Soon to be homeless

There has been a lot going on in the house situation. Our realtor told us to price our house $17,000 less than we wanted to. She said we would never get what we wanted for it. We sold it in 3 days for full asking price!!! It was listed on a Tuesday at 4pm. By 4:45 on Tuesday people were driving down our driveway. We had 5 showings in 3 days and accepted an offer on a Friday. We are set to close March 31st. As in 24 days from now. Which would be all fine and dandy if we had a house to move into!

We have a plan. We put an offer in on a house that is pretty much the SAME EXACT THING that we have now. Remember those list of must haves?! Yeah not so much. It is 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths. And I am losing major space in the kitchen. The plan is to live there 2 or 3 years then upgrade to the big house we really want. By then I will be working again and we will have more money. The nice thing about this house is the neighborhood. The biggest reason for us to move was to get into a neighborhood with lots of kids. This neighborhood is only 4 years old and is packed with kids Madison and Cooper's age!! I am VERY excited about that. The good thing is that we put in an offer and it was accepted by the sellers! The bad news is is that it is a short sale so the bank has to ok the offer. The offer was put in a month ago and we are still waiting.

There are no other houses out there that we are interested in right now. It is all riding on this one house. And chances are good that if we do get an ok soon that we won't close before our house closes. That means we will be homeless soon! We have a few options. Nothing ideal.

Option 1: Move in with Father in law and his wife. Nuff said there.

Option 2: My Mom offered to move out of her house and let us live there. She lives 40 minutes away from us in the middle of nowhere and her house is about 500 sq ft. Not happening.

Option 3: Ryan's friend owns a rental house around the corner from us. They have done nothing to get it ready to rent but have said we can stay there till the house comes through. Haven't seen the inside not so sure I want to =)

Option 4: We own an apartment complex and we can move into one of the empty ones. Apartment living with a 2.5 year old and a 5 years old will not be fun.

Our contract with the bank is good until March 15th. We NEED to hear soon!

Fear of the unknown

Ryan and I put our house up for sale on a Tuesday evening and by Friday evening we had accepted a full price offer!!! We definitely did not expect to sell our house in 3 days. And the buyers want to close by March 31st. Which is all dandy except we haven't found a house yet! I have to move out in less than 2 months with no where to go! My father in law offered to let us stay with him and his wife. They have a nice finished basement and the kids and Ryan and I would all have our own rooms so that would be nice. My Mom offered to move out of her house and in with a friend and let us stay there and we could always stay in one of the apartments we own. Lots of choices and none are really ideal.

We decided to look into building. We could pick our neighborhood and the house and all the features which is very appealing to me. (Ryan would prefer to buy a short sale or foreclosure!). We were dealing with Ryan homes. Which is not the best quality but you get a lot of house for the money. We were stupid and filled out their pre qualifying paperwork and royally screwed ourselves! Once they found out we didn't have any bills they REFUSED to go down on the price at all. They actually told Ryan that we could afford to pay for it but we just didn't want to. No kidding the thought of a 1300/month mortgage is NOT what we want! And who the hell are they to tell us what we can afford?! So we said enough of that and are back to looking at existing.

When we started looking we found a great house in Perinton that was perfect but we found out that Ryan can't have his trailer there so that is a huge bummer. Now our primary area is Canandaigua and Farmington but there is NOTHING out there! And we are not just going to buy a house because we have to. I would rather live in an apartment till we find what we are looking for but it is so frustrating! The other area we are considering is Macedon that is pal-mac school system because there taxes aren't too bad (the part of Macedon in the Gananda school system has taxes that are outrageous!).

Ryan and I also talked about the private school thing again. And after 4 years of looking at schools and finally finding one we have decided to send them to school in which ever district we buy in. We don't want to have to stress about paying for school and not be able to take the kids on vacations and buy things.

So fingers crossed that we find a house soon!!!!!!!!!!!

Needs, wants and updates

So the house I mentioned in the previous post has been sold. No big deal. We weren't crazy about the brick front of it anyways. We have found another house in Pittsford that we are waiting to get inside of. The house in Pittsford is a short sale*. I had no idea what that meant until yesterday and it means that the people that owned it owed more on it than it is worth. So the bank has the house now and it is on the market for $20,000 below assessment. So IF we like it maybe we can get it even cheaper!! Because right now the bank is just losing money on it!

