Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Our First Guests

Today we had our first house guests that weren't family. :)

Holden went to Andy's house to spend the night, and Andy and his mom came over to pick him up. Holden was very proud to show off his new rooms.

Then after they left, my friends Xandra and Sarah came over!!! I was so excited to get to show off my new home!!! Xandra arrived first with a beautiful Easter Lily in a yellow pot! It smells so yummy!! Sarah and Gwen arrived at exactly 12:44 (just as the GPS said she would)! Sarah brought us the coolest new address announcements on cardboard! I can't wait to send them out to my 10 favorite people. haha Just kidding!

We went out to lunch at Jimmy's Pizza in "downtown" Midlothian! It was so fun to have "girl-time"!!! We ate, made silly faces at Gwen, and then stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home for dessert!

It was so nice to sit at my kitchen table and visit with friends! We have officially decided we like not working and hanging out in the kitchen with the girls! I hope this will be just the first of many afternoons with friends in our home!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Thursday and Friday, we had more guests! Elena brought Matthew and Alex over Thursday evening. The boys enjoyed playing. Alex wanted me to take the cats down from over the door frames. My aunt Dorothy came over on Friday. We ate cheesecake and visited.
It is so nice to have a home and to be hostess.


Saturday, March 15, 2008

Casey...My cat with the new personality


My sweet gray cat, Casey has changed a lot in the last week.

I knew that moving to the new house with Weasel wasn't going to happen.  I was tired of her hissing at Holden, and just being a little freaky cat.  She was the most lovable cat I have ever had, but she needed to go.  Luckily, I found a fabulous home for her last Friday night before we moved.  

Now Casey and Weasel have never gotten along, so it didn't surprise me that Casey didn't mourn the loss of the only other feline in the household.  She is now more talkative than ever!  She sleeps with us every night!  That was something she had not done since before Jason and I got married, when he took her "spot" on my other pillow.  Casey seems so much happier being an only cat, and I am glad I get to love on her more too.

One Week in our New Home

Well it is now Saturday, March 15 and we have been living in our house for officially one week!
And what a week it has been!!!!

Moving day went as smoothly as moving days can go.  We hired movers to come get the big stuff down the stairs for the first two hours!  It was worth every penny!  Jason's dad came over to help, and I am so glad he was there to be part of our move.  Holden thought riding in the big truck with his dad was cool.  I wish I would have thought to get a picture of them in the cab of the truck.  Once we arrived at our new home, the whole family came over to help us unload.  It was awesome!  Holden and Travis helped and threw around a mini football in the front yard!  It was so fun to watch them!

The coolest part of the day was when the Midlothian Police officer stopped by to introduce himself!!!  We were unloading the truck, and he waved and parked his patrol car in front of the house and got out.  He came into the garage and just wanted to say hello!  WOW!  This is truly the place for our family.  It was just another one of God's perfect confirmations that we are in the right place.

Sleeping in our house the first night was described by my dear friend, Xandra, as "WT".  Since we couldn't find the sheets for the beds, we just covered them with blankets and threw other blankets on top of us!  But we DID have pillowcases!!!  It was so quiet!  There was an occasional dog barking, but no cars or airplanes!

Sunday afternoon, Holden and his cousins played football in the backyard.  It was a beautiful day outside, so we had the windows open.  It was such an amazing sound!  I think that is my new favorite sound!  Holden and Travis have played outside at least once everyday that we have been home!  It is great to watch and listen to them together.  You must click on the pictures above to view them larger.  I love the happiness on the boys' faces.

The first few days were exhausting for all of us.  Tempers were on a very short fuse for all three Ivy's.  But with Jason, my husband with the patience of a saint, in the lead....we all survived!  Without him, I think Holden and I would have rung each other's necks.  :)  

Jason and I enrolled Holden in his new school on Monday morning in a school with no electricity due to a thunderstorm the night before.  After a week at his new school, I think he is settling in nicely.  His teacher says he talks a lot, but that isn't a surprise to us.  

