So serious

Elliot update:
Mr So Serious. Elliot just woke up from a snooze in his swing and didn't appreciate Mommy taking more pictures. He is getting so good at making all kinds of squeals, screams, and noises, along with a variety of faces. He can mimic faces made to him, and can almost let the giggles out all the time.

We're still working on getting good naps during the day, but the last 4 days he's had a late morning nap for about 1 hour and an afternoon nap for 1.5-2.5 hours. And now that my weekend is over and I'll be wanting him to sleep during the day, he won't.

Our house is still for sale. Sigh, it's a pain in the arse to need it to sell before we can move. I want to move so badly, partly so I don't have to work and can become a stay at home mom and partly so Mike can work during the day and be home on weekends and holidays. Working nights and weekends has lost its appeal many many weekends ago. Too bad we're not independtly wealthy and neither of us have to work....damn lotto people for not picking my numbers again.

That's all for now. I'm suppose to be doing school work but social psychology is a pain in my arse, a huge waste of my time and money, and thankfully over next week. Whoever decided an accounting major has to have 2 psychology classes needs to be shot, multiple times.

On another note, Mike bought me a new photo printer. It ROCKS! Love, love, love it. It's an HP Photosmart 8250. And it's quick.

TTFN, Peanut is calling. ~Crystal

The thrill of VICTORY!!!!!

FINALLY!!!!!!!

After 8 games of my co-ed softball team being on the field and getting crushed week after week, we finally got a win!

Our first 6 games we played in a division we had no business being in, and boy did it show. 3 of our games were called due to the run limit, you can only be down 19 runs before they call the game, that tells you how bad those 3 games were. The other 3, we had a couple of good showings where we managed to get more than one run on the board, and then we had another game that we were in control of all the way til the last inning when the other team put on an offensive clinic.

But not tonight! We dominated the whole game, start to finish, and considering the heat was unreal (hit 100) I think we did pretty damned well.

The final score was 16 to 4! Our bats were on fire!!! I got up to the plate 4 times tonight. Usually we were lucky to get thru our batting order twice, let alone 4 times. I was walked once, and had 3 singles. Not to shabby for a fat guy with a pulled muscled in his left quad. I had one shot that I think I could have stretched into a double had the leg been in good shape, but I was happy getting on period and putting one more base runner on board. The only crappy part was that of the 4 times getting on base, I never got to score a run :( Oh well, beggers cant be choosers.

Defensively we did really well, our ringer left fielder wanted to take a stab at short stop, and after seeing him play there tonight, I think we should have had him there the whole time. That guy has a cannon for an arm, he bobbled several grounders to him and still fired it over to first to get the outs on several occasions, now if we could only get him to stop trying to hit home runs everytime he gets up to the plate, it would be even better. The two of us working short and second base made for a pretty good combonation in the infield. We almost got to turn a double play to end the game, but the dirt bag running from 1st to 2nd decided to come out of the running lane and into my throwing lane, being the nice guy that I am I decided not to fire it right into his forehead and ended up over throwing first base, damnit! I should have just drilled him in the forehead and taught him a lesson, next time =:)

All in all we did really well, it was extra fun playing under the lights, in the warm air, gloves working well, bats working well, ahhh..what a great feeling to finally, finally put a scratch mark in the W column.

And when it pours, you get wet...which isnt always good.

So we heard from both parties today that made offers.

The first group, cute family of 4, they have a brand new baby girl and a 4 year old that was an absolute monster, but him running thru the backyard told mom and dad this would have been a great house for them, and they loved the place, loved the colors we've painted in, loved the floors, the kitchen, everything, loved it. Then their bank would only approve them for 190K...sorry man, not even close. They told us they were working on some other ways to get some more money together, and with any luck, they will find a way, we think they were a good match for the house, but it just wasnt meant to be today.

