a big post with lots of pictures of our outdoor fun over the past couple of days.  But Blogger is not letting me upload any pictures tonight.  So, I guess I will have to try again tomorrow.

April 27: Preschool Songs

Because I never get tired of listening to her sing, here are a few songs that Audrey sang for us this morning.

This is her preschool class "theme" song.  (Ignore Isla's fussing in the background.  She really wanted to hold my phone while I was recording)

Her class has been learning the fruits of the spirit all year.  This week, for the first time, I heard her sing a song to go along with them.  So sweet!

April 23: More phone pics

I'm cleaning up my phone, so time for some more iphone pics and videos.  Here are a few that haven't made it to the blog yet.

I love watching the girls play together, and I am always trying to capture those moments on video.  Here is a video from February.  They were dancing to the Dora dance game on the Wii.

 These pictures were from our last Sprouts session in March. 

This is Audrey doing one of her favorite things:  singing, dancing and acting out songs.  This is a song from the show Sofia the First.

 I keep thinking that Isla is getting taller.  Until I see pictures like this, where she looks so teeny tiny! She goes back to the endocrinologist in about a month, and I'm very curious to see how much she has really grown in the past three months.

 I posted this picture on Instagram, but I don't think I posted it here.  This was Isla's first time to play dress up, and she was SO adorable!  She especially loved the shoes, and she frequently wants to put them on and walk in them.

This picture was taken tonight, after Audrey finished performing a Cinderella show.  Notice the socks on Audrey's hands.  That is what she uses as Cinderella's gloves when she goes to the ball.

I have a few more videos to post, but they are taking forever to upload and I'm tired of waiting.  I've got to finish dusting and vacuuming in preparation for our house appraisal tomorrow.  The house is looking pretty much perfect, so now we just need the appraiser to be able to see that it is worth what we sold it for! 

April 20: Iphone pics of the day (with a house update too)

The girls spent some time painting and drawing this morning.  Isla is starting  to be more purposeful in her scribbles.  They still mostly just look like scribbles, but she will tell us what she is trying to draw.  Then she concentrates really hard and takes her time trying to draw it.  Often she will try to write letters (O's and A's, as she calls them) because Audrey is always writing letters.  She is also now trying to draw people (even though they don't look like people at all).  I took this picture while she was drawing Daddy.  Such concentration!

Someone commented on Facebook about how well she grips her pen.  She does!  She has always naturally held writing utensils in the correct way.  Unlike Audrey, who still doesn't quite have the right grip yet.  I'm thinking maybe Isla will be artistic...who knows?

Audrey likes to put on shows.  Which means she wants to listen to princess movie soundtracks on Spotify, dress up, and sing all the songs.  She will often create an audience using her dolls and stuffed animals and us.  When the show is over, then she wants people to come meet the princess.  Today, after finishing her Belle show, she invited Isla to come and meet Belle and get her picture taken with Belle.

This afternoon, Daniel took the girls to the park that is right next to our new house (we haven't been to that park before, so they wanted to scope it out!).  They all had a great time.  Daniel said the park was nice, and it is right next to the pool, so he got a good view of the pool too.  While they were playing at the park, they met two other girls who live in the neighborhood.  Audrey and a  girl named Lucy played together.  Daniel talked to their mom, and she had lots of good things to say about living in the neighborhood.  She also said she is excited to see more girls move in!  We are excited to move to a neighborhood with more families and kids...and a neighborhood where the families and kids are out playing and interacting with each other. 

This is Audrey saying goodbye to her new friend.

Now, we just want to move to that neighborhood, so everything needs to continue to go well with our house selling process.  We had the inspection last week, and it went fairly well.  The buyers asked us to fix a few minor electrical problems and to repair part of our chimney, which is starting to fall apart on the roof.  It doesn't sound like any of those issues will be too difficult or expensive to correct, so that is very good!  We also passed the radon inspection with flying colors! 

All that is left now is the appraisal.  The appraisal was supposed to be on Friday with an appraiser who has a bad reputation, but it was cancelled for an unknown reason.  We were glad that it was cancelled, and we were hoping that it would get rescheduled with a different appraiser.  Well, it did get rescheduled (for this Wednesday) but with the same appraiser.  Boo!  Daniel and I are getting pretty nervous about it, because this appraiser is known to appraise houses lower than most other appraisers.  That could be bad, as we are counting on all the money from the sale of this house to go towards the purchase of the new house.  We can't really afford to come down from our selling price.

This whole system is frustrating and so subjective.  If we have someone who is willing to buy our house, why can't they just buy our house?  They think it is a fair price, and we think it is a fair price.  We did our research, and I really do feel like we priced it fairly.  So why does the entire sale of our house have to hinge on the opinion of this appraiser?  Oh, it's such a stressful process!  I CANNOT WAIT to be done with all of it!

April 16: Crazy Hair Day

It was Crazy Hair Day at Audrey's preschool today.  Audrey requested that we fix her hair like Cindy Lou Who from The Grinch again.  It didn't turn out quite as cute as the first time we attempted this hair style, but Audrey loved it.  And Isla kept pointing to her and saying, "tall!  tall!"