When we moved into the house we are in now the big things I wanted were a master suite, 2 full baths, an eat in kitchen and a dining room. What I got was a small bedroom and 1 1/2 baths and an eat in kitchen. So.... lets try this again! This time what we NEED are
1) 3 bedrooms- preferably 4
2) Eat in Kitchen
3) Dining room- I would love this extra space for when our families are over
4) A backyard that is big enough for a pool and a swing set
5) Space that would be a playroom for the kids
6) Space that would be an office/scrapbook room for us
7) 2 full baths
8) A master bedroom -with walk in closets would be nice!
9) A spot for Ryan to park his big enclosed trailer
10) Two car garage
And it would be nice to find a house on a cul-de-sac. For some reason I just think that this would be really nice for the kids to ride their bikes and playing without worrying about too many cars. I would like for the house to be at least 2000 sq ft. And moving closer to where the kids will be going to school would be a big plus as well. Oh and a black top driveway would be heaven! Right now our house is 300 feet off the road and to blacktop the driveway from the road back to the shop would cost $10,000!!! So that never happened.

The house that we found in Pittsford has 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths and is in a cul-de-sac and has a backyard that is big enough for a pool and swing set. Hopefully soon we can get inside to see the rest to see if it meets our needs!

*When we bought our first house it was also foreclosed upon. We seem to have a knack for it! Our first house cost only $32,000!!! Yes, it was a steal! The house we are looking at now is $160,00 which with a down payment for our current house would put the mortgage and our living expenses with us living off of one paycheck for everything! That would be seriously awesome!

An update on my Mom. Her brain tumor has grown 2 cm in one month so it has to come out. She is scheduled for surgery on January 14th at Strong. She is a nervous wreck about it. I'm pretty sure she will be staying with us for a bit while she recovers. (She lives alone). My brother and sister in law are flying in from Hawaii on the 13th so that they can also be here while she has the surgery. So prayers please!

A hunting we will go

Ryan and I bought our house in 2003 and at the time it was just the two of us so our 1500 sq ft house with 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths seemed so big! But now we are bursting at the seams!! When Madison was born she got the big bedroom and the other bedroom was an office that we turned into a playroom for her. We then finished off the basement into an office. Then we had Cooper and the playroom became his room and the basement was refinished yet again into a playroom. Which left no space for our computers. Ryan's desk top is in our bedroom on a folding table and my laptop stays on the floor in our bedroom or on the kitchen counter. It really isn't working for me anymore. So we always said that when we needed more space we would add on.

To add a master bedroom and bathroom over the garage would cost $20,000 and that is with Ryan doing all the work himself. So it really makes the most sense financially speaking to buy a bigger house. So today we drove by 16+ houses and we only found 1 that we liked. Right now we have 7 acres so I am having a hard time with the 0.5 acre size lots!! They seem ridiculously small. But the house we found is in a neighborhood which would be great for the kids! Right now we live on a street that really doesn't have many kids so it would be great to go outside and have close neighbors with kids. That is a big plus to me. The house we found is in Perinton and is 2600 sq ft and 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. So it is much bigger than where we are now. And it would only be a 15 minute drive to Penfield for the kids school instead of a 35 minute drive! And as far as the outside goes I guess as long as there is room for a swing set and a pool that is really all we need. Oh and the best part is that I would get a scrapbooking room!!!!

I have a call into the realtor to see the inside of the house. We were hoping to go sometime this weekend to check it out and I think we are going to start by listing our house on craigslist and see how that goes. Wish us luck!!

Recap

There has been so much to do with the holidays and just stuff in general for the kids that blogging has taken a backseat.

Cooper is getting way too big. And I know that he is growing up but when I saw this picture I just couldn't believe that he is so big!
Cooper has been talking about himself in the 3rd person lately and it cracks me up every time! The other day I was driving to Tar-jay and he says "Where is Cooper going?" and I told him then he says "Where is Cooper going after that?" He does it a lot lately and it makes me laugh =) Last month Cooper and I went and looked at a preschool for him and he was so excited! As I checked out the school he jumped right in and started playing. It was nice but I really like the preschool Madison is in so I have to decide if I just pick him up early every day or look at more schools. The one we looked at was fantastic until I asked about parent participation and she told me that they don't really do that. I left a message about another school and the lady called back and said "I understand you are looking for DAY CARE" and I said I'm not looking for day care I am looking for a preschool and she says "Oh that is what I meant". Ummm yeah no thanks. I don't know what I am going to do with him for preschool yet. I wish I didn't love St Johns so much!!

