House Hunting (and more weddings!)

Well, we are pretty sure we've found 'THE house.' The asking price is fair for the house itself, but apparently, its one of the highest priced houses in the subdivision, which i guess, is a bad thing. So, we're trying to learn more about that through friends, family, and our buyer's agent (who is just helping us as a family friend with this FSBO house that we love so much), whom we lovingly call DP. He has been wonderful, but he is quite the character with his designer shoes, pink polos, and the best smelling man's cologne I have ever smelled.

Anyways, house hunting is exciting and fun, but at this point we're becoming impatient for this house and frustrated that it's overpriced for the neighborhood. We're praying that we can help the sellers realize this, and that they will come down a little. As DP always says: "You don't make money when you sell a house, you make money when you buy a house. " - meaning, don't overpay for your house, otherwise you'll be screwed when you try and sell it.

In other news, we attended our last Newman wedding of the summer, Andrew Lawrence and Kate Markowski. The food was excellent, and as always, Lucy was a hit, espicially being the only toddler there. She danced the night away with the newman girls.

She also really enjoyed dancing with David

Because she was the smallest person on the dance floor (and because of Mommy not being fast enough to catch her), she got knocked over a few times. Once by a whack to the head by the photographers camera, and once by running into Jack. He felt pretty horrible even though it was in no way his fault. But he then felt much better as Lucy became tired not long after that incident, and fell asleep in his arms while dancing.

Ryan and I were also able to enjoy the night with the help of Karen for Bridget. She didn't mind holding Bridget for an extended time partly due to the fact that it gave her an excuse not to dance with Jeremy, her crazy dancing new husband. :)

Beyonce, Elmo, & Lucy Gianna

This is Lucy's new obsession. Ryan introduced it to her one day when they were watching their daily dose of YouTube. Now, we can't get her to stop watching it. 5, 6, 7 times in a row and she still wants more. If we make her stop, she will run to our bedroom door and yell and cry for a while........At least it's catchy. :)

Steed Wedding

Lucy with her new best friend


Lauren dancing with Lucy


Lucy loving the band


Amy and Bridget

enjoying the attention

Last weekend we were up north in the suburbs for Our dear friends Lauren and Drake's wedding. Lauren looking stunning with a gorgeous dress and long dark locks. The mass was of course wonderful with a beautiful choir and a great homily by Father Dittmer. Ryan and I were supposed to be in the bridal party, standing up together, but when we found out that we were pregnant with Bridget in the fall, we all decided it would be best for us not to be a formal part of the wedding. But, I will admit that it was pretty difficult for me not to be recognized as a bridesmaid for my best friends' wedding. Yet, I was recognized as momma to the two most beautiful little girls there. Lucy was even cuter then the flower girl.

Our favorite part of the celebration was the band at the reception. When not going crazy on the dance floor, Lucy espiecially liked one of the lead singers, a middle aged woman with a very sparkly sequined blue top. Once, between songs, Lucy even walked up to her with arms open wide, wanting to be picked up and held. Now, Lucy likes people, but does not really like to be held by anyone - she more prefers to do her own thing. So, this was quite a surprise to us. Luckily, the woman liked Lucy just as much as was delighted to hold her.

As a side note, I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting today since I was pregnant with Bridget. And I was extremely surprised to find out that I've lost over 20 pounds since B has been born!!! I am only 6 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy #2 weight! YES!!! My goal weight is still much more then 6 pounds, but it means i'm that much closer! What great news!

PS-We were busy making sure our girls werent screaming their heads off at the wedding, so these picstures are actually stolen from a few friends. :) thanks!

To cloth or not to cloth?

Thanks to my regular reading of Bonnie & Katie's blogs, we have decided to try cloth diapering. Now, this is dependent on the fact that trying them out goes as good as we're hoping. I am waiting to set an appointment with a woman who has a showroom to show all the different kinds of diapers and what works best for each family.

Thanks to being excited and staying up way too late last night, I've decided that we're definitely going to do an All in One Diaper, which seems to be the most convinient next to disposable diapers. Out of the AIO's, I think the ones I am most interested in are the Mommy's touch AIO's, and the Swaddlebee's AIO's.

For now at least, we are just going to use them on Lucy, for a few reasons. One, I don't really know if we're ready to do cloth diapering on Bridget's newborn poop. And two, when Bridget was born, our families were so generous with buying us diapers, that we literally have enough for her for the next 4-5 months I think, and I don't want to waste those. And, three, Lucy goes through a lot less diapers a day then Bridget does, therefore we wouldn't have to buy as many diapers.

I have finally been convinced to try cloth diapering because I don't like that there's always nasty gel from the disposable diapers on the girls' bottoms. Also, having two children in diapers has made us realize how much garbage we're creating. We need to be better about recycling and such anyways, but this is one way that we can help. So, even having just one in cloth will drastically cut down on our diaper waste. Having two in diapers (and just plain having two children in general) has made us look at our finances more as well. We are planning on buying a home in 2008, so saving even more money for the down payment, and for all the purchases that come with buying a new home (like FINALLY getting some nice, new couches and a kitchen and dining room table! :-D YAY! I cant wait!), has made us find ways to cut down in other areas. And even though there is a big investment at first with cloth diapers, even Ryan agreed that it would pay off soon enough with Bridget growing up so quick, and for all our future children as well. The biggest challenge for me I think will be to make sure that there are clean diapers avaliable for use, and hopefully this will help me keep up on other laundry as well.

Anyways, we are just really excited to try this out for our family and to see if the AIO cloth diapers actually are as convenient and easy as they seem!