Speaking of hair, Isla finally wore her hair in pigtails for the first time on Sunday.  We attempted pigtails once before, but she screamed until I took them out. 

For the past two Sundays, I have managed to get Isla to leave a bow in her hair for church.  It started on Easter Sunday.  I tried everything I could think of to get her to accept the bow.  Finally I said, "Isla you can wear a bow and show it to Adam at church," and she gladly agreed to this plan.  (Adam is a friend of ours, and Isla adores him).  When we got to church on Easter Sunday, we walked all over church until we could find Adam and show him Isla's bow.

So for the pigtails, I first fixed Audrey's hair in pigtails and made a big deal about how pretty they were.  Then I told Isla that she could have her hair in pigtails too, and she could show them to Mimi and Papaw (who were in town for the day).  Isla liked that idea, and she liked her pigtails too!

 

Isla left her pigtails in all through church.  Here she is at lunch after church, showing off with her ice cream spoon!

 This pig-tailed girl wanted to show off for the camera too!

April 14: House Update

I'm sure only a handful of you (if that!) are interested in reading all the nitty, gritty details of our house selling/buying process.  I'm only posting this here so that I will remember it.  So if I ever get the idea in my head again that I want to move, I will remember what hard work it is and how stressful it is and how I really don't want to ever do it again!

We had the inspection on our new house last week.  It was perfect.  Nothing wrong, and everything was in great condition.  The inspector said that he wished he could move in there!  So that is very good news.  We weren't really expecting anything to be wrong, but it is reassuring to know that we have picked a good house!

Tomorrow, we have the inspection on our current house.  We have been working hard to fix up a few little things and get the house spotlessly clean (yet again!).  We don't know of any major problems, but in an old house, you never know what they will find.  Keeping our fingers crossed for a good report!

On Friday, we have the appraisal on our current house.  Our realtor told us that the appraiser who has been assigned to our house has been appraising houses low lately.  If he appraises our house below our selling price, that could be really bad.  So let's hope that doesn't happen.  I would hate to see this all fall through now that we have made it this far into the process!

April 13: 5K

The girls and I got up early to go watch Daniel run a 5K this morning.  Our church has started to sponsor a 5K race each year to raise money for missions.  Last year, the weather was cold and windy and rainy.  It was just awful.  Audrey still remembers last year.  I made the girls stay in the car, while I went out in the rain to take some pictures and periodically come back to the car to check on them. As soon as I told Audrey what we were doing today, she said, "No!  I don't want to stay in the car by myself again!"

Well, the sun was out in full force today.  But it was still cold.  Much, much colder than last year.  And it was windy.  Much more windy than last year.  I think the temp was 35 when we got there, but the winds were at least 25 mph if not more, making it feel much, much colder.  All the EZ up tents they were using for the race were blowing away.  It was so cold!

Despite the cold, the girls were determined to watch Daddy run.  We made signs and Audrey brought a whistle to use to cheer for Daddy, but it was just too cold and windy to get them out.  We huddled under a blanket to watch Daddy and our friends Brooks and Jody start the race.  (You can't see them in this picture, but it was really hard to find them in the crowd at the starting line!)

Once the race started and they were out of sight, we went inside a nearby restaurant until the runners circled back around to cross the finish line.  Then we went back out in the cold to watch the finish.  We could barely see Daniel when he finished because someone came and stood right in front of us!  But I managed to get this picture right after he finished.

The highlight of my morning (besides cheering for Daniel of course!) was hearing Isla say, "Go Da!  Go Da!  Go Da!" over and over again.  It was the first time she has ever put two words together! 

April 12: Garage Sale

I am exhausted and cold and wind-burned.  Garage sales are a lot of work!

We were open from 7-5 today.  And it was really, really cold.  And windy.   I spent most of my time hugging this space heater.  If I was right on top of it, I could feel some warmth.

Despite the cold weather, we had a great turnout for our sale.  Tons of people were out and ready to find good deals.  My total profit for the day was $352.45.  That makes spending the day in the cold a little bit better!  We were planning to open up again tomorrow, but we pretty much sold all of the good stuff by noon today.  With only cheap junky stuff left, it wasn't really worth it to spend any more time in the cold.  We packed all the leftovers up to send to Goodwill and called it a garage sale success!

April 9: Cleaning Challenge Day 9

Today's task was to surface clean the bedrooms.  Our bedrooms are almost always a mess.  No one ever sees the bedrooms, and we really only use them to sleep.  So I just don't have a lot of motivation to keep them clean.  They were definitely in need of some picking up today!

First, the girls' room. 

That pile of clothes on top of the dresser are size 18 month summer clothes.  I found them today when I was going through my garage sale boxes.  Last spring, when Isla was wearing size 12 month clothes and growing rapidly, I assumed she would not be able to wear 18 month clothes this summer.  I assumed wrong.  She is still fitting very comfortably in 18 month clothes, so I am happy that I found these before I sold them!

Once everything was put away and picked up, the girls' room looked like this:

Next up, our bedroom.

