Merry Christmas!

How Do We Spell Relief?

S-O-L-D

Yes – you read that correctly! We had our home inspection yesterday. Now we have this in our front yard:

What a great feeling!! All this from some woman who was walking by and not looking for a house, but then decided she just had to have ours last Monday! (We were happy to oblige.)

We don’t have to be out until January 11th, but the plan is to start to move soon….today? Tomorrow? We want to be out (and in) by Christmas and to FINALLY be able to be ‘normal’ in the new house. Today was our FIRST day NOT for sale and we are taking full advantage! You should see our living room. We’ve made NO effort to put ANYTHING away today. Jack’s toys are still out…it’s so much easier to have a toddler and a house not for sale. Today we didn’t even cringe if he touched the dishwasher or fridge or got food on the floor because….we can clean it L-A-T-E-R… when we want to because nobody is coming over today – at least nobody who doesn’t already know us. The ‘real’ us. 🙂 And get this…we may even have FISH for dinner!

We’ve gotten much, much neater as a household through this ordeal, and we don’t intend to let the pendulum swing completely the other way and turn into utter pigs… maybe just on Sundays, but it is liberating to be able to sit in this mess and not care. 🙂 I know we’ll put it all away later, but we can actually go to the grocery store tonight and leave everything as is because we won’t have a showing while we are gone.

And…get this – another bonus came with selling the house, last night we actually got to go shopping. Since we didn’t know what house we would be living in (and oh yeah, two mortgages and adopting from Russia made things just a little tough. 😉 ), shopping had almost become nonexistant for the past year except for maybe a stop at Kroger….how I’ve missed shopping….for things other than food….

Last night we bought mirrors for our new bathrooms. Doesn’t that sound exciting?? Actually it was great fun. I think even for Erik:) (Okay, I just reread those 2 sentences. Do I sound old or what?? – did I actually just say it was fun to shop for bathroom mirrors on a Saturday night??)

Wow. 🙂

On the way into the store, Jack was in his first snowfall. He looked up at the sky and opened his mouth. He thinks snow is great fun!

One thing Jack does not think is great fun is getting stuck in the toy box. Earlier today we heard crying by the toy box and after rounding the corner, we were greeted by this sight:

Of course we helped the poor guy out…..(giggling the whole time to ourselves.)

The Christmas Card

Having a baby brings a whole other element to sending out Christmas cards. In the past, we’ve just looked for humorous or cute cards. But now that we have a child…. he should be on the card, right??? And it should be easy. Just take a cute picture. Put it on the card. Kids always cooperate………….right???

Well we found out the hard way that it’s not quite THAT easy, but Jack was a trooper for the most part. After three DAYS of pictures, we proudly present picture number 57 – FINALLY a keeper!!! 🙂 I guess once we have more kids we can multiply that number by 2 or 3 or 4….???? 🙂
Scary!

Here are some of the pictures that didn’t make the cut:

“What the Heck Are You Guys Doing?”

Amish Santa

Gandalf Santa (Lord of the Rings)

Neil Diamond Santa – (a.k.a. – Hairy Chest Santa – all I need is a gold chain)

Shaving Cream Santa

That’s It! We’re finished! It’s Attack of the Crabby Santa!

So after a lot of effort we took finally got the “perfect” spontaneous, candid picture – this is the kind of stuff people only do with their ‘first’ kids, right? 🙂