It's Official - Want to Buy a House!

Our house is officially on the market. We have already had two showings and gotten some good feedback from our Realtor. He was really happy we decided to install the pergo floors in the rest of the bedrooms. I have to say that I am too impressed by the amazing difference it made especially in the third bedroom!

The "before" pictures were taken during our walk through before we closed on the house June 3rd 2005. The after pictures we took a couple weeks ago for the Real Estate Listing.

LIVING ROOM:

The Living Room from the front door view:



The Living Room from the Kitchen view:



In the Living Room we painted, added a chair rail and stained the woodwork a dark walnut color. Our Realtor told us that while a lot of people may change the colors - he likes it because it gives the room "texture" and a "homey feel".

KITCHEN:

The Kitchen from the living room:

This kitchen is the reason that I wanted to buy this house. I love our cabinet space the layout and counter space! On the other side of the dishwasher there are bar stools - so the counter also serves as a breakfast bar! The curtains came with the house and we liked the look so we kept them and added the curtain on the back door.

BATHROOM:

The full bath:



The full bath has a jacuzzi style tub - which at first I thought was cool but I only used it a handful of times. We didn't change much in this room either - just a new coat of paint.

BEDROOMS:

The Master Bedroom:



In this room we added the really nice vertical shades - mostly because the cats broke the horizontal ones. The vertical blinds not only look nicer, in my opinion, but they give the cats easier access to sit in the windows. We also painted and installed the pergo. The carpet color wasn't bad in this room - but it's amazing how much bigger it looks now that it's pergo.

The Second Bedroom (David's Room):

We painted and added the pergo floors to this room as well. We decided to keep David's room simple since we knew we would be selling eventually. This room would make a nice bedroom for any age or an office depending on what the next buyer sees fit.

The Third Bedroom (our guest room/computer room):



In my opinion this room changed the most just by adding the pergo and the nice blue paint color. This room is nice because the sunlight really shines in the late afternoon and it's just so warm and inviting because of that. The carpet was hideous in this room - makes me sad we didn't do the pergo sooner so we could have enjoyed it more!

There you have it our house! While I am excited to be moving back home to Boston - I am truly going to miss this house. In the short time we lived here we have made it a home!

Fun in the Tub:

Thanks to a visit from his cousin Cohen - David loves to play in the tub!

Happy Easter!

Look at what the Easter Bunny left for David! He was so excited to see his new Elmo's World DVD and Elmo Bath Toys:

New PJ's

Today David and I hung out while Daddy was on call in the CCU. We headed over to the mall to walk around and do some shopping. Since it was early and not very crowded I decided to let David walk around. He wandered over to the Easter Bunny area and saw the Easter Bunny sitting on a bench. I had no intentions of taking David to get pictures done especially after the Santa debacle but he started to wave.

I thought maybe he would sit for a picture. David keeps waving from the aisle and the Easter Bunny waves back. I asked him if he would like to sit with the Bunny for a picture. He looked at me and said "No, No NOOOOOOO!" and kept shaking his head. I guess he only liked the Bunny from far away! He even said bye to the Bunny as we walked away. Weird.

Before heading home we stopped at my favorite store for PJ's (the Carter's Outlet) to see what the spring sales were and I found these really cute PJ's. They say "crabby" on the front! I couldn't resist. Here are some pictures of David being silly and having some fun tonight with Mommy! The last picture is David showing me where his "button" is!

28 Weeks: Need I say More:

I am going to turn into a beached whale again...I am so hungry all the time. I won't tell you that when I confided my concerns to the Doc he proceeded to MOO at me. I suppose he is lucky my sense of humor is still in place with all these prego hormones!!

I guess if I am that worried I will take the advice of the doctor from the last pregnancy who told me to replace my M&M's (although this time it's Snickers bars) with carrot sticks!

No More Sippy Cup

I picked up David from daycare on Monday and was told by his teacher that I no longer needed to bring his sippy cup every day. He now drinks from a plastic cup provided by the school. Since we want to be consistent with what he does at school I got him some new cups. We had a few spills but amazingly he is very coordinated. Check out our big boy drinking from a big boy cup.

New Floors:

My brother David, Krystal and Cohen came to visit with us this weekend to help us install some pergo floors in our guest bedroom and master bedroom. Our realtor said it would make a huge difference when putting the house on the market if we could do pergo in the rest of the rooms as we did for David's room.

With my brother's help we were able to do both rooms for less than we paid for David's room. Let me tell you - they look AWESOME! It's amazing how much bigger the rooms look. Check out some before and after pictures (since I forgot to take before pictures these will have to do)

Guest Room Before: (well way before - look how little David is - but it's the only picture I could find!)