Madison had a Thanksgiving feast at school and I was pleasantly surprised. She is very shy. She wants to join in and play but is just so shy. Her teachers have been pushing her to interact with the other kids which is great. So at the feast some of the girls were building with the blocks and she jumped right in and started playing!!! This is huge for her. She was also talking to a little girl at the pool the other day and when someone asks her a question most of the time she will answer them now. I picked her up from the school the other day and she says to me "Abby and Jenna are my best friends!" Oh how that made my heart smile!


My little kiddos are growing up so fast!

It fell on the floor.

The other day Madison and I made apple doodle cookies. And I told her that she could have one if she ate all her dinner. In our house if you want a treat you have to eat good meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then you can have a treat after dinner.

So we were upstairs getting Cooper up from his nap and she said that she needed to go downstairs and get the dinosaur she had made Cooper. I asked her to grab my phone while she was downstairs. After a few minutes I called down to her to see what was taking so long and she said that she was looking for my phone.

She gets back upstairs and I look at her and she has crumbs all over her face! I asked her what she had been doing downstairs and she told me nothing like 5 times. (Now I was laughing so hard that I could hardly talk to her!) So she finally says that a cookie fell on the floor and she had to clean it up!!! And by clean it up she meant she had to eat it. I was absolutely dying with laughter. However, she didn't get any more cookies after dinner!

Now that is a BAD week.

Apparently my family is falling apart. I got a string of bad news all in the span of a week. It was actually more like a few days.

Shana's autopsy results came back. They said she died of cardiac arrest due to massive lung failure. Which is kind of obvious. According to the doctor there was a genetic anomaly that contributed to that but I still have not heard what that is.

Dawn, my SIL and Shana's mom, was told that she may have cervical cancer. She had an abnormal pap smear after my nephew was born (4 1/2 years ago). She buried her head in the sand and ignored it and now has to have biopsies and all that jazz. I still haven't figured out why they told her she MAY have cancer. I know that her pap smears are coming back abnormal but it is hard to get accurate medical information out of someone that isn't familiar with it!

Sarah, my SIL, has a lump on her thyroid. She had a biopsy done on it and has to go back for more tests in 6 months to see if it has changed at all.

And to top it all of my Mom was having some vision problems and went in for an MRI and was told she has a small brain tumor. She has to go back in 6 months to see if it has grown or changed then they will decide what to do.

Is that enough drama??

So busy here

Madison is back at school and really enjoying it this year! Last year for the first month she would cry when I dropped her off and then the rest of the year was spent with her little face pressed against the window waving until we were out of the parking lot. This year there is no crying and we get a quick wave out of the window and then she is off to play! Madison has also figured out how to pump her legs on the swing so now she can swing all by herself!! Madison is also taking swim classes at the YMCA. She doesn't like to go under water but her swim teacher already had her go under water and Madison was so proud of herself! She is really growing up!

Cooper is enjoying some classes as well while Madison is in school. He is taking an Early Explorers class that has art projects and gym time. He is also taking a soccer and lacrosse class and seems to be enjoying it. Cooper and I are also doing open swim at the rec center. He is already jumping into the water, going down the slide and going underwater! I can't keep him above the water anymore! He just keeps going under =) Cooper has also gone poop on the potty and peed on the potty. So hopefully soon he will be out of diapers! Although that is probably wishful thinking right now!

Wow, it's been 6 months already.

Today has been 6 months already since we lost Shana. For those that are new you can read it here. There still isn't any closure to what happened. We are STILL awaiting autopsy results. Tim and Dawn have been told that it is not a priority because it is not a criminal case. So we are still waiting.....

So much going on....

August has been such a very busy month for us! I guess we are tying to cram as much stuff in as we can before summer comes to an end.

