Room to Grow

Paul and I are always very spur of the moment people. This past week has been nothing but typical for us but was definitely unexpected.

It all started with the thought that we would be purchasing a home next year. We began to save and even though we were planning a year out, I was driving myself insane by looking at houses, land and neighborhoods in our current town.

For one, our house is way too small for our family. We moved in as a family of five and have since grown. Secondly, we rent since we did not want to buy in an area that was unknown to us and I want to own our home.

We love our current town and we also love our current neighbors. So much so, that even though Paul has an big commute, we were all for staying in this wonderful town. I had mentioned to Paul that we should live closer to where he works but he always ignored it.... Until last Friday. I'm pretty sure the commute finally just got to him, but Paul began to send me houses in an area closer to his office. Since it's a totally new area, I want to rent again until we know for sure that we like it. We found a few homes for rent and took a drive on Saturday to see the neighborhoods and homes.

Now, we are looking at big homes and can I just say, very few met my check list. I mean, one looked like it was meant to be in a western movie. One had the model home right next to it so all sorts of strangers would be pulling up in are hood. One was out in the middle of nowhere ( I actually liked this one but CVS was like 15 minutes away...unacceptable). Another had a cliff for a back yard. Sure it was fenced in but with Cooper's past history, he would be over that fence and on his head in no time.

Everyone was starving so we hit up Smithfield's. First ever experience for me and it was pretty good. Of course we had gotten a late start but there were 2 more houses to see even though it was dark. We drove into the neighborhood for the other homes and fell in love with one of the homes. Perfect neighborhood, big enough house, community swimming pool, closer to Paul's office. My mind was made up right then and there. We came home, sent an e-mail and had an appointment to see it Sunday afternoon.

I couldn't sleep at all with all the crazy running through my mind so I was dragging the next morning. Ashleigh came home (she had spent the night at a friends house) and looked awful. Turns out she wasn't feeling well so I had Paul take her to urgent care. The urgent care visit took way longer than I expected and we were going to be late for the showing. I was an emotional mess but the agent was able to meet us a little later and we finally made it to the house.

It was perfect. Amazing! I mean the pics did nothing for this house. I was in love and ready to sign. Our hopes and dreams came to a crashing halt when we found out there was actually another applicant for the house from earlier in the day. Paul's exact words " That makes me sad." LOL I love him!!! We got home and I cried until Paul caved and agreed to offer more money than they were asking. I wanted that house and would do whatever to get it. Let me remind you, me=emotional wreck that weekend. I wanted a bigger house closer to his office but I didn't want to leave my friends, town and transfer the kids schools at the end of the year or remove them from their soccer teams. Probably not the best time for me to be making financial decisions, but whatever!

The agent sent the application to us and said he would review it Monday. Finally, Tuesday afternoon (after another day and half of depression wondering if there was still a possibility that he may give it to the first applicants he told us about) we heard from him that everything checked out and he would be pulling our credit/criminal background. By Wednesday, the agent said the house would be ours! OMG those were the longest 4 days ever. Maybe not really, but it felt like it.

We went from not even thinking about moving out of our house, to finding a house in a totally different area and getting it within a week. That shit cray! LOL The kids are super excited and Coop keeps asking when the movers are coming. Ummm, "you're looking at them kid." We have a ton to get done.
Ashleigh is finally starting to feel better, but just when things got better, Cooper was struck with a fever, chills, and headache. I feel so bad for them when they are sick! I am scheduled to get my wisdom teeth out on the 9th...eeeek! I'm so scared. Ashleigh and Addy are having their birthday party on the 18th...don't be surprised if the house is mostly cleaned out by then y'all;) We've got to get the kids transferred and they still have soccer practice. We still have to sign the lease on Saturday, so I guess something could change in the meantime, but I hope everything goes as planned. Let the fun begin!

Thanksgiving 2011

Over Thanksgiving week, we took a trip back North to visit family/friends and so that I could stop by the office for a day. The trip up actually went pretty smooth with the exception of the down pouring rain from Fairmont all the way to Weirton. It wasn't terribly cold when we got there and I got to get my Eat N' Park on and I was all...





The next day (Wednesday) I had to go into the office and I was like...


But I got up, put my big girl panties on and we all headed down to the lobby for breakfast. It was still rainy and super windy, so I asked Paul to go out to the car to get all of our coats. We had left them out there the night before because we didn't really need them that night. So Paul comes back to the lobby and he's all....



