A.J.'s Birthday Bash Pics Part One

a Blog heavy day..

I know I've put a lot of crap out today.. but I just keep remembering bits and pieces. If anything else comes to me, I'll just add to this list:

1. Heard Aunt Wes got a job... Is that not worthy of a post? Jeez.

2. Nathan started kissing yesterday. He opens his mouth and licks my mouth. BEAUTIFUL.

Pics on the way...

Sorry it's taking so long for the birthday party pics. I was without my computer for 5 days. My video card crapped out...but the place I took it figured out that I didn't need it anyway! So everything is great, and I will have some pictures for you all very soon.

It was great to see everyone again. I don't get to see you all very often anyway, so it didn't feel too different yet. I'm sure once the months go by, I'll realize how far apart we are.

The saddest thing I've ever heard

I went to pick Austin and AJ up from school today and AJ says, "are we going home now?"

Me: "well, we're going to daddy's. Is that what you mean?"

AJ: "not to the condo?"

Me: "no, back to daddy's workshop"

AJ: "Oh, I don't even know what 'home' is anymore..."

sigh...

So today I see Nathan on the floor oozing drool and white bits from his mouth. He's not choking, just puffy cheeked and oozing grossness. I run over and pinch his cheeks and stick my finger in there to clean out whatever he's gotten into... and practically an ENTIRE chicken breast comes out. Seriously, the piece of meat was enough to choke Dave.

Oh, and earlier I saw him looking at me with that naughty grin.. and I say, "Naaaaa-thannn????" and he turns on his butt and starts crawling away at light speed- leaving in his wake a spit covered dime.

Also today, Nathan has discovered he can climb up on- and dive face-first from- the little blue sofa that was in A.J.'s bedroom.

I Am Deeply Not Offended

1) I know a joke when I hear it, 2) it's true, and c) I have searched the entries and can't find the comment. I am, however, offended by the racist comments, like, "White guys can't do math."

Was that offensive?

Ok, so there's debate over here if what I said about Papa in the earlier post was offensive or not (the thing about "to a much lesser extent"). I obviously meant it as a joke. Dave thinks it was rude... Want to weigh in? And I don't know why I'm even asking because, honestly, I could give a shit.

Anyways, here's a pic of A.J. tonight wearing his birthday gift.

The House is Quiet Now

No one is yelling or crying, but no one is laughing, either. I miss the beeps and boops of the video games. I miss reading stories, although it didn't go well the last night you were here. I read what I thought was a nice story about a little girl and her mother picking blueberries on a mountain. When I finished, AJ squinted at me and said, "I HATE that story!"

It was so good to have you all here. Tampa doesn't seem as far away as it once did.

Going "home"

We all had a wonderful time visiting- and we got a LOT of work done. Aside from a successful packout, we got the house under contract, had a rockin' birthday party for A.J., got to see Grandma, Papa, and Uncle Mike, got a casino night (and lost 7 frigging dollars), visited old friends at Delmar Gardens, and ate some pretty damned good food.

Here's a pic of our boys on the way "home". Thank you all so much for your help. :)

Daddy's hat

Spoons

Does this need an explanation?

Saying Goodbye

Our beautiful O'fallon home went under contract again today. If all goes as planned, we should be closing that deal on April 14th.

Going to Grandma's

"Try it again day"

Yesterday A.J. woke up, came in the kitchen and started dancing, "we're going to GRAND-MA'S HOUSE" - he did a very cute little jig.

Today, AJ woke up, came in the kitchen and said, "IT'S TRY IT AGAIN DAY!!"

So we're getting ready and will be on our way soon.

He was handsome this morning..

I had Tater all gussied up for his trip to Grandma's. These things never last long. Here he is with tonight's dinner (pizza) all over.

The Snow Fingers

What a strange snow it was today. After talking to Mom, I understand that it was a similar story all around. Here is a picture of the snow band that canceled my school today.

By the way, the distance between Camdenton and Lebanon (just south) is about 25 miles.

Try Again Tomorrow

Nina and the boys got to the airport just fine. The plane took off, and everything was going just fine. The plane got within 45 minutes of St. Louis, when the captain got on and said, "Sorry folks, we're going to have to turn around and go back to Tampa due to weather issues in STL."

Nina said that AJ just put his head down and started weeping... and he said, "but I miss my grandma VERY much...". Then Austin started to cry and Nina started to cry.

It was a heartbreaking moment. We'll try again tomorrow.

Oh, to Live in Missouri!

Are you sure you guys don't want to live in Missouri anymore?

Sunday, March 2: Partly cloudy and a light breeze...76 degrees.

Monday, March 3: 2 inches of rain and very windy...temperature falling throughout the day.

Tuesday, March 4: SNOW DAY! Windy with 4-8 inches of snow forecast...20 degrees.

