Michael Jr Through A Year

Birth Day

1 Month

2 Months

3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

8 Months

9 Months

10 Months

11 Months

12 Months

We're celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa and a few friends on Sunday, and I put off his one-year checkup until next week (avoiding vaccinations until after party time and visitors) so I'll let you know then how giant he truly is.

Happy Birthday Mister Mist! (from your sisters)

My Boys

First a house update: the agents' tour went very well this morning. We have at least three showings this weekend and decided to just go ahead a do a mini open house for a few hours on Saturday since it looks like there will be several showings then anyway.

And now, some actual pictures! It looks like Michael Jr has made it through the "eruption" phase of his latest three teeth and is back to being much happier and a little less clingy. This means he is actually interested in playing with Daddy again! They had a lot to catch up on today.

Airplane.

High Fives.

Tummy Zerberts.

Musical Endeavors.

General Wrestling.

Boys Rule.

More Wrestling.

Follow the Leader.

And of course, trying on Daddy's shoes.

I'm really glad he seems to be feeling better!

More Boring House Pictures

Did you know that in four years I have never changed the template of the blog? I'm all about the content, not the design. :) But I'm really ready for spring and there are no flowers around here yet and I wanted a flower, so I put one on the blog. Plus I wanted to make the post space wider so the videos actually show up correctly, and the template I was using didn't allow that, so I switched it to something that would. It may or may not stay like this.

I think we are finally to the point where we've done everything we're going to do to the house. Well, unless it doesn't sell quickly and the weather turns, in which case we'll likely be painting the front of it, but let's hope we don't get that far.

The basement has been picked up and touched up and rearranged and photographed. I really think people looking at the house would be more impressed if they could see the "before" pictures.

Play room before:

Play room now (from the other side):

Bedroom area before:

Bedroom now:

And room in front of the bedroom:

TV/Audio room area before:

TV/Audio room now:

And, just for fun, remember when the men sawed a big hole in the front of the house?

I have to admit, even after seeing Steve's meticulous plans for repairing and improving the hole, my heart was beating a little quickly that day.

But they fixed it up lickety-split.

We have to have everything spotless again for the agents' tour on Wednesday morning, then it's just maintenance-amidst-packing.

I'm sorry you're having to endure boring posts and pictures about the house. Here are a couple fun videos instead.

Plenty of room for dancing now. Mary wants to show off her running leap - don't blink or you'll miss it.



And running. Lots of running.

Communication 101

Another post without pictures - sorry. :( The house went on the market Saturday and we had two showings Sunday afternoon. Our realtors report that although the house showed well, they would not consider either a "hot prospect."

So we have to continue to keep the house sparkling clean. A large part of that process was packing up a bunch of the kids toys, and 99% of the remining toys were moved to the basement. I assumed this would mean we would be spending about 99% of our time in the basement, but surprisingly this has not been the case. It turns out that all the girls need to endlessly entertain themselves are some dress-up clothes, art supplies, and books. When they do ask to play downstairs, it's almost always because they "want to listen to Belle & Sebastien" on Daddy's record player, or to play kitchen. If they continue this for the next couple months, everything they don't play with is going to find its way into my Garage Sale Room!

As for Michael Jr, he doesn't care what he's playing with as long as it is within 3.5 inches of me. Serious Separation Anxiety Phase. In spite of this he's really funny right now. He still only has one word, but he's finding a way to communicate effectively with points and grunts. When he wants yogurt, he hangs on the fridge door and grunts. When he wants oatmeal or crackers he hangs on the pantry door and grunts. When he's thirsty he gets a cup out of the kids' cupboard and throws it at you. When he wants to see the vacuum (which is often) he points at the hall closet door and grunts. And when he wants to go downstairs to try to sneak into the work room to play with Daddy's tools (apparently he will not always be a mama's boy) he pounds on the basement door. He's a master at nonverbal communication.

Staging

Today was spent feverishly trying to make our house look like no one lives there (which means cleaning, cleaning, storing, cleaning, hiding, cleaning, arranging, cleaning). I got the upstairs ready for photographs so we could get the house listed in time to make it in the weekend ads. Tonight's job is to get the basement ready so I can take pictures of that tomorrow and add them to the listing. The challenge for the foreseeable future is to keep it close enough to this state that it can be returned there on short notice.

Here are a few pictures that I took - our realtor has a bunch more - along with some pictures of what it looked like when we bought it. I kind of forgot how bad it was. :)

Living/Dining Room Before:

Dining Room Now:

Living Room Now:

Piano Room Before:

Piano Room Now (in the background - don't know how I missed a good picture of just the piano room):

Michael's Office Before:

Michael's Office Now:

Bathroom Before:

Bathroom Now (except the wall color is way off in this picture - actually, maybe it would look better this color):

Bedroom Before:

Bedroom Now:

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen Now:

Honestly, now that I'm looking at it again, I don't know how I even let Michael talk me into buying this place. He must have convinced me he could fix it (this is apparently a common trait among the men in his family - absolutely no fear when it comes to renovation projects). Good thing he was right - Cinderella settles for nothing less than a castle.

(Yes, she has dress-up clothes that actually fit her. She just prefers this shirt.)

Have I Mentioned We're Moving...

Ok, I'm taking a ten minute break from organizing lest you forget how funny and adorable preschoolers are. Catherine and Mary are doing really well with the craziness around the house. I think they are a good age for a big move; even though Catherine in particular understands that we aren't going to be seeing our friends here as much, she and Mary have really focused in on their favorite part of the move and that seems to be all they think about: we are going to live closer to Grandma and Grandpa and D-Ma and Grampa T which means we can see them whenever we want. And have sleepovers.

So instead of being sad they are just playing and singing and dancing like normal, or maybe even more because I'm practicing keeping the house picked up which means they have more room to dance.

Today Mary found this suit vest of Michael's (ok, by "found" I mean she took it out of the dirty laundry) and decided to try it on. Aside from being a little short, it fits her just about the same as it fits him.

She was really pleased.

The girls do their fair share of bickering and fighting and experimenting with being generally unpleasant to each other, but for the most part they are actually really good friends and it's super fun to watch them play.

At first glance you might think this is a look of skepticism.

But really it is adoration.

And this is Mary the Protector.

I can totally imagine her ten or fifteen years down the road: on the thin side but stronger than you would expect, a little fireball ready and willing (and able) to beat down anyone who even thought of mistreating any of her siblings. Of course I could be way off - maybe she'll be holed up under a tree with a book or doing synchronized swimming - but the image makes me laugh.

Now I have to apologize for the lack of birthday wishes for Uncle Tommy yesterday. Every time the girls asked to call I was on the other phone for work or trying to get Michael Jr to take a nap or elbow deep in a sink of dishes and the day got away from me. So here is their message:

"Happy Birthday, Funny Tommy! (I love him because he says 'weedle weedle.')"

Also, if you're the praying type, effecting a good night sleep for Michael Jr would put you on the sainthood candidate list in my eyes. Between his mouthful of sprouting teeth, his fever (which may or may not be connected to the mouthful of sprouting teeth), and his random onset separation anxiety, he's not really having a great week. And it's not exactly a great week for him to be not having a great week, because we're hoping to put the house on the market this weekend. Which is my cue to get back to painting. And organizing. And cleaning and storing and packing and straightening and staging. Amen.