The second group, who clearly had the money to buy the place, turned out to be a couple of people who have apparently been dropped on their head in the last week or so. They seemed nice enough, but they were clearly looking to come in and buy low...very low. How low? try 20% under our asking price. Thats right, 20%. I couldnt decide if I wanted to throw up or laugh. In the end I'm laughing about it now, but boy throwing up sure seemed like an ok option at the time. We called them up to tell them no, and the guys response was "well, we looked at the tax records, saw what you paid, then did a comparison to the other houses in the area". Well good for you, any monkey with a keyboard can look up the tax records, and as far as comparing it to other houses in the area, so did our realator. In fact, he came with a list of about 20 houses for us to consider when we listed ours. Not a single one of them was going for under 215K. Does that mean thats all we should be able to get for our place? Hell no, most of the other houses that were on the list didnt have as big a lot as we have, nor had their interiors been completely redone. Oh well, his loss. I think his wife actually liked the place, she wanted it to run a day care out of and was all giddy about the circular driveway out front, would have been great for parents dropping off their kids. But not 20% under asking price great, what a dolt. Felt alittle insulting to be honest, but we will bounce back, had 10 flyers out in the info tube when we left for dinner, only 4 remaining now, and thats just in a 2 hour time span, so at least we know people are coming to look at it. It will sell, its not a matter of if, just when.

When it rains...it pours

Well, after 2 weeks of having the house on the market to be sold, we've had 2 parties come thru that were both very interested in the house, both have left here saying they would be submitting an offer to us. They have both been back twice to look at the place, and the last couple just left about an hour ago. We are in the "hurry up and wait" process now and are just waiting to hear back from either of them. I'm excited at the fact that we could have a potential bid war going on here, that excites me.

Update to follow as soon as we know something...keep your fingers crossed for us.

4 month check up

Mike is at work, Peanut is playing with a kicking toy on the floor, so I thought I'd try to post a blog that's not about our damn house. Hopefully the pictures I put in here show up like I want them too. And there are new pictures in the photo album.

We've been so busy on getting the house done we didn't post about Peanut's 4 month check-up. He's getting very big and weighs 13 1/2 pounds and is 25 1/2 inches tall. Our doctor says he's growing very well and will be caught up weigh wise with other babies his age in about a year or so. He had to have more immunization shots but only 4 this time. This nurse was much quicker than the last nurse so we only had to listen to Ell cry and scream for about a minute. Once the nurse left and he was cuddled, all was well again.

Peanut has been wanting to sit up so much lately and we didn't have a good chair that supported his back, so we bought a Bumbo chair for him and it arrived yesterday. So far he loves it and will help him develop his back and neck muscles and get better head control.


Other new developments for Peanut are he's found his fingers and they're usually in his mouth. He's working on sucking his thumb and each time I catch him doing it, he's done before I can get the camera. He's also been using a kick toy we're borrowing from Aunt DeeDee. He loves it and loves being able to kick his little legs. And he's becoming much more vocal. He knows what makes Mommy and Daddy smile and laugh and what makes us jump and pick him up. Yes, he does have us wrapped around his little fingers.

I'm back to work part-time. 6 hours a night, Friday through Monday. And boy, it only took 2 phone calls to get right back into the swing of things. I missed being home with Peanut and Mike, hated having to go back to work, but it's a nice break from being Mommy. Now we're working on getting a good afternoon nap in so I can get more than 6 hours of sleep a night when I do have to work. That's not going so well but we're still trying.

Peanut is calling his boob so TTFN ~Crys

Mr. Murphy, I loathe you!

You ever work on a project, doesnt matter what kind of project it is, its a simple straight forward project, a monkey with one hand on a tool and the other on a bananna could pull it off and you're constantly hit with problems? Thats the story of the laundry room bathroom sink so far.

It started last wednesday night, we had gone and picked up a new sink and faucet and all the supply lines and drain fittings we needed (or so I had thought) and I went home to get it done.

I got the old bracket off the wall from the previous gross nasty sink and mounted the new bracket, so far so good. That went pretty quick and I started to fill my head with thoughts of crossing one more project off the list, I was happier than a cat high on catnip.

