Stress, Progress, and Recess

Alright, it's been about 2 months so I'll try and let the pictures do most of the talking.

Halloween

Eliot was a caveman, easily mistaken for Tarzan unless you see him with his brother.

Ira refused to wear his hand and foot claws, the shirt and pants I made him.  But if you're going to pick 2 parts of the costume to wear, you may as well pick the head and tail. 

The House

We finally closed on the house in late October and have been working on it ever since.  

Living Room Before

During

After (floors and gray paint)  

The gray is a little more purple than we expected, but it'll do.

The Kitchen Before

During

Look at all that wasted space in the corner!

During still.  

Cabinets are being installed this week!

The storage space is going to be much more accessible and effectively used, and I'm going to dance all around it as I cook. :)  

Kind of creepy and cute artifact we found under the cabinets, along with some dusty toys and a cigarette butt.

Family Room Before

During

 . 

During still

We've been really blessed to have some visits from family.

Paul and Valine came and helped us get a TON done.  It was a huge help, and really good grandma and grandpa time for the boys.  

Then the Romeros came on their way back from a family reunion.  I failed to get any really good pictures, but here's at least proof that they came.  They were extremely good sports with my bad hostessing, since I've been a little overwhelmed with the house and worried about the boys being sick.  In fact I think they did most of the cooking and dish cleaning!  You guys can come back any time!...and I promise to be a better hostess next time. :)

 Anthony's Movember celebration shot.

Yep, he's a cutie.

Thanksgiving

 We celebrated with our good friends the Hostetlers.  Carmen had just had their baby a week earlier.  Yes, one week!  But with her mom there to take care of them, they insisted on having us come, so we brought lots of pies and goodies, and enjoyed among other deliciousness  their bacon wrapped turkey.  Mmmmm.

 As soon as I got the camera out, I heard little squeals of joy and could feel these cute little eyes staring at me.  Eliot loves being photographed and pretty much every thing else.  Since last post he's grown two teeth and have become extremely mobile.

 Here are the boys in "disguise."

So, that's pretty much life.  We've been kind of busy to the max.  In fact, I can't think of another time I've felt so behind in almost every area of life.  We didn't get around to picking raspberries before they froze.  Instead of carving Halloween pumpkins, we painted Thanksgiving pumpkins.  Our routine that usually includes the library, park, playdates, exercise, good nutrition, and healthy sleep habits is all somewhere on the spectrum between "Out of Wack" to "Non-existent."  But it's also been really fun, and things will calm down soon.  We have been blessed immensely the past couple of months and are ready to play lots this next month.  Bring it on December! 

Fall Family Photo-rama

Alright, if you've already seen these on facebook, or google +, it might not be worth your time to see them again.  You can skip to our update at the bottom.  Otherwise, welcome to the Fall Family Photo-rama! 

I rarely like having my picture taken.  But I have to say, we had a lot of fun playing in the leaves yesterday.  It was absolutely beautiful!

I like how tough and seriously Eliot looks here with with little bear ears.  

Vote: Healthy complection? or Oompa Loompa look?

I love my guys.

I think the reason I had fun yesterday (as opposed to every other time I've set out to have my photo taken), is that it was just us.  Anthony was the photographer, so there was no self consciousness with a stranger, or weird unnatural poses, just family fun.  You can tell Ant has the remote in his hand on the right.  He did a great job.

Ira faces.  This was the beginning of the end.

Ira got a little angry and hit Dad...

 and then did it again.

Meanwhile, Eliot began melting.

 We just stuck the kids in the car for food and sleep and continued with the photo-rama.

  

 My shorter than intended bangs are showing their awkwardness here.  They do alright if gravity is pulling them the right way. 

So, that's pretty much life.  We're happy.  My throat periodically acts up, but I think we have it under control for now.  I survived preparing the Stake R.S. dinner for Conference and am gearing up for a friend's baby shower.  Work is going well for Anthony and he's been Ira's parent of choice lately, which means, he's been reading a lot of bedtime stories and playing a lot of T-rex.  

Ira's quote of the week was probably, "Make up my mind, Mom! Make up my mind!"  Oh, if only I could.  I'm not exactly sure what he meant, but he's been pretty hard to persuade when he wants to be.  Eliot is cuddly and cute as ever.

The house buying is progressing, I guess.  We got it inspected last week, and are moving forward with the next steps.  So many steps!  We're hoping to close before the month is over.