Nathan eating a deck of cards

Nathan's been eating anything he can pick up. Here he is eating one of the playing cards... he's had about 33 others earlier.

Another AJ birthday pic

Goodbye, Daytona!

Well, this has been a hell of a weekend - yesterday, we started the day celebrating AJ's fourth birthday at Chuck E Cheese. Then, we stopped at the apartment for a few minutes before we headed back to Daytona. Once we were there, we spent the rest of yesterday and the early part of today packing our stuff and cleaning out the condo. Then, we packed the car(s), headed back to Tampa, and put all of the stuff from the condo in the apartment's storage room. We have now officially vacated the condo, and now, God willing, the next time we visit the condo, we'll be on vacation.

So, as Nina said, step 483 is now complete - we are all now in Tampa! Next step - go to Grandma and Papa's house for sleepovers and move the rest of our stuff here.

Chuck E Cheese Surprise

We surprised the kids with a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese for A.J. They had a very very good time! This is only one of the pix I got. You'll just have to be patient until I can get them all out of my camera.

Happy Birthday A.J.!!!

AJ said, "Are you gonna miss me, Mommy?"

Mommy, "where are you going?"

AJ: "I mean, are you gonna miss me when I'm not a baby anymore?"

So Much Has Been Happening...

I apologize for keeping you in suspense about the cable bill. It's been a blur of activity here. Yes, I paid the bill. I'm going to wait until next week to pay the Regions Bank Mastercard bill because it's over $600 and will have to come out of the next check. I paid for the windshield wiper motor on the Saturn with the Regions card.

I have to pick up my medicine at Schnuck's pharmacy today. I may get a haircut tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.

Papa... still waiting?

We're all waiting for the next post. Did you ever put that cable bill in the mail? The kids keep asking me to read the blog to them, to check the status... and they're so disappointed every time! Nathan himself keeps saying, "WTF? Doesn't Papa pay his bills? Is the a deadbeat, or what?"

Talking on the phone...

Sorry these are blurry. It was very hard to capture this with my camera phone- but Nathan has taken to picking up the phone and blabbering into it like his Mommy. :)

Potato pix

Nathan grabbed this banana out of my hand and insisted on feeding himself.
Two Potatoes

Nathan at the Zoo.

The Zoo here has a bunch of outdoor water fountains that the kids can play in. We let Austin and AJ play- but Nathan didn't want to. He loves baths, but hates having water squirted at him (like in the shower). Anyways, he was stripped down to swim, but decided to practice walking instead.

Zoo!

The zoo here is AWESOME!! The boys had a blast.

Tate

AJ Might Be Kinda Smart

So, tonight we're sitting at dinner, trying to pass the time before the food comes. Austin wrote his name on the back of a paper coaster, AJ wrote his name on another one, and I wrote Nathan's on another. While AJ was playing with the coasters, he said, "And now, I'm going to write Dad." So, he took a crayon and wrote "Dad" on one of the coasters.

We've never shown him how to do that. He just picked up a crayon and wrote it.

Of course, one of the D's was backwards. I guess we'll just have to work on that.

Here's a Damn Post

Nina's right. We ought to write more posts. Our lives are interesting and we should share the highlights.

I've been trying to make my pajama bottoms and the shirts I wear with them match better so she won't laugh at me. Mixing different plaids is not good, and I understand that.

I trimmed my toenails last Sunday.

I paid a bill today. Sears Mastercard. The balance was $51.75. The minimum payment was also $51.75. What's up with that?

The cable bill came today. I'll put the payment in the mail on Monday.

We want a sleepover even more than A.J. does.

Snow Day

So yeah, gimme a snow day, and I'll probably get a little bored. I am playing around with the look of the blog, so if you have any suggestions, you can keep them and shove them up your ass. Unless I like them, in which case I will take full credit for having come up with it myself.

Funny

So I opened cnn.com and there's a picture of Obama and Clinton. So A.J. says, "HEY! There's Grandma and Papa!"

Hmmm.. travel plans

How come nobody else posts?

Anyways, we're scheduled to come up to packout on March 4-11th (nina and boys)

Dave'll be on his way on the 6th to 11th.

it's gonna be crazy and busy for Dave and I, but the kids will be in STL with Grandma and
Grandpa for a majority of the time. I think we're going to try to do a small 'party' for A.J.'s 4th birthday while we're there. Be warned that whoever shows up for this event MUST wear stupid birthday hats and smile. Please keep gifts either to a minimum, or pay to ship them to FL your damned selves.

Also, AJ told me today that he prefers his Grandma's cooking- especially the spag and meatballs. I find that hard to believe- but only because I haven't cooked a proper meal in about a year. How could he remember enough to compare?