I grab the sink and go to put the faucet on it and realize, hey, theres no drain fitting in this thing. No biggie, I'll go grab one in the morning and be done with it. So we go and pick up a new faucet, this one comes with a drain fitting also, score! And it looks nicer than the plain jane one we had picked out. So off we go, head home and put on the new faucet and the drain fitting. Get that all done and go to throw the sink on the wall. The lag bolts that came with the sink wont self start, so I decide that I'll use the molly bolts that came with the sink thinking for sure that theres no stud mounted horizontally behind the wall where the sink is going. So I grab the molly bolts and go to test them out on the sink...they wont go thru the holes in the porcelin to hold the unit to the wall. Now besides the fact that these came with the sink, why the hell dont they fit the holes they are intened to go into!? Oh well, yet again, not a problem, just go to the Depot and pick up a few molly bolts. Do I bother to measure the holes on the sink to make sure I get the right ones? Hell no, thats for sissies and girls, men dont measure "its about as wide as my pinky, that will work" Oh boy. I get home, try them out, sure enough...to big...damnit all to hell this sink sucks ass! Ok, lets dry fit the supply lines too and get that part done...son of a bitch these arent the right damned lines either! ARGH!!! Ok, so we get to kill 2 birds with one stone with the next trip to the Depot, thats called proper time management. So, get the new and improved, and much smaller molly bolts, new supply lines, and head home. Supply lines go on like a glove, cool, progress at last! Now, lets drill the holes for the molly bolts to slip in and get this thing done...What the fu...theres a stud behind the sheetrock running horizontally, whoosh whoosh whoosh go the molly bolts flying across the laundry room. So I pre drill some holes for the lag bolts to go into and get Crystal to help me hold the thing up in the air while I tighten down the bolts. Needless to say, the space behind the sink in which you have to work with is not only filled with the supply lines coming out of the faucet that are copper pipe and unmoveable, but its also only about the width of a good book. So I can only get about a 1/4 turn into the bolt before I have to reset the open ended wrench since a damned socket wrench wont get up in there to get the job done. So 20 minutes go by putting in 2 bolts, the sucker is secured to the wall, supply lines are hooked up, lets hook up the drain line....Oh no f'ing way! the drain lines coming off the sink are 1-1/4 inches wide, and the line going into the wall is 1-3/4 inches wide...kiss my beep, you stupid beep sucking beeper beeper I cant beeping belive this beep!!! Ok, I'll go to the Depot, again, in the morning and get the reducer so I can finally be done with this thing. Of course they dont have anything like that back near the sinks and other drain line stuff, no thats up in the actual plumbing section. So I find that isle and what do you know, theres actually an employee down there that knows what hes talking about, nevermind the fact that he has so much grease in his hair he has to stay away from open flames, he gets me the parts that I need and off I go. I get home from work tonight, Crystal leaves for work, Elliot is sleeping, so I go in and finish the sink. Now the reducer makes the drain stick out so far the drain line coming off the sink doesnt line up with it anymore, its off by about a half an inch! So I bounce out of the bathroom like a fat kid playing dodge ball, and have yet to return again to the Depot in the morning so I can get a flexible drain pipe and be done with it once and for all. I'm going to bed now, reliving this tale was almost enough to drive me to drinking! I think I'll get by on some diet cherry pepsi though :)

The morale of the story? Hire a freaking plumber, they get paid to think of all this crap in advance!

Time to list the house...

The realator we bought the house thru last October came out and looked at the house to give us a market analyasis on the house and give us a ballpark number that he thought the house could sell for. It still wasnt the numbers we wanted to see, but it was more than he thought originally after seeing the work we've done. Now its time to list it on the net and see if we get any hits.

We are still tossing around numbers among ourselves to see what we should go with, but I'm fairly sure we will put it on the market sometime this week.

Got the kitchen cabniet doors put back up, so all the big work is now done. Pix of the new hardware and whatnot in the house photo's section. Everyone keep their fingers crossed that we get a quick sale.

Off to get ready for softball...so far we are 0 and 3...the team we play tonight is also o and 3...someone has to come away a winner..could this be the one for us? Doubtful :)

Stupid oregon tax refund!

Well, Crystal made a slight error on her Oregon tax return, so she has to go back to work now starting next week :( I was really hoping that she wasnt going to have to go back before we got the house sold. Well laid plans of mice and men, yada yada yada.

I got a "wtf" from my dad and not posting pix of the new shower enclosure, so they are uploaded now in the house work section. Your welcome pops!

Got alittle bit more of the tiny stuff done tonight when I got home from work, nothing back breaking, all that work is done now :) its all little things from here. Looking forward to having it all completely done this Monday...that means I'll have 2 whole days to do whatever I want....................................Oh boy, this could be dangerous!