Big Changes

The House - Last Friday we successfully closed on our new place. I think we will start moving some boxes and things this weekend but this coming Monday, 7/21 we will officially move in. We've used the interim time to paint the garage floor and Jacob's room. Bella's room color is still up for discussion at this point. We are still working out the exact shade as the previous color we had for her room was a little too vivid for me after a while.

The Job - This past Tuesday I gave notice of my resignation from Aim after almost 12 years! I was shaking I was so nervous but now that it is done I am so very happy. (Praise God for He has delivered me!) My new job will be as an analyst in the product strategy division of Amegy bank. I start on Monday, 8/4 - very exciting!

The Camera - Our new camera has been selected, purchased, shipped and Will is picking it up from Fedex RIGHT NOW. I'm terribly excited to try it out and have vowed to actually read the manual and learn to use the features . Best of all, you all will have pictures again instead of just me blathering. (Don't hold your breath though - because the upcoming days will be very busy and we'll have to take apart the computer and wait for internet service and load up the software and all that.)

BPA Free Sippy Cups

I have been on the hunt for a BPA free sippy cup for some time now. I have tried a thermos brand stainless steel kind but Bella bangs it so much that I'm afraid she is going to conk herself on the head with it. And it cost $14! $14 - for an empty cup? I'm thinking for $14 it should have come with, say, a decent bottle of wine or something. (For me, not the baby!) So anyways, I was poking around on the Playtex web site and I found, much to my happiness, that most Playtex sippy cups are BPA free. Hooray, because truthfully these were the only kind we really ever loved with Jacob because they are 1. Easy to clean and 2. The valves rarely, if ever, fall out. 3. I like how you can stick the valve to the bottom side of lid to keep them together in the dishwasher. Anyways, here's the link if you want to check it out. It's 11:04 and I'm surfing the net, can't sleep - too excited about closing on the house tomorrow...

Soon

Day after tomorrow we will be closing on the new house!!! We've been over almost everyday lately, working with the builder to get all the small details taken care of. We're down to mostly cosmetic things at this point - paint smudges, missing caulk, things like that. In an interesting turn of events, one of the "big wigs" of Highland Homes has bought the house next to ours. Evidently in this week's team meeting he told our builder guy to be certain that our house was extra perfect! I'm guessing that he doesn't want to have disgruntled homeowners as neighbors! Things like that make me think that God has sense of humor.

Our July 4th Weekend (so far)

You may have noticed the poor quality of the pictures in my last post. I'd guessed it was because I had mistakenly had it on the wrong setting (because that happens) but actually I think it was the beginning of the end. This weekend I went to take pictures of our fun July 4th and our camera screen was absolutely dark and nothing we did would fix it. I think the thing has finally died. My father-in-law took pictures so when I get them I'll post them up.

In the meantime I can tell you that we went to Conroe and got to meet our new tiny two week old niece Luella Ivy (LuLu) for the first time. She rocks! What a sweet cute little baby! Man, you really forget just how teensy tiny newborns really are.

On Saturday afternoon Will and I went out on the boat with Will's Dad and rode around and swam and had a good few hours all to ourselves without kiddos - it was like a date, sort of, super fun. Then we had hot dogs and hamburgers and took Jacob down to the marina to see the fireworks. We've been reading about fireworks (Olivia Forms a Band) but once we got there they were too loud for him and he cried almost the whole time. He was so loud and dramatic (he was yelling - "That one's too big, That one's too spiky! That star is going to get in my mouth! I want my pillow!" - I felt terrible because he was just truly terrified! Poor baby! I think if we had been a little further away maybe it would have gone better.

Today, Will, Jacob, and I all got to go out on the boat and Jacob had a total blast, jumping into the lake with his Dad (wearing a life vest of course) and waving at all the other boats. When we got back I took Bella "swimming" in the not-hot hot tub and Jacob got in too and we messed around with boats in there for a while. After all that both children took long, long naps and then we packed up and headed back home. It was so good to visit and lounge around and have a higher than average child to adult ratio - just like a mini vacation (and boy did we ever need it!)

Since our new house has an upstairs family room we thought it might be nice to have a seating arrangement that would fit all of us for watching movies ( and playing with the new Wii. Will won a Wii in a raffle at work - woo hoo!!!) I finally found a couch that I liked online and this past Saturday we went to check it out in person. Bella says "Hey Mom, How about this one? Oh, and the silver bowl too."

Jacob tries it out while Will checks out the prices.

After the furniture store we took the kids to the Children's Museum at the Woodlands. To be perfectly honest with you - I wasn't all that impressed. The one down in Houston is WAY better. For the price ($5 each, free for Bella) you could certainly have a better time at the Old McDonald's' Farm or the Zoo or well, Jesse Jones park which is free. It was the end of the day and it was kind of "dead" in there, a little grubby, and there just wasn't all that much to do. One thing that was fun was that they have this big pit of rubber mulch with dinosaur bones hidden in it and the kids can get in there and dig with dump trucks and shovels.

They also have a small room of animals. Here's Jacob checking out some butterflies with a magnifying glass. For littler kids they just had some mats on the floor. Again, I was spoiled to the super awesome giant baby playroom that the one in Houston has. Bella did find this one block that she LOVED and insisted on putting in her mouth.

This was poor judgement on my part because Sunday morning she woke up not feeling very well and we stayed home from church so she could sleep in. She was fine by later that afternoon but I'm positive it is because I let her chew on that stupid green block! For what it is worth - if you head over to the Woodlands, skip the children's' museum, kids will be just as happy playing on the free indoor playground, messing with the outdoor fountains while you drool over stuff in Pottery Barn Kids and a taking a few spins on the carousel! Lastly, I was playing blocks with Jacob on Sunday afternoon and I noticed he kept using these two particular blocks all along his "roads". I asked him and he informed me in that really patient way that kids talk to their parents about really obvious stuff - that these were flashlights (I think he meant stop lights) to tell the cars when to stop and go. Brilliant!!! Like all mothers I think my son is super smart and an all around fun person to spend the afternoon with. See the stop light? Neat huh?