So we get all bundled up and head to the office, which doesn't turn out to be that bad. After work we met up with our friends Christina and Jeff at a new restaurant in Steubenville. My mom had picked up Ash, so we just had Addy, Coop, and G. We go to order our drinks and  I ask if they have milk, nope. Juice? Nada. Ummm ok, I guess the kids will have water and G was all...




and was practically in total melt down mode by the end of dinner. She wanted her milk! And this made me totally stressed, so not the best dinner we've had.

After dinner, the kids wanted to stay at Grandma Ginny's too. So we called her up and she said that was fine. We needed milk (like as in yesterday) so we stopped at K-Mart (yeah, don't ask). We go in and Addy now has to use the bathroom. Public bathrooms are totally...


and K-Marts are even worse! So we get everything taken care of and get to the hotel to pack everything up. Please note that irritation levels are at a code red at this point.

We finally get the kids to my moms, bathed and in bed. We make a pit stop at Wal-Mart and then Paul takes me to Eat N'Park again since I am always ...

Thursday was




Mom made a great turkey, Ash thought her finger was the potato when she attempted to peel potatoes, and I mashed the potatoes while hoping not to find a lost finger. We relaxed all day for the most part and had a pretty great Thanksgiving.After dinner,we repacked their suitcase and headed to Grandma Becky's (in Moundsville).

We promised the kids we would drive through Oglebay to see the Christmas lights but it's such a long ride...in the dark...after turkey...so everyone was...



After waking everyone up, we paid our $20, got our Christmas lights CD, and got our light show on. The kids really enjoyed it and so did I. I love Christmas lights!

We got the kids settled at Grandma Becky's and headed back to Weirton. Of course, I was all...





Since it was Thanksgiving, nothing was open but Sheetz! My hero! I got a MTO pizza...yummy! Then we met up with Christina and Jeff to hit the stores for some good old fashioned fun Black Friday shopping! Macy's opened at midnight and we were on it...



I'll admit it, it was fun to make fun of others. We did get some cheap luggage (we had been looking for luggage forever) so it wasn't a total waste of time.

Friday, we headed back down to Grandma Becky's to have dinner. We had turkey,green beans, homemade noodles (which Paul loves) and mashed potatoes that were totally the





I try to make my potatoes like Becky's, but she is the ultimate master and should be on Top Mashed Potatoes or something.  The kids had a great time!

An actual real pic

 

Saturday, we had a small birthday party for Cooper at my Mom's house. Since he turns 6 on 12/8, she thought it would be nice to have a little get together for him.

Weirton was having their first night parade! It turned out to be a beautiful day and wasn't too cold. We bundled everyone up and headed downtown and ran into



Really, it's Weirton people! (Of course I say this when I was part of the crowd attending too LOL)  We finally got parked and walked up to Kroger (the end of the parade). Cons of being at the end of the parade? They run out of candy and they stop dancing/singing/playing instruments way to early :/

Another real pic of us at the parade.

The parade was super fun and the kids had a blast I loved that it was at night and all the floats were decorated. During the parade, Kroger was still open and obviously needed to stock up, so  the delivery guy got to be in the parade...(really, can I just ask if that was really necessary?)



Everything was going well, until Addy had to,of course, use the bathroom. I am totally going to start putting my kids in Depends.  We had a scary incident while using the bathroom, but all is well and no one was hurt,except for my sense of security (which isn't a bad thing). We went back to Mom's house and left early Sunday morning.

Our trip back home consisted of



and more





So needless to say, it wasn't the greatest trip back home (are they ever?) but we made it home by 8PM (another 9 hour trip turned into 12) and could finally relax. As usual,never a dull moment!

Green level Gourd Farm

I finally convinced Paul to go to the pumpkin patch. It's something we love to do BUT they are always crowded and expensive (especially around here) so Paul was really trying to put it off. I found this cheap, little farm pretty close to us, so I was able to coerce him into going.

Are my kids the only ones that don't get the concept of putting their heads in the head holes? When I would get one kid in, another would leave their slot, so I just gave up and took a picture :/

Green Level Gourd Farm was only $4 a person and we really just wanted something low key this year with a tractor ride, which it included. They didn't really have a "pumpkin patch" but did have some really nice pumpkins for sale. They had some chickens, bunnies, goats, and 2 donkeys one of which was showing off more of their anatomy than I cared for.