Guest Room After: (if you look really close at the corner you can see the old carpet)


Master Bedroom Before:


Master Bedroom After:


David had so much fun with his cousin Cohen this weekend. He was a little selfish sometimes with his toys but it's the first time he's been the "big" kid in his own house. For the most part they had fun. David even got in the tubby when he saw how much fun Cohen was having.





Thanks guys for all the help! The floors are awesome and I really do think it will make all the difference in helping us sell this place!

Wide Load:

As I have mentioned before - I swore I wouldn't put on the same 50lbs I did the last pregnancy. Well let me tell you it's getting so hard. This is when I let myself go last time. I can't stop this need for sweets.

Two weeks ago it was gummy bears that I would get after lunch. Last week I made some brownies and this week it was various ice creams. I need help!

This is the big baby belly taken last night. Tomorrow will be 27 weeks which means one more week until we have made it to the third trimester. Time flies when you're getting to be a fatty fatty fatty!

100 Days to Go...

Says the ticker at the bottom of the page. My belly has expanded to the point that my winter coat is nice and snug when I try to button it - I am hoping for some warmer weather so I don't have to wear it anymore. Here are some quick updates:

(1) It looks like I have "unofficially" passed the 1 hour glucose test. I say "unofficial" because I haven't technically found out from the doctor's office - I had the Doc look up my file on line. perks of being the doctor's wife!

(2) I have put on only about 11 pounds total so far...I was pretty bad the last month so I wasn't surprised that my weight jumped 3lbs from my last appointment. This is the time I have to be careful though as I didn't really balloon into Gigantor until about 34 weeks the last time.

(3) A lady on the train yesterday asked me when I was due and when I told her - her response was "Wow you're really big then huh?!" I politely said "Uh yeah - I guess". To be honest - I wasn't surprised this lady said that as she didn't seem to be full of tact. After her comment she proceeded to tell me that she was really big with her first son, and that she had her tubes tied. A little weirded out by the conversation, I politely said - "Oh so you don't want any more children" - to which she said NO WAY and complained that she was on Depo when she found out she was pregnant with her second..."I was so mad - I was getting married but I was still able to fit in my wedding dress"....thankfully that was the end of our conversation as we were at our stop. I politely told her to have a nice day and shook my head in disbelief over the conversation I just had with a complete stranger....

Sick Day

Today David had a sick day - which means I had a sick day too. It figures that David would get sick on the one day the Doc couldn't stay home with him. Any other day this week would have been fine. Monday at 4am - David woke up and when I picked him up he felt really warm. We gave him some Tylenol and let him sleep with us for the rest of the night. We had the day off but decided to still send him to school since I still have to pay for the day and he seemed to be OK. He ate his breakfast and was enjoying his morning TV. He likes going to school so he can play with his friends.

The school called around 3:30pm to tell us we needed to get him he wasn’t feeling well and had a fever of 101. That means that in order for him to return to school – he needs a doctor’s note. So I called my work to tell them I would not be in and would take him to the doctor’s in the morning.

We headed to the doctors at 9:30am and didn’t get seen until almost 11am. David was such a good sport considering how long we had to wait. It’s annoying since we know he has a cold and there isn’t anything the doctor is going to do but I guess at least I know he doesn’t have an ear infection or sore throat. He still isn’t fully himself but the fever seems to have passed and we’ll see how he does tomorrow.

Presidents Day Weekend!

We've returned to Philly after spending the weekend up in NH. We're in the process of organizing our house and getting it ready to be put on the market so we packed up some stuff we don't need to store at MIL & FIL's.

They also just finished some remodeling - which we were really excited to see. I tried to see if I had a before picture but I didn't but doesn't it look nice.

Saturday morning we got up and had some waffles. David's favorite breakfast food. Usually we don't give him syrup but he saw me putting syrup on my waffles and he asked for some so...


It was a very busy day - we visited with my Dad in the morning, grabbed some lunch, met up with my sister, Scottie and Jesse, put David down for a late nap and then headed over to the Stacks so David could play with the boys. Check out David and Brady - they both had a mouthful of M&M's.


And here is Cameron wishing he could have some M&M's
After that it was time to bring David back up to MIL's so that the Doc and I could have some "adult" time with our friends!We went to dinner at the only Mexican place in the Merimack Valley where we waited over an hour to be seated. The place is very small and isn't able to accomodate larger parties easily. They also have the smallest parking lot so we eneded up having to park over at the insurance building next door and be shuttled over. Weird.

After dinner we headed back to the stacks for a cut-throat game of Texas Hold 'Em. I hadn't played in a long time and it showed as I was the first one to lose all of my chips. Next time we're going to play for "real" money so I would've bet a little more cautiously.

Today was time to head back to Philly but not before heading over to Princess B's for our traditional Sunday brunch. After brunch we headed over to the elementary school up the street so David could run around a little before we stuck him in the car for six hours.




We got back home around 7pm, ate dinner and put David to bed. It was a long weekend so we're greatful that we both have tomorrow off from work! I look forward to the day that we never have to make that 6 hour drive again!!