Two weekend ago we had a fantastic time. That Saturday we went to my Aunt and Uncles (My Dad's brother and his wife) for a belated birthday celebration for Cooper. They are the kids Godparents but were on vacation when we had the party. When we got there my Aunt mentioned that she had invited her sister's family (her kids are 7,5 and 4). Which was great because I haven't seen A in at least 10 years. My Aunt then mentions that A just lost a baby last week. So I'm thinking a m/c until she starts talking about a funeral! Turns out Gerard passed away at birth. So A got there and when we were alone (or as alone as you can be with 6 adults and 10 kids!!!) I told her how very sorry I was about the baby. Her and I ended up sitting down and talking and crying for about 45 minutes. We missed dinner!! I certainly can't understand exactly what she is going through because I have never lost a child but I can understand a little bit because of what my brother and sister in law are going through. A told me that at her 20 week u/s they found out there was something wrong with the baby. They were thinking Down's Syndrome and decided that they would have an amnio just to know exactly what to expect. A came to terms with the fact that the baby was probably going to have Down's and they would all get through it. Turns out that Gerard has Trisomy 18 and would most likely die at birth. A said that the only thing keeping him alive was her. My Aunt's family is EXTREMELY religious. So the only option is to go full term and pray for the best. So for 20 WEEKS she knew that her baby was going to most likely die. I just can not imagine knowing that. It is heartbreaking. From my experience with Dawn I knew that A would most likely want to talk about Gerard. So we talked about her delivery and everything else. She showed me tons of pictures and my heart just breaks for them. She was allowed to keep Gerard in the room for 2 days. I didn't realize that they would let Moms keep their babies for that long. But A said that on day 2 she dressed the baby and called the nurse and told her to take him and run or she would not want to let him go. A is doing remarkably well and my heart goes out to them.

And then on that Sunday we went out to our friends Jeff and Kelly's house. Madison LOVES playing with their 4 year old daughter Kasey and their son is 2 also. They live up on a mountain in Naples with an awesome view of Canandaigua lake and they have 60+ acres. So the kids just ran and swam and had an awesome time! After dinner they got out the 4 wheelers and the dirt bikes and the kids rode on the golf cart and loved it! That was a fun night for sure!

This past weekend is the first time I have spent a weekend without children since Madison has been born. Yes she is 4 and a half!!!! Ryan and I went to PA for the weekend to go 4 wheeling and it was such a nice and relaxing time! It was really nice to spend alone time with Ryan. We are actually going back this weekend without the kids again! We are going with 3 other couples and I can't wait!!!!!

We finally found it!

Ryan and I decided long ago that we were going to bypass the local public school and opt for a *private school for the kids. We went to our first open house when Madison was 2! Yes, I like to plan ahead =) We have seen schools that were way too small. I mean 30 kids in the ENTIRE school. That was too small for us. We have seen schools that were AWESOME but way too much money. And by too much money I mean $17,000 a year per child!!! That is just crazy! Madison is headed to Kindergarten next year and I was starting to feel like we would never find a school that we liked.

My biggest thing was that I really wanted a school that was K-12. There was really only more school that we had left to look at and if that didn't work out then we were going to have to look at other options. We went Tuesday night for an Open house to Charles Finney and it was perfect! It was exactly what we were looking for. I am so excited that we have FINALLY found the school we were looking for. And the tuition for it is actually reasonable! I'm excited that we have found a good school for the kids and that it has a lot to offer academically as well as different clubs and for a smaller school it offers a lot of different sports as well. I'm really excited for the kids to go to this school!

I really wanted Madison to go to a half day Kindergarten and we have that option at this school which is awesome. However Madison will get out of school at 11:45 and Cooper will get out of preschool at 11:30 and it is about a 25 minute drive in between schools. So now I have to decide if I keep Cooper at the preschool that Madison went to and figure out a way to pick them both up or do I put Cooper into a preschool that is near where Madison will be going to school. Choices choices!!

*People get totally nuts when they find out that the kids won't be going to our local school. I think people have the thought that if it is good enough for my kids it is good enough for yours. So some "friends" would gossip behind my back pretty much saying I was a snob because the kids were going to a different school. There is nothing wrong with our school district and it is actually one of the best in the area. There are a lot of great things and not so great things about public and private schools. So I'm not here to debate the issue this is just our choice =)

That would have been nice to know LAST week!

