Lots of family time....

Our house - total bomb. Don't even think of dropping over right now without me apologizing profusely. I'm in the middle of pulling crap out of holes and purging stuff left and right to prepare for this huge move.

Part of my kitchen. Never ending dishes!

We stayed home this weekend because my girlfriend is having a wedding shower. The good thing about this is I can get some things done around the house. This morning Justin was up pretty early as usual (6:30 am like clockwork) and so I took him downstairs and while he was in his walker, I pulled all the stuff out of the tupperware cabinet and purged and organized that. I also went through my big pantry cabinet in which I store all my electric appliances and organized that. Then I went through our pantry and got 18 lbs of food ready to go to Curves for their local food drive. Less stuff to take with us during the move. Phew....

Nothing much going on with the move. There is a rumor that we may be moving earlier than December/January - maybe as early as August but everything is just rumors now - nothing concrete so I'm waiting for some concrete answers. Joe gives his decision next week so that will be nice. After that I believe they will start organizing the pre-commitment trip. Joe is escatic - he's hoping we will have a game room (that's the popular thing in Texas) and he has huge ideas to make it a huge Detroit Tigers room. He's been looking at ebay for things to put in it. He's so funny. Other things - we found out the house across the street that has been for sale for TWO years was listed for $186,000 when it went up. We looked it up this week and it's only listed at $155,000. I can't believe it. I hope we make SOMETHING on this house after 5 years! The Michigan housing market is AWFUL. I can't believe it. Our tax assesment on our property was actually LOWERED this year! Well, it is what it is.

This week we took Joey out on his bike. He did pretty well. The helmet I think is just a little big on him. We have to teach him how to stop the bike. Sometimes he peddles and just pushes back and doesn't realize that stops him. Amazing how you forget how hard things are like riding a bike - things we take for granted!

Joey with the first helmet he's ever worn.

Joey and his new bike.

The crocus are coming up!

Justin - his first time in the grass!

Justin seeing how it tastes. I'm bummed I didn't get his reaction on film. He wasn't so excited about it. I wasn't about to tell him not to eat it. Kids have to learn things on their own through their own experiences and eating a little bit of grass isn't harmful!

More grass inspecting.

Well in June I'm shooting two weddings back to back. One is my brother's (he's having a Pagan wedding so it's not traditional - therefore he has no bridesmaids or best men or anything). Then Joe's mom's friend is having a wedding so I'm shooting that. BOTH know I'm not a professional and I've never done a wedding before. I figure what the heck - give it a try! SOOOO - I went out and bought some new TOYS. Check out my new flash bracket! OMG it's AWESOME!!! I paid $119 off ebay for it and it included the flash cord! This is the best kind - the camera rotates - not the flash. Not only that it has a cord that hooks into the camera so I can press a button on the flash bracket and it takes photos - so I don't even have to touch the camera!!!! Look at my pointer finger on my ring finger to see where I can activate the flash. See the following photo to see how it moves. OMG it's the BEST! I also got a cover for my flash so it's more diffused and not so harsh. I'm soooo excited!

Vertical view.

Portrait view. Check out how I'm holding the bracket the same way but the camera rotates. It's SWEET!!!!! Doesn't it make me look more professional?

Today I went to a Mom2Mom sale and got a few summer outfits for Justin. We did mostly errands today and hung out as a family and did a LOT of family time - which is great. Our kids are so loving and wonderful.

These photos were taken in Joey's room. Joe and Joey were playing soccer with the beach ball. Justin was hanging out on the ground and watching everything. Every now and then they gave the ball to him to play with.

Here is his plush soccer ball.

Here's his soccer ball and froggie.

I love the angle on this one.

Joe and Joey wrestling and hugging.

Another of Justin watching the boys.

Joey accidentally hit Justin the face with the ball. After he was done crying, Joey gave Justin kisses.

Hey mom, can I join in the fun?

Check out my new glasses! I LOVE them!! Here's one of Joey and I.

Sasha and I.

Another of Joey and I. I LOVE this photo!

Well more of an update on the boys.

Joey - no more #2 on the potty. I hope he gets this down soon. He's been wonderfully sweet. He's starting to ride a big boy bike (see above). WOW!