AJ especially keeps nagging about when he's going to get a sleepover at Grandmas. Austin asks too, but he's not nearly as aggressive about it. AJ keeps asking "When? WHEN???" and I explain that we've got to go to Tampa this weekend, come back to the condo, go back to tampa and THEN we'll go to Grandma's house". He thought it was tomorrow. He wasn't happy with me. sigh.

Ok, that's it for now. Lots of stuff going on. What's up with all y'all?

Sweet Ozzy

Nathan's Toy Box

I'm not sure how Tater got in here... Austin SWEARS he didn't put him in... AJ was in the tub at the time.

We'll have to call in C.S.I. to figure this one out.

BIG BIG NEWS!!!

Ok- so WHAT about the freaking house already!?! On to what is really important!

NATHAN took THREE STEPS TODAY before plopping on his little ass. He's so freaking cute. I can't wait for you all to see him again.

We have a contract on a home in FL

The contract for the home we offered on in Tampa was just signed! We now have a flurry of work to do- inspections, mortgages, moving, setup, etc.

Our closing date is set for March 17th. Not sure yet what our plan is for the packout, but we will let you all know as soon as we can!

nb

Austin and the big wheel and on his way to AR

Running on the beach & the heisman

AJ was running on the beach chasing birds.

Austin is a sports hero!

The Tampa Home Affair

Well, we still don't have a signed contract for the home we're looking at in Tampa. Here's the link to the Realtor.com page for the house - the pictures on the inside don't really do it justice, because the previous owner's furniture is ugly. Trust me though - the house is really nice:

Here's what's happened so far: Last Monday, we put a ridiculous lowball offer in on the Tampa house, with the knowledge that we had a signed offer for Rainbarrel. Literally 10 minutes after we faxed the offer, our realtor in O' Fallon came back and said that our buyers were probably going to back out. Apparently, their inspector found cracks in the basement, which puts us in the 99.87% percent of all basements in the Midwest. Plus, there's no water in the basement, even though eight inches of snow and two inches of rain had recently fallen. Also, there were puddles of water in the backyard, which is an obvious indication of drainage problems after two weeks of snowstorms and rain saturating the earth. Monday ended with the Rainbarrel deal hanging by a thread.

On Tuesday, the sellers, through their relo company (Cartus - the same bunch of clowns handling our relo) came back with a silly counteroffer (like two grand less than the asking price). We decided to come back with an equally silly counter-counteroffer - we came up a little bit, plus we asked for 2% of the sales price back to cover closing costs and prepaids. So,our silly counter-counteroffer was basically a couple grand more than our original ridiculous lowball offer. I was hesitant to even come back with our counter, because it was so far off from the seller's counter. Later on Tuesday, we found out that the Rainbarrel deal was officially dead.

When we came back to Cartus, the idea was to stall, going back and forth with verbal counteroffers until we decided we were too far apart to move on the house. On Wednesday, however, the unexpected happened - Cartus accepted our silly counter-counteroffer! So, on Wednesday afternoon, we had to scramble to get our offer in writing to Cartus before the end of the day, and also figure out how we were going to come up with the rest of the money to close.

On Wednesday evening, I had an event for work, and I had assumed that once we had a verbal agreement and once Nina and I had signed the written contract, it was a mere formality for the other side to sign the contract. On the way home from the event, I called Mom and Dad to tell them the good news. Once I got home, Nina informed me that all we had was a verbal agreement, and Cartus wasn't going to sign the contract until the next day (Thursday) at the earliest.

Thursday came, and Cartus insisted on a typewritten offer, so of course we had to jump through hoops to sign that offer as well. Here's the process for signing documents right now: our realtor in Tampa faxes me the paperwork at work. I print out the paperwork, sign it, then fax it to Nina in Daytona. She signs it, then faxes it back to our realtor in Tampa, who then faxes it to the seller's agent. Assuming I'm at my desk at work, we can complete the entire process in about a half hour. Apparently, however, offers to Cartus have to go through some sort of bureaucratic corporate oversight thingy, so they're not nearly as efficient as we are in approving paperwork. Though we got the documents in on Thursday afternoon, Cartus still didn't produce a signed contract.

This put us into a bit of a bind. The next day was Friday, and we absolutely did not want this held over the long weekend. Having a pending offer gives the sellers a big advantage, as they can dangle our pending offer out as a negotiating tool if another buyer wanted to make an offer - that's the reason these contracts have an expiration date. When the offer came back to us typewritten, the expiration date was February 19th, which is Tuesday (tomorrow). Nina lined it out and wrote February 15th, which was last Friday. We made it clear to our realtor that we did not want this to span the weekend, that we wanted a signed offer by end of the day Friday.