My in laws visit every Wednesday. They come over after dinner and spend an hour or so playing with the kids. Last Wednesday we had them babysit so Ryan and I could go out. We can home and chit chatted for a bit about nothing and then they left. This past Wednesday they came over and said "oh by the way when we sat on the couch in basement last week we noticed that the dog has FLEAS"!!! Are you effing kidding me??!! You are telling me this now?! They said that they FORGOT! How the heck do you forget something like that! So today I went out and bought flea bombs for the house. We set them off before we left the house and we took the kids out to dinner and for ice cream. We only had to be out of the house for 2 hours so it wasn't too bad. I also picked up flea shampoo for the dog and he got rubbed down as well. I hope we got them all! It's just nasty nasty nasty!

Happy Birthday Cooper!

Cooper turned 2 on Friday. I can't believe that my baby is two already! He is growing up way too fast. Part of me is sad to see him growing up so fast and not have him be my little baby anymore. He is such a little chatterbox! He is constantly talking and talk in sentences as well! He is going to be the class clown some day. If he gets a laugh out of you he will just keep doing it over and over, he loves the attention! He is so loving also. He loves to give "big hugs" and he will smack his lips at me for a kiss! He is still in his crib. More because I'm not ready to move him out of it than anything else. He is almost ready to start potty training. He knows when he has to go to the bathroom and tells me also. And his biggest change is no more binky!!

Madison had her binkys taken away when she turned 2. It was because her teething were shifting from the pacifier so the doctor said we really shouldn't give them to her anymore. We went cold turkey with them and she was perfectly fine. Since Madison's were taken away at 2 I knew that we would take Cooper's away at 2 also plus I could tell that his teeth were shifting from them also. But I'M NOT READY! When he wakes up he lays quietly in his bed with his pacifiers until I go get him. I didn't want to lose that! But it was going to have to be done! He was very excited for his Elmo cake for his party and I told him that after he had Elmo cake there would be no more binkys. I kept reminding him all week about the cake and binky. Saturday morning came and he stuck both pacifiers in his mouth (he would sleep with one in his mouth and one in each hand!!) and then he took all 3 into the bathroom and threw them in the garbage!! My heart was broken =) Naptime came and he was FINE! Not a peep out of him and the same at bedtime. He was such a big boy about it!!

He was very excited for his party! We had it at a local YMCA. They set up a bounce house and got out scooters and balls and the kids had a great time!! After they played for an hour we had pizza and then the big Elmo cake! Cooper would not even look at his presents until he had his Elmo cake, he was so excited for it! He was grinning from ear to ear when everyone sang to him. It was adorable! Present time was CHAOS!! Cooper was not interested in opening his presents at all! So Madison and some of the older kids were opening them. I had to put the brakes on that though when presents were being opened and the kids were walking away with the stuff and I didn't know who gave what! It was a great party though and all the kids had a great time!

Our PA trip

We had a GREAT time last month in PA. Here is how it went.

The kids did OK in the car. They were not interested in the DVD player AT ALL. They love play McDonald's so I did the trip locator for one. So we kept assuring them that we were stopping at one and they were very excited! So after 3 hours of driving we pulled into the play McDonald's. And surprise it was a regular old McDonald's! Well that didn't go over well at all! But they survived!

After we checked in to the hotel we went to Sesame Place. Cooper really enjoyed the rides! He was having a great time and did really well on them as well. Much better than I expected since he doesn't really sit still yet!






















Madison had fun but she has been to two local amusement parks near our house that has a lot of big kid rides which she loves! She prefers the roller coasters to the kiddie rides. The faster the better! So there were only two rides there that she really enjoyed. They had a roller coaster and another drop down ride that she loved!

We also had breakfast with Elmo. It was very pricey for the type of food that was served. Madison hated the characters!! She wanted nothing to do with them. She stood outside of the restaurant with Ryan while Cooper and I were inside. He did well with the characters. He would get his picture taken with the characters if I held him but wouldn't let me put him down!

All in all the park was really nice and really clean. I'm glad that we went.