That huge pile of clothes by the wall is Daniel's clothes to go in our garage sale on Friday.   Then there was some laundry to put away and a bed to make.  I am really, really bad about making the bed.  Why bother when you are just going to sleep in it and mess it all up again?  =)

 I do admit that the room looks much, much nicer when the bed is made!  And when all the clothes are picked up and put away. 

The blanket on the floor by our bed is Audrey's "bed" where we let her sleep if/when she comes into our room in the middle of the night.  We used to try to put her back in her bed, but then Isla would wake up and it was just a mess.  Now, Audrey comes in at some point in the night, and we just let her stay on the floor.  She does a good job of coming in and getting under her blanket and going right back to sleep.  And since we started letting Audrey sleep on our floor, Isla has gone back to sleeping through the night.

April 8: Warmer Weather, Finally!

Spring is finally here!  For the past few days, the temps have been in the 70s.  And I couldn't be happier!  I love, love, love warmer weather.  Did I mention I love it?

The girls also seem to love the warmer weather, and they both enjoy being able to play outside.

Audrey has finally mastered her Big Wheel tricycle.  When she first got it, her legs were too short for the pedals.  Then, once she was tall enough, she had a really hard time getting started with the pedaling, and she would just give up and scoot around with her feet.  She can now pedal herself around (really fast!) quite efficiently, and she has been having a blast driving up and down the little sidewalk in our backyard and in our driveway.

Isla is a little too short to be able to scoot around on any of our ride on toys by herself very quickly.  But she does think this car is pretty cool, especially when one of us pushes her around in it.

 Isla was not too happy when she put her hands in her car and got them wet though!  My girls are so prissy.

We went for a walk around our block this afternoon, and I let Audrey ride her trike.  She had so much fun.   So much more space to explore than our little backyard sidewalk!

 Well, it was fun, until we ran into sidewalks covered in gumballs.  (This picture was not posed.  It is just Audrey pouting in her finest fashion!)

But she eventually figured out how to lift her bike up over the gumballs and just keep going.  Isla had fun walking up and down the sidewalks too.

I am just so much happier now that the weather is warmer!  Except that it is supposed to get cold again this weekend.  That stinks, because I am having a garage sale this weekend.  The high on Friday is supposed to be 46, and I am going to be sitting outside all day.  Hopefully we will still have some garage salers brave enough to shop in the colder temps.

Also, Day 8 of the Money Saving Mom cleaning challenge was to vacuum and sweep all floors.  I didn't do all the floors, but I did vacuum two rooms.  So I think that counts for something!

April 5: Cleaning Challenge Day 5

On Monday, I started to participate in the 30 Day Cleaning Challenge with Money Saving Mom.  On Wednesday, I stopped participating in the challenge.  Go me!  I made it through a whole two days (out of thirty!) before failing.

I am going to keep trying though.  For Day 5, the task is:  surface clean the kitchen and living room. 

When I first read that, I thought, "Wait a second, I just did that!"  Then I looked at my kitchen and living room and realized that they most definitely needed to be cleaned again.

Here's the kitchen before:

 And all cleaned up!

 And the living room...not looking too good:  (We definitely "live" in our living room.  We do everything in here, which is why it always looks like this!!)

 And all cleaned up!

I really need to mop the kitchen floor and vacuum the living room.  But at least everything got picked up today in these rooms, and the dishes are done.

Speaking of the living room, remember our mudroom bookshelf?  It is working out beautifully to hold our coats, shoes and junk.  I love it!  I'm a little sad because our new house has a coat closet, which I thought I wanted.  But this mudroom bookshelf has been working so well for us, I'm sad to see it go back to being just a plain old bookshelf.

April 4: New Living Room Mood Board

We got to walk through our new house again tonight.  I took a lot of pictures, but I don't feel comfortable sharing them here as the house isn't really ours yet.  Once we take possession, I'm sure I will post a ton!

In the new house, we are gaining one extra room.  This room will serve as my piano room where I can teach lessons, and I also want to turn it into a formal living room area.  So I have been brainstorming ideas on what to do with the space.  Right now, the only thing we have to put in the room is the piano.  

I spent way too much time today making this mood board with ideas for our living room decor.  I don't know how much of this stuff will actually end up in our living room, but it is fun to dream!  I am trying to stretch myself out of my home decor comfort zone by working with more patterns and brighter colors.  Our house right now has a lot of brown and red, and I am ready for a change.  (Please ignore my lazy photoshop skills with the mood board.  I was just making it for fun, not perfection!)

I also have been playing around with The Make Room, a free online room planner from Urban Barn.  It is really fun!  Here is an example of how we might arrange the furniture in this new living room.

April 3: Children's Museum

My friend Lindsey and I took our kids to a nearby children's museum today.  It is spring break this week for Audrey's preschool, and I wanted to do something fun and out of the norm with the girls.  At one point, we had talked about taking a little family vacation this week.  But then we bought a house, and that costs a lot of money!  So, it was a trip to the museum instead.

We all had a good time.  It was pretty crowded, but the kids all played well and seemed to enjoy themselves.  Here are some pictures from our day!