Hope everyone had a great Conference weekend!  I'm searching for a politically correct way to celebrate Columbus Day if anyone has any ideas. 

Riding Around

Life has been a whirlwind.  Since we've been in Michigan, we've bought a car, registered the car and committed to MI driver's licences, taken a trip to Nicaragua (Anthony), visited the Urgent Care Center 3 times, and have gotten reacquainted with our friends from last time we lived here.  

Our "new" 2003 Odyssey. 

It seems like the majority of our spare energy has gone towards the house hunt. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that we are completely obsessed and have almost been constantly looking for our future home.  We've attempted to make offers on three houses, and viewed about 25.  Our poor real estate agent!  

The morning we found out that our dream house was bought by someone else, before we had a chance to offer, we were cheered up at GE's "Family Fun Day." It was at a place called The Henry Ford's Greenfield Village.  It's surprisingly amazing. I can't believe how little I knew about it before this opportunity to go.  In a nutshell, Henry Ford was so stinking rich, he decided to create a living museum by purchasing historically significant buildings and transporting them back to Detroit.  

So, within a couple of blocks you can tour the Wright Brother's Bike Shop (where they engineered the first planes), the Court House Abe Lincoln practiced law in, Edison's entire research campus where he invented the light bulb, Robert Frost's home, and on and on.  Amazing!  Although Ira is pretty unaware of all that, he was aware of this.

Trains!  He was in heaven.

 We also got to ride in a 1914 Model T...

and a Carousel built in 1913.

 This is me getting busted.  I guess it's one person per horse.  And Eliot could be the straw that broke the hand carved 99 year old horse's back. 

Ira:  He is keeping us busy.  He continues his obsessions with dinosaurs and trains, and has now added Anthony to the list.  Ever since Ant's trip to Nicaragua, Ira's been  extremely attached.  If I read him books at night instead of Ant, you'd think he just received the death sentence.  Other interests would include the alphabet!...and agression.  He's excited about letters and their sounds, but also kicking and biting and punching.  The other day I remember saying, "'Sorry Eliot' means, 'I'm not going to kick you in the head any more, Eliot.'"   sigh....

 But Eliot is surviving just fine!  In fact half the time I get worried about Ira's roughness with him, Eliot just responds with squeals and laughs.  The other half of the time he ends up with some scratch or bump, or mini-bruise.   I welcome other moms at this point to tell me that this is normal?  :)

 Ira's been sitting (and falling) a lot lately, making new consonant noises, and making us all smile.

 My cute guys.  I can't remember what they were doing.  Pretending to be worms?

Anyway, life is good!  We're waiting to hear back from the bank on a foreclosure.  We'll keep you updated!    

The Move

 So, you may have guessed by now...but the move happened.  We arrived in Michigan a month and a half ago, and hit the ground running.  Things have been just a little stressful, but life is starting to calm down a little, thus I finally have time for a blog post!

We're thinking of boycotting U-haul for our next move.  They didn't have the van we reserved (and confirmed) and had to use this "Jumbo Hauler."  Better too big than too small though!  I felt kind of like I had the tough job with the two kids in the car, while Ant drove the truck....until I saw how big it was.  Envy no more. 

 Here's Ira getting some wiggles out and playing hide and go seek at Chipotle.  This reminds me of Charlie Brown hiding behind the tree, with his big head sticking out on both sides. 

The best part of the move, was the few days we spent with Mom and Dad in PA, while we were apartmentless.  We were fortunate enough to visit with some of my best friends and of course revisit....

I think we rode the Chocolate World ride at least three times before we convinced Ira to go eat giant cookies in the cafeteria. 

We also went to the "Turkey Hill Experience" for the first time.  It's not free, but it is AWESOME.  I'd say at least 50 times cooler than the Ben and Jerry's factory.  The big difference is that you have to pay at Turkey Hill, but there are loads of fun activities and all you can eat ice cream and lemonade samples.  We ate a ridiculous amount of ice cream before we rolled out of this place. 

Mom, concocting her dream ice cream flavor. 

Go Steelers!

 There's nothing to get you ready for two more days of driving, like over-eating sugar and fat.

We arrived exhausted, but extremely blessed to have a couple friends show up from the Ypsilanti ward to help unload.  It was short notice, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week.  Hooray for service!