We also went to the Philly Zoo. That was great! It is a really nice zoo. We got to see Giraffes and zebras and lots of things that we can't see at our zoo. Kids did really well again. We were there about 4 hours and then Cooper had had his fill and was done. So we headed back to the hotel and played in the pool and on the playground for the rest of the day.

We also went to Adventure Aquarium. We didn't get there till 11am since we went to Breakfast with Elmo first. And it was BUSY!! Busy is an understatement. There were so many people there that it was hard to get close to the exhibits and I wasn't comfortable with Cooper being out of the stroller. But Ryan and Cooper managed to get their hands in to the string ray tank and the shark tank! Madison and I didn't want any part of that =) We didn't stay at the aquarium long because there were so many people there. Had we gotten there earlier I'm sure it would have been fine.

Our last stop was the crayola factory. It cost $30 to get in (Cooper was free). I thought this was a bit pricey since it is basically a big store and then you get to paint, color, paste, etc... But the kids had a good time doing the crafts.

Overall the trip was really great and I am so glad that we went. Kids did great! There was pretty much no nap for Cooper the entire time we were gone (he still naps 3 hours a day). And they sat up giggling and talking at night also. It was really cute to listen to it!

The drive home was LONG! We were all tired and the kids were arguing and there was lots of yelling!

Next weekend we are off to Buffalo for a long weekend. We have a family reunion and then Madison and I have a bridal shower and then we are going to take the kids to another aquarium and to Niagara Falls!!

Fake Bloggers

There have been a few blogs that have been outed as fake the past few weeks such as the Baby April Rose hoax and the Cynthiaa/Aiden bug blog.

I admit that I got completely sucked in to Cynthiaa's blog. In the beginning of February she blogged that at 38 weeks pregnant she had lost her baby to a cord strangulation. I cried my eyes out as I read her posts about losing her baby. That is a loss like no other and a loss that you never get over. I couldn't imagine how you deal with such a loss.

It was only 3 weeks after Cynthiaa lost her baby that we lost our niece. My Sister in law went into labor at 32 weeks and Shana was born and lived for 3 hours before the angels took her. I contacted Cynthiaa for some advice on what to say/do for my brother and sister in law. She emailed me her thoughts and said she would be happy to talk to Dawn if I wanted to give her her contact info.

Not too long after she started changing the name of her blog and it pretty much was one day she was mourning the loss of her son and then all her blogs had to do with fashion finds. But everyone grieves differently so I didn't think much of it. Then a few weeks ago I clicked on her blog and she had made it private which was really strange. And then I was reading another blog and it was mentioned that Cynthiaa's was a hoax.

This bothers me GREATLY because we actually lost our niece and my brother and sister in law will never be the same. And for her to make up this story for readers and attention is deplorable. And thank goodness I did not pass along any contact info! Can you imagine how betrayed you would feel if you had divulged your feelings to someone that you thought was going through the same things to find out they are a fraud? I think that this fake blog bothers me the most because it is something that we are actually living through.

Happy Father's Day Ryan!

I want to wish my wonderful hubby a very Happy Father's Day! He works very hard to provide for us and doesn't get enough recognition for it! I am so blessed to be married to him and I love him dearly. He is a wonderful father to Madison and Cooper and I look forward to many more happy years! I love you!!

It's Highly Contagious....

I took the kids to the park this morning. And while I was pushing Cooper in the swing and Madison was whining about wanting to swing a Mom showed up with her kids for soccer practice. We will call her SM (sick Mom). So SM comes up to the Mom that is pushing her kid who is next to Cooper. We will call her HM (healthy Mom). So SM says to HM I think I need a doctor or a nurse. So my ears perk right up. SM continues to say look at my daughters hands she has a red rash on them and it has some blisters. HM says oh it looks like hand, foot and mouth disease and my kids have had that before. She then goes to say "IT IS HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS"!! And HM says I'm not crazy when it comes to germs so it doesn't bother me if SM stays at the park. What!?!? What about all the other kids?? So SM starts freaking out about how SHE doesn't want to get sick. Have I mentioned that her kids are running around the playground TOUCHING everything!