The thunderstorm on our second night in the house was another special time.  Usually I am not fond of Holden coming in and getting in bed with us during storms because Jason and I are big enough filling a queen size bed...another body doesn't make it any more comfortable.  But once the storm started, Jason suggested he come sleep on the floor.  I told him where Holden's sleeping bag was so he went to get him.  Our sweet Holden was trying to be "tough" and stay in his room, but Daddy went and brought him into us.  It was kinda neat having him camping out in our room.

As the week has progressed we have each had our days of total exhaustion.  Luckily they have been spead out a little bit.  We have gotten several of our boxes unpacked and lots of fun things hung on the walls.  It is slowly but surely becoming our home.  Our new furniture was delivered the Thursday before we moved in, and it is PERFECT!!!  The sofa sectional is so comfortable and we can all get comfy on it with plenty of room to stretch out.  I LOVE eating at the table together for meals (even though we are still working out the routine and small details).  But the masterpiece of the entire house is the TV stand!!!  It is everyone's favorite, so I am including a picture.

Last night Holden and Travis had their first "slumber party" at our house!  We didn't tell them until the last minute that Travis could spend the night, and, goodness, were they excited!?!?!  I can't believe I didn't take a picture of them once they both fell asleep!  (I know, I am slacking).  I laid out a blanket on the floor and Holden's sleeping bag.  Travis camped out on the floor, and Holden slept in his bed.  Travis spent almost a full 24 hours with us.  The boys played video games, watched TV, played Monopoly, threw the football into the neighbor's yard, and we all went to the movies.  I love how they play together.  I am sure that was just the first of MANY "slumber parties".

Anyway, it is now almost 10:30 and both of my men are in bed snoring away.  Today was another day of unpacking, laughing, and few short fuses, but in the end - we are a family living in a home together forever!  Life isn't always perfect....and we don't "eat rainbows and poop butterflies", but we do love each other.  

You're going to have to go see "Horton Hears a Who" to understand that one.  :)



Sunday, March 2, 2008

OUR NEW HOUSE!!!!

Friday afternoon, February 29, 2008, Jason and I signed papers to buy our first home!!!  

The morning of the closing we went to the furniture store and picked out a kitchen table, a TV stand, and a sectional with ottoman.  They will be delivered on Thursday!  It will be so fabulous to have a new home with new furniture.  Neither one of us have ever had a house with really NICE furniture, so we are extra thrilled.  

We picked up Holden from school and headed to the walk through and Title office.  Janet and Keith were both at closing to make sure everything went smoothly.  Holden got his own little room to watch Shrek.  It was perfect.  We went in had a few cookies, signed our names 100 times, and we owned a house!

After signing everything we went down to the house and just enjoy being there.  Jason's mom and Granny came over.  We took down all our materials we needed to paint Holden's bedroom on Saturday.  It was such a long day, but worth every minute of it.

When I woke up Saturday  morning, I ran an idea I had over night about painting Holden's room.  it would be a challenge, but we decided we could at least give it a try!.  Holden and I went to Writing Camp at my school, and when we got home, Jason had been Superdad.  He had done a ton of work around the apartment.  He had carried a bunch of boxes down to the garage and taken our bed apart.  He went to Home Depot and bought himself a toolkit. 

We headed down to the house to tackle painting Holden's bedroom.  It doesn't look perfect, but it looks amazing!  We painted one full wall blue.  One the side walls, we used a laser to tape off a diagonal line from the top corner down to the bottom.  The line turned out FABULOUS!!!
I was amazed that we did such a great job on our first attempt at creative painting!!!

Jason hung up a really cool ceiling fan in Holden's bedroom.  It is the nicest ones in the entire house!!  It was so fun watching my husband with his tool belt on and being my Mr. Fix-it!  Being in an apartment our first year or marriage, I haven't gotten to watch my sweet man be "Tim the Tool Man".  It was really kinda hot!  haha  

Saturday night, Holden went to MeeMaw's to spend the night with his cousins.  Jason and I spent our first night together in our home!  It was really fun!  We used an air mattress and slept in the living room.  It was so quiet and dark!  No cars, no airplanes, no neighbors upstairs walking!  The wind started blowing and it blew through the chimney.  In the morning I stepped outside and could smell the cows from the dairy farm!  

Now we have 5 days to box everything up and have it ready to move Saturday  morning!  I can't wait to be out of our apartment and we spend our first night in the house together as a family!