Guest post by Ryan

Just a few of Lucy's favorite words:

3 syllables:
Cheerios
Ariel

2 syllables:
Jesus
Baby
Pizza
Elmo
Headband
Uh-oh
Daa-aad

1 syllable:
More
Shoes
No
Truck
Poop
WALK
Various zoological onomatopoeia

Updates

No, we have not closed on our new house yet. :( The closing date has been set and moved three times already! It is supposed to be by the end of the month (which is only a week away!), and if it's not, I'm going to be really mad at someone. I've been trying to be patient with everyone involved, but honestly, this is ridiculous! The closing date doesn't just affect us, it affects the people we're currently renting from, our parents/others who are going to help us pack/move, my mom who will be coming down to help with everything, the family friend who is doing a lot of work at the new house, and NK37 (pray that we end up actually moving more then a week or two before the retreat!!). I will be contacting the seller's lawyer, bank, and realtor myself either today or tomorrow so they can understand how frustrated we are instead of our nice, calm realtor and bank.

In other news, Lucy just turned 18 months last Sunday and Bridget is well on her way to 4 months!! I can't believe how fast they are growing, but it is so fun to see! They are now interacting a lot more with Bridget actually 'talking' and laughing back when Lucy plays with her, and Lucy loves to try and hold bridget too! Their halloween costumes are insanely amazingly adorable, and we need to get together with all of you so we can show all the chillens off! :-D We also finally have gotten Bridget into cloth diapers a few weeks ago, and it is wonderful! They are now in the same size BumGenius rise (size) of medium, which is a little crazy. Soon enough they will be wearing the same size clothes, as Bridget is 3 months, and wearing 6 month clothes which really aren't big on her at all! We also switched to cloth wipes, which honestly, if youre doing cloth diapering is SO much easier then trying to do disposable wipes with cloth diapers! I highly reccomend it! I did buy some cotton babies/BumGenius wipes, but mostly we just use baby washcloths as they are cheaper and work exactly the same.

Well, I've got class in a bit, so I need to go, but I'm going to put up a facebook album of pictures sometime today, so check there for those!

CatholicVote.com

I saw this video on Danielle Bean's Blog, and really enjoyed it. It's a bit lengthy, but gets the message across. On a side note, our Epiphany Elizabeth Ministry is thinking about coordinating with the other Catholic churches in Bloomington-Normal to get her to come do a mother's retreat day late this year or early 2009!! Whoo Hoo!

But, since that is still in the planning stages, we are heading out to Champaign in November to see www.smartmartha.com talk. :-D You should come!

PS-I don't care Raul

Raul recently informed me that I had too much pink on our site. Well, my friend, we have two little girls - pink is our life right now whether we like it or not. And, I happen to like the stylish pink and black stripes. Oh Uncle Papi.....We miss you being in Bloomington.

Our new house (hopefully)!

Limerick Lane

front living room

dining room

back family room

Yes, it's been a while since the last post. Summer is gone and school has begun for me. I am taking three classes, doing some practicum hours for my major, leading the fall Koinonia retreat, moving within the next month, and all while trying to be a good wife and mother (although those are the two that I feel like I am lacking the most in right now). Ryan recently got a new job and transferred from Country Companies (the second biggest insurance headquarters in town) to State Farm ( the biggest insurance headquarters in town). The girls and I have highly benefitted from his significant pay raise, his day being shortened by 15 minutes (which doesnt seem like a lot, but is when you are dealing with the crankiest part of the day for a young toddler!), and our completely free membership to State Farm Park. It is many acres of sports fields, parks, meeting areas, and best of all a HUGE waterpark made up of 4 different pools and a sprinkler area. It is awesome!

Our house has been the biggest worry right now. We found an amazing, large house in an awesome neighborhood just a few minutes away from Epiphany. At first, it was out of our price range, but then about a month ago or so, our realator got some 'inside scoop,' and found out that the owners were in a pretty bad financial spot right now, and just really needed to sell the house at any price they could. So, we moved in for the kill, offered them less then the house was listed, and they accepted! But, the issue now is that this is what is called a 'short sale.' At first I thought that meant things would be moving fast, but I quickly realized that it meant quite the opposite. A short sale is actually a longer process then a 'normal' sale, because what we offered for the house is less then what the owners owe the bank on it. Bad for that bank, but good for us. So, it just takes a lot more paperwork and a lot more time for the bank to mull over whether or not they want to accept losing money on the house. But, the good news is, that our realtor just called me this morning and let us know that we have a tentative closing date of September 15! So, I'm trying not to get TOO excited because until the closing is actually over, there is still a chance that something crazy might happen and we wont get the house. But, everyone involved seems to be very confident.

The house is wonderful and everything we have been looking for: 4 bedrooms all on the upper level, open floor plan where the kitchen is open to the family room, larger front living room area, full basement, laundry on main floor near the kitchen and family rooms, 2 car attached garage. It also has some extremely nice 'extras' that we werent looking for at all but will be quite wonderful to have: very large master bedroom with walk-in closet, garden tub in the master bath (one of the things I am most excited about!!!), extra office area in the basement, nice sized deck and backyard. The pictures are from the houses' website, and although they are nice looking, I dont really think they do justice for the space. The pictures definitely make the rooms look smaller then they are. Plus, its a very open floor plan like I said, which makes everything feel bigger.

We cant wait to have everyone over!

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. :)