6 Months for me - 18 Months for David:

Saturday marked 6 months of me being a fatty, fatty, preggo. Things are still pretty uneventful. The only differences between this pregnancy and the last one is that Shaun is much more active than David was. The Doc fears that means Shaun will be MORE hyper than David. The other difference is that about two weeks ago I had the worst heartburn EVER. It lasted about a week but it was so bad I wanted to die. I didn't get any heartburn with David until the end. I haven't had it since so I am hoping it was a fluke.

I don't have to worry about stretch marks as I have plenty of them - thanks to David. And it's too early to even discuss the kankels...I am hoping that since I won't be a gigantor in July like last time I won't get as much swelling but only time will tell.

As we try to prepare David for the upcoming arrival of Shaun I will ask him periodically where the baby is. He knows the baby is in the belly but he is confused by who's belly. When I asked him tonight he lifted up his shirt and pointed at HIS belly. It was too cute - we all got a good laugh.


Today was also David's 18 month check up. He has finally bumped up in precentiles for his height. He is no longer in the 25th precentlile - he has moved up to the 36th percentile...that is like 10 whole precentiles!

Height: 2' 8" - 36th percentile
Weight: 24lbs - 25th precentile

He was great in the office until they tried to look in his ears. He has a complex about people touching his ears. He screamed more when they checked his ears than when he got his one shot. Needless to say he did not enjoy his time at the doctor's so when we got home after his nap we made some brownies. I think it made everything all better.


Then he got to spend some "silly" time with Daddy before bed. I am pretty sure he forgot all about his truamatic experience earlier that morning.

Taquitos

As you read in the previous post - David enjoyed a lunch of Taquito's with Ranch Dressing on Saturday afternoon. Here is a cute video of David with his lunch:

The Not So Super Bowl in D.C.:

Late Friday afternoon we packed up the car and headed to D.C. for the the Mailloux's annual "Super Snow Bowl" - minus the snow of course. On Saturday morning we headed over near Dulles to meet up with Ben's Colgate Crew for some lunch. Little did we know that our little man was going to have his first ever meltdown. I chalk it up to his 11pm bedtime the night before and 10 minute nap on the way to the restaurant. Needless to say it was the first time we've ever had to leave a place becasue of David. Thankfully we had just arrived and never even ordered food.

The good thing was our hotel was nearby and we thought it best that we bring him there for some much needed R&R. The 3 mile drive took us an excrutiating 20+ minutes (we seriously stopped at every single light) and our monster child screamed bloody murder the entire ride. We actually thought it would help us check into our room since we were about three hours early for check in. The Doc said that if they didn't let us check in then we were going to sit in their lobby - screaming monster in tow and wait - but of course the brat stopped his tantrum as we got him out of the car. It didn't matter in the end as they had a room ready for us.

We got to our room and tried to soothe our extremely overtired David to sleep - I would say it took about a good 20 minutes before he zonked out. When he woke up about an hour and a half later our son had returned. Just in time for a delicious lunch of Chicken Taquitos served with none other than his new favorite dip - Ranch Dressing!

We eventually met back up with the Mailloux crew and had dinner at one of those Japanese Steak Houses - the ones where they cook right in front of you. David had fun except when the chef made the fire across the grill. I think all the little ones were unsure of that part! Afterwards we headed back to the Mailloux's so that David & Maddie could play. They played really well together considering their age. I also got to spend some time with baby Owen while Robyn prepared her Chili for the big game on Sunday. He was so teeny!

When we left for the night to head back to our hotel David layed a big wet one on Maddie. It was so darn cute - even Ben had to admit that! We got back to the hotel and crashed into our comfy King and David even let us sleep in until 8!

Sunday morning we headed over to the elementary school up the street for the official Snow Football Game - minus the snow of course. Usually when there is snow, it's tackle football. But without the snow (and due to the fact that most of them are over 30 and have old bones) they opted for 2-hand touch. The girls watched the little ones while they played at the playground on the school grounds. There were all different slides, a bridge to walk across and swings. David had so much fun. He had a big smile on his face the entire morning.

Later that afternoon we headed over to Ben's friend's house for the Super Bowl. We had a great time. David got to play with some new friends. He had fun playing chase and dancing around the kitchen. Unfortunetly that is where the fun eneded as we had to watch the colapse of the New England Patriots. While the Pats didn't win - we still had a great weekend. Guess there is always next year. Do you think they could go for another "perfect" season?

Gonna Vom...

The Missus likes to tell everyone that David is a "Daddy's Boy". Here is some documentation otherwise. One of David's newest words is dip and here he is covered in his favorite...RANCH DRESSING.


(the missus feels that I need to specifically state for those of you unable to integrate the title of this post and the subject of the post that I don't like ranch dressing)