I really liked this hen/chicken (it was super fluffy):

Some goats:

Everyone took their turn on the tractor:

The tractor ride was driver by a man that we think may have been "cajun" or super "country" because we couldn't understand a word he said, but he was extremely happy and friendly. He took us through the woods and the wagon had these clapper hands tied to the rails for the kids. We would stop by halloween decorations placed throughout the woods and the kids go clap the clappers to make the decorations move or make noise. The kids really enjoyed it!

There was a little play area with these ride on peddle tractors:

Some more pics:

We all had a great time! We'll see how next weekend pans out and maybe we'll try out another one;)



Great Wolf Lodge

On 9/19/2011, we went to Great Wolf Lodge's indoor waterpark for the day. Typically, you have to actually make reservations to stay there and enjoy their waterpark but a while back, I came across a link for a great deal. Tickets for the day were $5 a person M-Th! So for $25, I was able to get tickets for the entire family.

Marbles Kids Museum

8/21/2011- I've been wanting to take the kids to Marbles for a while now, so we decided to take them this past Sunday. The kids had a fantastic time and there was plenty to keep them all occupied. I think we were there for at least 3 hours and we didn't even play with everything.

Jenna had her own play area for children under 18 months:

There was an ambulance and a boat:

A Pirate ship:

The kids in the street overlook window:

They have a super fun sports section (ice hockey,soccer, surfing, gymnastics,etc)

The kids spent most of the time in the Moneypalooza section. The can pretend to work and be bankers. There is a big piggy bank hanging from the ceiling and mulitiple ways to fill it with balls. The balls travel on tracks into the piggy and every so many minutes (or when it's full), it drops the balls onto whoever is underneath. And the process starts again.

It is a super fun place!  Now fingers crossed the kids don't get sick since most of these places are germfests!

Wrightsville Beach

8/7/2011- We headed over to Wrightsville Beach on Sunday with Christina and Jeff. The sun was hot and the waves were big! We brought our canopy tent, so we set that up and lotioned everyone up. The water felt great!

Pilot Mt, Kennywood and Seneca Caverns

Our computer crashed at the beginning of June and we didn't get it running again until mid July, so I missed a few posts. So here's a little catch up....

Fort Fisher and Kure Beach Pier

8/9/2011-  It never fails, every time we are in the area, the Fort Fisher Historic Site Museum is closed. It's about 25 minutes from the Wrightsville Beach,NC area, close to the Fort Fisher Aquarium. Since we were going to the aquarium on Monday (post here), Paul was pretty excited that we would finally get to go into the museum. Guess what? What are the two days they are closed? Sunday and Monday!!!

Mudcat Adventure

Last night, we took the kids to their first minor league baseball game. We saw the Mudcats vs the Biscuits. Yep, the Biscuits!

Sandy Fail

This past weekend we went to the beach ( I didn't actually blog about the beach part yet because all the pics are on Paul's phone and well, what is a post without pics?). Can I just ask, what could be more fun than going to the actual beach? It turns out, alot actually, especially when an infant is involved. Don't get me wrong, I love the beach. Like LOVE it! I could totally live on the beach and we did have loads of fun, but I totally did not want to go to the beach the next day.

Airlie Gardens, Fort Fisher Aquarium, and More

8/8/2011-  We all woke up early and I was starving. We got dressed and head down to eat breakfast at the hotel. They served a hot, made to order breakfast, so I got french toast...yummy.

We had decided we would visit Airlie Gardens since 1)we've been to Wilmington a ton and never went 2) I was totally burnt and 3) I could not handle the sand with these kids another day. Christina and Jeff wanted to spend some time at the beach so they skipped the garden tour.

Raleigh State Capitol

8.6.2011 (cont)- It had turned into a beautiful day once we were done at the museum, so we headed over to the capitol. The kids wanted to take a tour but I didn't think it was open. Once we got around to one of the entrances we noticed people going inside, so the kids just had to go in. I sat in the shade outside to feed Jenna while they went into the building to look around.

Raleigh Natural Science Museum

8.6.2011- On Saturday, we woke up to some thunderstorms but we had already planned to go to the Raleigh Natural Science Museum, so it really didn't put a damper on our day.

Raleigh Durham Airport

8.5.2011- My best friend Christina and her boyfriend Jeff were flying into RDU on Friday for their visit, so I told them we would pick them up. The kids have never been to the airport so I thought it would be cool to take the to the observation deck to watch the airplanes.