SM finally says "maybe we shouldn't be here" YA THINK!?! Does she go and get her highly contagious kids and leave? Nope! She continues to go on and on about how she doesn't want to get sick, how could this be happening to her, blah blah. I'm totally freaking out in my head because we are leaving for PA for vacation Tuesday. I say to Madison go get your cup we are leaving! And in her quiet 4 year old voice wants to know why we are leaving when we had just gotten there. Now I'm whispering to her to get her stuff we are leaving because there are sick kids there. And again in her quiet 4 year old voice wants to know why they are at the park if they are sick. I finally get them over to the car and douse their hands in hand sanitizer! And then gave them more sanitizer. Thankfully the kids weren't too close to the sick ones and I know that they didn't touch anything that the sick kids did. After we left we went to another park where Madison and Cooper were the only ones and they had a lot of fun!

Our Crazy Weekend

Last weekend was NUTS for us. Friday and Saturday I participated in a neighborhood garage sale. I also had 2 friends and my mother in law bring things over to sell. Thursday night my friend and I were setting up and she really had me worried! All these stories from people she knows. Like people showing up at 6am for a 9am sale. Or opening the garage door to find 40 people waiting for me and what not. I barely slept Thursday night I was so worried! I got up early on Friday (6am) and got everything set up and no one showed up till 9 and it was a steady stream but not the mad rush I was expecting. We did really well on Friday. It was steady all day. I got up at 6am again on Saturday to set up. I figured it would be busier on Saturday because people don't have to work. It's 7am and I am looking down the driveway and hanging out the window looking for people. Ryan was totally making fun of me! We didn't get our first customer till 10am! It was dead all day. It was not worth doing it on Saturday. Good to know for next time!

Sunday Ryan had a rock crawling event. Since it was so close to our house I went with him. (He usually goes to PA once a month to 4 wheel but I have never been there with him). He wasn't 10 feet on the rocks when he broke a bunch of stuff on his jeep. I'm talking $500 worth of parts (hazards of the sport!). So he was done for the day. We hung out for the day and watched everyone else and had dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant. We get home about 6ish and I said to him "can you get my stuff out of the jeep". (My purse and camera). I was still getting stuff out of the suburban when I hear a thud and him yelling for me. So I go hauling butt to the other side of the trailer and he is laying on the ground holding his head. And he is telling me his ankle hurts. I'm of course more concerned about the fact that he is holding his head! I finally figured out he didn't hit his head but when he jumped off the trailer he landed in a hole and busted up his ankle. So I help him hop into the house. He couldn't put any weight on it and we were concerned that he could have broken it. We argued about going to the hospital. He didn't want to go. We put the kids to bed and then he had to bleed a guys breaks before he would go to the hospital!! He is so stubborn!

The ER was REALLY fast! From the time we left our house till the time we got back was only 2 hours. I wheel him into the ER and the girl at the desk says "can I help you?" and Ryan says "I'm having a baby". LMAO!!! So we get signed in and Ryan is in the wheel chair trying to pop wheelies and we are kitty corner to this other girl. Well this girls friend shows up and she was interesting! She comes in and starts talking to this other girl saying how she is loosing her voice and her Mom told her she must be smoking too much weed and that is why she is loosing her voice! And the girl goes on to say how dumb her Mom is and that she isn't smoking weed. She then says that her Mom told her if she wasn't loosing her voice from smoking weed than she must be loosing it from having too much sex! (They couldn't have been older than 18 or so). It was so strange because after that little story she gets up and leaves.

Anywho, Ryan gets called back to triage and the nurse is asking questions and says "you live with your wife?" and Ryan says "currently"!!! He is too funny sometimes. After some x-rays it turns out it was a bad sprain. For our $100 copay he got an advil and an ace bandage! Better to get it checked out though. He was off of work for 2 days and he is almost 100%. Oh after we got home from the hospital we were both tired and all Ryan wanted to do was lay in bed and watch t.v. He turns on the t.v. and the fuse blows. TV won't work. I kid you not.

Our Memorial Day weekend (a few days late!)

