YAWN...

There's a lot I need to catch up on but I'm too tired tonight to cover more than the basics.

Work has been stressful for me lately - we're just really busy and it is the classic situation where I need to train others so that I won't be so burdened but I'm so burdened that I can never find the extra time to train someone to help me out and so the cycle continues! I thought it was a sad statement that I had to set the crock pot to cook during the day so that we'd have dinner at night and set my reports to run overnight while I went home - talk about not having enough hours in the day!

Our house is officially "on the market". You can see the HAR.com listing here if you are so inclined. http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearch.cfm?mlnum=4622049&backButton=Y It is truly bizarre to see photos of my home up on the Internet. Yes, I realize that this blog is on the net but it just seems weird for some reason to see my bathroom and my kid's rooms up on the net. I figure it must be payback for the hundreds of times that I have have looked at houses and critiqued the pictures! Of course, me being me, I'm totally sentimental about this house - part of me hopes it sells right away so the anxiety will be over, the other part of me hasn't figured out how to say good bye yet!

In the midst of all of this, the children are both constantly amazing me with all the new things they are doing. Bella LOVES to swing (Can you tell?)

Did I mention she is sitting up now?

Jacob riding his tricyle on the greenbelt

Almost ready to crawl - she gets up on all fours and just rocks, I have a feeling it won't be long now.

Jacob is really blossoming, he talks about all kinds of things now. The other day he starts talking about this hippo faucet cover we used to have in the bathtub (it was this rubber hippo that fit over the spout) and he tells me "We had to throw it away because it got all oldy". He must have over heard me saying to Will that it got "moldy". I couldn't believe he remembered that, it was over a year ago.

6 Months Old

To celebrate turning 6 months old (actually on the 13th) Bella got her ears pierced. She didn't like being made to hold still but otherwise did not cry or act uncomfortable in any way. I just never wanted her to have any memory of pain or fear so I wanted it done while she was still tiny. She looks so beautiful to me!

After we arrived home I got a few shots of the kids in the afternoon sunshine.



I also have to share these pics of her wearing an adorable little jean skirt given to her by her Auntie Leaf (Leaf is how Jacob says Leigh). I've been waiting until she was big enough to wear it.



This week we started her on a few bites of rice cereal, she's still getting the hang of it but she loves it and grabs the spoon from my hand - little miss independent!



New updates on the house - we ARE going to build on the big lot. We have compromised with the builder on a modified version of the facade with the porch. The upper window section above the porch will be stone instead of brick and it will be two rounded keyhole windows instead of the one big rectangular window. We had felt like it was too boxy before so now there will be two little rounded hobbit windows. It feels great to have that part decided. Now, we just have to get our house ready to place on the market and hope that it sells!

This last picture is just one of Jacob down at the new lakefront shopping center. I just thought it was sweet.

Better Home & Gnawin's

Quite a bit has happened since my last entry. What follows is a detailed account of what's going on - not for the sqeamish! On Monday I went in to have a root canal. The x-rays revealed that the root of the tooth was not in good enough shape to make the root canal sucessful. The endodontist (root canal dentist) suggested I get it extracted and replace the tooth with either a bridge or an implant. A bridge is where they file the teeth on either side down to nubs and string up a false tooth between the nubs and cover the nubs with more false teeth. So basically you lose 3 teeth to replace 1. And they last about 7 years. Given that I'm only 35 that's not such a great option. The other option, an implant, is where they place a titanium screw into your jaw bone then wait 6 months for the bone and gum around it to set. Then they place a pointy thing onto the screw head and then place a tooth onto the screwhead. It should basically last a lifetime but they don't know for certain as the technology is only 15 years old, but the ones placed 15 years ago are still going strong.

So we choose an implant, we go to the Oral Surgeon on Tuesday and he extracts my tooth and clears away all the infected gum and bone. Sadly, he decides there is not enough healthy bone left to place the titanium screw. So I have to have a bone graft. This adds 6 months or so to the previously described process - we must now wait for my gum and jaw bone to heal up around the graft material and then the screw can be placed. I look human today except for some swelling and a large yellow bruise. Most of the week was spent looking like the elephant man and pretty much unable to talk or eat much. I guess the silver lining is that I've lost some weight and Will's had some peace and quiet. The only limitation I have right now is that I can't eat anythig crunchy for 6-12 weeks. How will I possibly survive that long without tortilla chips???!!! I guess I will just have to eat queso with a spoon. Hmm. On second thought that may not be so bad, I've always wanted an excuse to do that.

OK, so on to an update on the house situation. The builder and developer have come back to us and said they will build our desired house on our desired lot if we will be OK with our least favorite facade. It is a brick and stone front with a front porch supported by curved wooden timbers. It is like a little cottage, very cute, it just isn't our favorite.



The other two facades have these really charming rounded stone doorways that we love, just like a little hobbit house.



So we have to decide what we want to do. I think we obviously will spend more time in an awesome back yard and of course, in the house itself, rather than looking at the front of the house. I guess in real estate you always compromise a little on one thing or another. We could have the facade we want on a different lot but all the upstairs windows would have views of nothing but the roof of the houses on either side. Our current lot is pie shaped and so the view opens out a lot more as the house would be set on an angle relative to the ones on each side. I think I'm just in love with the large lot, I want to own as much Texas as possible!

An' Another Thing

I LOVE youtube.com. It takes all the crazy randomness of life and puts it all in one searchable place. People just never fail to astound, shock, amuse and entertain me with the things they choose to do. Mostly though, I just enjoy the really random stuff you can find. Here is some guy's Dad singing one of my favorite Lyle Lovett songs. I like how the guy sings and plays, his earnestness and talent and also how that kid in the background ducks behind the corner and then runs across at the end.

About as much fun as...

So have you ever heard anyone say "It's about as much fun as a root canal?" well I guess I'll understand what that means first hand on Monday. I went to the dentist today and happened to mention a little place on my gum that seemed infected. Turns out that the nerve on one of my teeth is abcessed, YUCK. The tooth is fine, it isn't from decay or poor dental hygeine or anything(I just feel like I should say that). He said it may be that because I had braces as an adult, they had to use so much force to move the teeth that it caused damage to the root. Wahh Wahh Wahh, I'm being a big baby about the whole thing! But there really isn't any alternative and left untreated you can actually die of an abcessed tooth, so I guess I'll have to get it over with. They had wanted to do it TODAY and I talked them into waiting so that it dind't interfere with Will's birthday - and I just wanted to put it off a little!

In other news... I knifty knitted a little hat for Bella -


she looked like a super cool skater chick in it (Will says it is too much like the Aggie color but really it is rose pink).

Also notice how well she is holding herself up on her arms! At school her teacher Ms. Isabel told us that they can't put Bella in the bouncer anymore because she kicks with her feet so hard she could tip over! She's getting so big and strong. At her last check up she was 13 pounds, 24 inches long. Dr. Stanley says she will probably not be particularly tall (however my brother is super tall so you never know) but her growth is steady and she is proportional and healthy. To me, she seems to grow overnight!

The other picture is me standing next to the sold sign on our lot. We still haven't heard back from the developer to know if we will for certain be able to build on that lot or not, but we're hoping to hear something on that soon.