Justin - at his last dr. wellness visit - he was about 6 1/2 months old and 16.81 lbs (25%) and 26 inches long (26%). This was on 3/19. He loves his walker. We use it downstairs where there is no stairs and he can walk forwards, backwards, sideways and get all over the lower level in it. He even knows how to run over Joey's train tracks in it - which causes a big scene with Joey. Joey will say, "No JUSTIN" and push Justin back away from his train tracks and put the exersaucer in front of him so he can't do it again. It's quite funny. He's eating the biter biscuits quite well but doesn't always do so well on the #3 foods that have chunks so we are working through that. He's finally getting some hair. You can't tell via photos but he has some! Yay!!

Birthdays!!!

Wow, this weekend was exciting!

Two big things happened this weekend. 1. Justin is now sitting up on his own in the bathtub and he’s not even 7 months old yet! He did topple over once or twice in the tub, but he was rescued by mommy who was watching him like a hawk and he wasn’t even really phased by it. A few times he dunked his whole face in the water and realized this really wasn’t that good of an idea. Overall – he did great!! I’m so excited for him!

Joey hamming it up in the tub.

Justin was putting toys in his mouth, so Joey started to as well.

Justin sitting up on his own in the tub!

Love this one!

This is my favorite. I love the expression on his face! He had a BLAST!!!

Second – Joey pooped in the potty and not in his undies on Sunday. This was sooo awesome for us. Cleaning dirty underwear is NOT fun in this household so we’ve been waiting (impatiently) for this day and he did it on Sunday, which was Joe’s birthday! We were so excited about this I think we were more excited than Joey! We told Joey if he goes all in the potty and not any of it in his pants we would buy him a train and instead we pulled some toys out of the basement – one was a tonka set that we bought him a few years ago for Christmas and the other was a present we got him for Christmas that we put away because he had sooo much stuff – it was a huge matchbox car twisty ramp. It took about an hour or so to put together but it was quite cool once we got it together and Joey had a blast playing with it.

So Joe’s birthday was Sunday and he turned 29. We had a birthday cake for him – Grandma made him a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with chocolate chips, which Joe requested.

Joe with his birthday cake.

Joey helped Joe blow out the candles!

Justin had to be a part of the excitement!

Joe and his boys!

On Saturday (sorry it’s a bit backwards) we went to Joe’s dad’s side of the family for a celebration for Grandpa Fisher’s birthday. He turned 73. They also made Joe a cake so he got two cakes this weekend. The kids were GREAT this weekend. The weather outside was fantastic (50s and 60s) and so at the Fisher’s we went outside on a nice long walk – saw the cows, went across the new bridge they built that goes over the river and Joey was throwing rocks into it. He was taking dirt and rubbing it between his hands and being a total boy. He played nicely with a new tractor (it’s actually a log skidder) he got while he was at Grandma’s and was very good. Justin was great too. He took a short nap and was in a good mood the whole time. We are so fortunate we have such awesome, well behaved children!

Char (MIL) and Justin!

Grandma Norma

Justin during feeding time. Love the expression!

He's all smiles!

I took a series of these photos in natural light and loved how they turned out. Excuse the pink bib.

He's showing me the train track that he was chewing on.

And yet something else to gnaw on. He won't use his own baby toys. They are too boring. He must use Joey's toys!

He loves to chew on tags. This tag on the bib is no exception. He LOVES his taggy blanket.

Here he is checking out a matchbox truck.

Stopped to check out the camera.

Give me that walmart truck!

Check out his beautiful eyes!

He's showing that he's teething (drool....)

Char again with Justin!

This was when we went to Grandpa Fishers.

Joey on Grandpa Fisher's bulldozer.

Joe and Justin.

Joey on Grandpa's bulldozer.

Their cow.

The new bridge they built.

Grandparent Fisher's house. It was designed to look like a barn.

Justin and Joe out facing towards his dad's house, which is next door.

I LOVE to put Justin in the air like this. He LOVES it. I love this photo!!!

Justin and I on the bridge.

Joey and mud. Need I say more?

Another of me in front of their shed.

Joey playing nicely with his log skidder!