Friday came, and as it turned out, the offer needed to be approved by the seller's company, who was paying for the relocation, since the offer was less than the buyout value. Plus, the hard deadline message to the seller's agent was filtered by our realtor, who wasn't nearly as aggressive as he should have been. So, Friday came and went without a signed offer.

So, here we are now. We think there's a pretty good chance that Cartus will finally sign the offer, but who knows for sure. We should hear something for certain by tomorrow.

Sweetie

Boogers and Blueberries

Housing & other stuff

The thing about our house in STL and the house we're looking at here is so complicated and tiring that I can't even be bothered to explain it all. The main points of the story are:

• Rainbarrel has NOT yet sold
• We do NOT yet have a contract on a home in FL.

There's junk in motion, but nothing sticking quite yet. We'll keep you posted once it feels like something has firmed up.

OHHH, I swear I think Nathan said "balloon". It comes out more as a raspberry (pursing his lips and blowing air and spit everywhere), but sometimes it actually sounds like "booowoo". I think he hasn't mastered the 'B' sound, but he tries.

Dave just got to the condo for the weekend visit.

Oz and AJ just got haircuts. You can see them in the pix below.

I'm just tired. Nothing new! :)

A couple pix..

Sorry I took so long- it's been very crazy and stressful here!!!

still not working....

Well, I'm still unemployed and really starting to go crazy. Only thing good...it's been a good winter to be able to stay in out of the cold and snow we are getting. I have enjoyed being able to keep up on the political action. I just keep counting Barack's delegates......I'm sure he will be calling me again for advice.
I have the the video link from the Rocky Mountain News for a slideshow/video of caucus day at my house.
Also, Grandma is right.....it's time for some more pictures!!

Sorry to hear about the house deal falling thru. Hang in there and someday (when Barack is in office), the housing industry will get going again.






http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/multimedia/20080103_caucus_50883/

Not Under Contract!!!

House in STL is officially on the market again. Easy come, easy go...

Fingers crossed that Rainbarrel will sell soon.

The holdup...

Sorry.. it's been a crazy week. Went to Miami (4 hour drive from daytona) on Friday for my mom's party on Saturday. Left early Sunday morning and all went to Tampa (4.5 hrs drive). House hunted all Sunday evening and Monday morning. Put an offer on a house Monday. Literally 5 minutes after we submit our offer to buy, we got called by our STL agent and warned that the buyers on Rainbarrel may be walking from the deal.

There's other stuff too complicated to write down. Besides, Dave and I are emotionally exhausted. We don't know where this all is going. We will let you know once things start getting sorted out.

Between our agent in Tampa, our agent in STL, the home we we're trying to buy here, the mortgage companies, the movers, Raytheon, the house we're trying to sell there, the tiny one bedroom apartment we're stuck in... there's been little time. We'll let you know when things start to make sense. Right now there are just too many balls in the air.

?

Isn't it time for new pictures from the gang in Florida?

Under Contract!!!

Our O'fallon home went under contract today. We sold it for exactly what we bought it for. This is still great news to us because now we can get on with our lives. Now we can make decisions for ourselves and not keep wondering how long we'll have to live apart because of our home in STL... This is not to say that we have any idea when we'll settle in to a home in Tampa- just that now we're more in control of that decision.

The closing date is mid March (I think the 14th). We're still working on plans to do the packout.

We have not yet found a house here to move to. We were only 1/2 looking as we couldn't buy anything without selling first.

That's the scoop for now.

Peek a boo!

I can't figure out why there's no sound.. but if you just say "peek a boo Nathan!" 3 times in a high pitched voice and giggle like a dufus, I think you'll get the picture.

Austin's a lumberjack!

Don't call child protection services... he wasn't doing this for very long!

This is a picture of Austin cutting firewood for the campground.

Swinger!

We went to St. Augustine

On Saturday we took the boys to St. Augustine- which was est. in 1565 and is the oldest permanent European settlement in the U.S. It was a military base for the protection of Spain's colonial trade and commerce. It's about an hour from where we're staying in Daytona.

The 2 big boys loved it- as we visited Castillo de San Marcos- a fort with canons and stories of pirates. The soldiers even fired off a canon when we were there!

So here's the good stuff- the pictures!

I know I shouldn't have favorites..

And I really DON'T have favorites... I just have some that are easier to catch on film...

Anywhoo- I wanted to give you all the update. Tomorrow (Feb 2nd) Nate is officially 10 months old. He took his first steps- thought exactly when is debatable. It's much like in football when you have to figure out if the receiver had full control of the ball before his knees hit the ground.

Anyways, he took his first step at some point this month. His likes are: trying to walk, splashing around in the toilet, biting people, and rubbing boogers in people's shirts.

Daddy's home!!!!

And, of course, even thought it's almost 10pm, Nathan's awake!

What a beautiful baby boy!