We had a FANTASTIC Memorial Day weekend! Saturday I spent all day with Ryan, just the two of us! We went 4 wheeling for the day and then stopped and had dinner all by ourselves =)

Sunday was super busy. We left the house at 9am to go to Sugar Creek in Dansville. The kids had a great time! They went into the falls and played in the water for at least an hour. And the water was COLD. But they really had a great time. They had their clothes on in the water so I got them changed into clean dry clothes. And then they hit the playground and got DIRTY!! I mean covered in dirt dirty. And I had no more clean clothes with us and we still had 2 picnics to go to. So we left Dansville and headed to Honeoye to go to a picnic at my brothers. Cooper fell asleep on the way so we stopped at Walmart and I ran in and bought the kids new clothes! Didn't have much choice they were so dirty and we weren't going to head home since it was in the opposite direction.















And can I just say that it was REALLY hard finding shorts for Madison. All the shorts were super short and very inappropriate for her. But I managed to get her something. We spent a while at my brothers and then headed over to Naples for our last party. The party in Naples was at a friends house that I haven't seen since I was pregnant with Cooper. It was perfect because Madison and Casey are the same age and Cooper and Lucas are the same age. Plus there were a zillion other kids there. Madison was her shy self. After we had been there about an hour she ran over to the group of girls and sat down on the outskirt of the circle. She kept edging into the circle a little bit at a time and eventually was running around and playing with the other girls. This was HUGE! Madison is shy and tends to keep to her self and for her to willing join a group on her own was a big step for her. At preschool if one of the kids asks her something she usually won't answer them. At one point Casey turns to Madison and says "what's your name?" and clear as can be, and loudly, she says Madison!! I cried!! I was so floored that she joined a group and talked to them!! My baby is growing up!

All in all it was a great Memorial Day weekend!

Tea Parties, Trains and sand tables

I'm telling you that life is just too busy! I have no time to blog lately. Last weekend we were really busy. On Saturday Madison and I and her Grandmas went to the cutest tea party. The first part of the tea party was a little fashion show for dolls! Madison got to stand up in front of the room with her doll. The presenter told everyone the name of Madison's doll, what the doll was wearing and a special story about the doll. Madison brought her swim baby to class. She named her Emerson after a good friends daughter and Madison's baby can swim in the water by herself. Then Madison walked down the middle aisle. She did great! She actually stood in the front of the room all by herself which is huge! Then we went and had punch and some super yummy cookies! I ate way more than I should have =) They also did a raffle and had a TON of stuff to give away! Since I paid for everyone to go to the tea party the Grandmas paid for some raffle tickets. Madison kept asking me when she was going to get a toy. I explained to her that we needed to have a winning ticket and we may not win anything at all. But she did end up winning a very cute doll! The doll has a china face and hands and feet. As I am telling Madison shed needs to be very gentle with it she is twirling it around by the arm! LMAO! We really had a great time! Thanks Erin!!

Sunday we went to the Day out with Thomas the train. It was a lot of fun but it was COLD! We were in no way dressed appropriately! Winter hats and gloves were needed and we had neither. Both kids had colds and were feeling a bit off but still had fun. We got to ride on Thomas. Madison was as good as she always is and Cooper was very entertained for the ride. When we got back we did pictures with Thomas and then the kids did a bunch of the free activities that they had there and then Grandma and Grandpa said that they could both pick out a toy from the tent. So Madison got a Thomas the Train bubble blower and Cooper got a Thomas the Train boat for the tub. But I'm pretty sure that the favorite part of the day was when we pulled into McDonald's for lunch and it ended up being one of those play place ones. Madison's eyes got huge and she says "wow, I'm not hungry anymore. I want to play!" So they pretty much didn't eat but the rest of us got to relax and eat! Hopefully next year it won't be so cold and we can stay longer.

Madison got this sand table for her birthday. When I opened it it was EXTREMELY small. It took a 1/4 bag sand to fill both sides. But it was working. Until the kids leaned on it and the legs popped off. So after this happening 5 or 6 times I left it on the ground and they just sat on the ground to play with it. But my MIL was not happy that she paid $60 for a toy that doesn't stay together. She called Toys R Us and they wouldn't do anything because we didn't have the receipt anymore. She then called Little Tikes and they told her that people had complained about this happening and their recommendation is to place it on a flat surface and don't let the kids lean on it. Um yeah, so basically don't play with it and it won't fall apart! I ended up picking up this sand table for the kids and LOVE it! It is exactly what we wanted. My MIL is still working on getting a refund for the other table. Fingers crossed!!