Grandpa blowing out the candles on his cake.

Joey helping daddy blow out the candles on his cake.

Great job Joey!!!

Joey got a new big boy bike on Saturday! We went to Walmart and got him a tonka bike with training wheels so he’s all set for walks at our house! I can’t wait to go on a walk with him and teach him how to transition from his tricycle that his knees go to the handlebars to this new big boy bike! Unbelievable!

Joe and I are getting more and more excited about moving to Dallas. One of my favorite things to do when I’m at Grandma’s house on the weekend is watch the weather channel – it’s kinda soothing to me. We’ve been watching the weather in Dallas and it’s been in the mid 70’s. Here it’s 50 and it’s a heat wave here because it’s even gotten into the 60’s! We talk about the weather. We’ve been looking up houses on the internet in our price range and marvel over how much we can get for the price – it’s amazing! Today at the grocery store we saw a few really really rude people and we talked about what we’ve heard about how Texans are so friendly and they don’t seem to be friendly here and it’s annoying!

Joe and I were just talking about this – we feel guilty because we don’t feel more remorse over leaving! We are actually excited about this. I know that all my friends are here and I know my parents are here and I’m going to HATE not being close to them and things will be hard to adjust to not being able to just travel to their house. At the same time I will be working full time from home (which ROCKS – no commute!), we will have much warmer weather for once, Joe will have awesome opportunities with his new job and we will have a bigger house for the money! We can get out of our house, which has almost decreased in value since we bought it at the top of the market and the market has gone down in Michigan. I’m sad about taking the kids out of the awesome daycare they are in. Joey’s best friend Paige lives here and we’ll be leaving them. I remember when they told us they were maybe moving to Georgia last year and I felt so sad. Now they stayed and we are leaving.

There are so many thoughts going through our heads it’s crazy! We are wanting to look for a house with a pool and 5 bedrooms. So we have been talking about that. We’ve been talking about coordinating the move with selling the house, coordinating packing our house with moving the cats. Coordination of when to actually leave for Texas after our house has been packed. We’ve talked about actually how to get to Texas. We believe it’s going to be close to $2,000 to ship the cats via plane so we are talking about actually driving to Texas when we go to move. It will be a 20 hour drive – more if you take into account potty trips, food trips, stretching, etc. We would drug the cats so they would sleep a lot of the way so they wouldn’t be so stressed out. I just don’t trust the airlines. They ship cats as cargo and I couldn’t deal with anything happening to them. So we’ve been talking about that too.

We’ve been talking about everything. I think what we’ll end up doing is staying home on a Thursday (if this is all possible) and having the movers come and pack everything up and take it down to Texas. We’ll stay the night in our empty house with a pack n play for Justin, and we have two air mattresses which we’ll inflate to sleep on. That next day will be the kids last day at school. Joe and I will be wrapping up stuff here and sleeping a lot of the day. That night when it’s time to leave we’ll pack the kids up and start on our journey, all while they should be sleeping. We’ll drive all night, taking turns. Then in the morning we’ll stop for breakfast, we’ll drive, stop for lunch, drive and then stop for dinner and then finish up around 8pm or so at our new home. That is IF the weather isn’t bad on the way down. If it is, we’ll have to find a hotel that accepts pets and stay one night. I know this won’t be a fun trip down, but we’ll get through it! We’ve talked about getting a GPS system for the car for the trip down and also to have because Dallas will be completely new to us! We also are talking about getting another DVD system installed in the van so if we do these long drives to see family we’ll have something to keep the kids occupied.

So Texas – we never thought Texas. We’ve considered Georgia, North Carolina, Washington, but never Texas. Crazy how life changes – and so fast. One moment you’re at work, and the next moment you’re told your job is moving to another state, far away from where you currently live.

Friday 3/16

Joey got a hold of the soap and dumped half the bottle in. That is why there are SOOO many bubbles. He thought this was great!

Saturday 3/17

All of us on the couch, hanging out - playing with trains!

Justin was controlling the train!

Joey taking time to say hi to the camera.

Monday 3/19

Justin checking out his toys. He likes to chew on his book!

Joey - Santa look alike!

How can the cat be comfortable sitting like this? Ouch!!