Sunday---continued

The back of the house

The morning room on the back of the house

Our messy backyard

I can't believe how deep our backyard is.  It goes all the way out to the plastic fence barrier.

Surrogacy #3 Update

Everyone keeps asking about surrogacy #3.  Well, I have great news.  My IM is going in for her initial consult in January.  Providing that everything goes smoothly, we are looking at a transfer around March 2012.  There are 2 frozen embryos from the last cycle that we hope will work.  They are both girls so surrobaby #2 would be getting a little sister or sisters.  I can't wait to begin all the crazy drugs and getting things cooking. :)

Drive-by-----10/21/11

I drove by the lot today and saw lots of worker mans (as Emerson would say).  It looks like they are going to start getting down to business.

Development

I drove by the lot on this day to find it had been graded.  10/14

Our Future Home [10.11.11]

The lot we chose

Our lot is the first one on the right as you enter the back entrance to the neighborhood.  There will be no one across from it, only one house beside it and no one directly behind it.  This lot will be fabulous!  Our house in CO felt like a fish bowl since we were in a row of houses that were back-to-back with another row of houses.  I will never choose a lot like that again.  We had no privacy whatsoever. 

This is looking towards the front from the very back of the lot.  Christine's Denali (monster Suburban) can be seen out in the distance and it helps give you an idea of how long the lot is.

The back corner-The other backyards meet up here so that no house will be directly behind this one.

More Lot Pics

Standing at the back of the lot, looking to the left side

Back-side of neighborhood wall

Front-side of neighborhood wall, entrance into development

Back entry into the neighborhood, our lot is the first one on the right

So I have a concussion...

It doesn't look like I am the only one, lol.  Poor Emerson was so tired after school.  He fell asleep like this during my visit with the doctor.  Seriously, how can he sleep like that?

Last Thursday, I hit my head which resulted in a concussion.  I was bending over to pet Christine's dog, Rocky, in the kitchen.  He started to jump and lick my face so I jerked my head up to avoid his death breath. When I did that, I hit the corner of the kitchen island with the back of my head.  It hurt so bad.  I iced it really well and took some Motrin to ease the pain.  All was fine that night but things got worse over the weekend.  I started having horrible headaches, my vision got noticeably weaker, and my stomach would occasionally get nauseous.  I knew something was up but I decided to hold out until Monday.  I felt fine that morning but the headache kicked in that afternoon.  On the way to get the boys from school, I decided that I should go see a doctor on my way home.  I am so glad I did!  She diagnosed me with a concussion after asking lots of questions and doing neurological testing on me.  I got a couple prescriptions and was ordered to take it easy for the next week.  The pain med she gave me has taken all of my pain away but it makes me a bit woozy and the muscle relaxer makes me incredibly sleepy.  I hate the side effects but it is nice not having to deal with the awful headaches.  

Franken-Hayden (10/13/11)

I kept my cousin's twin boys last week and stayed in her house.  It was kinda nice to pretend to be homeowners again, lol.  My boys and her boys get along really well so they opted to sleep 2 boys to each room every night.  Hayden was goofing around with his cousin Aaron when he got pushed off the bed.  He ended up hitting one of the bed posts.  Clayton and I had just gotten into the hot tub outside when Josh ran out the door to tell us that Hayden was bleeding from his head.  We were panicked.  Clayton ran to check him out while I grabbed medical supplies and pain medicine.  He had a nice gash on his forehead.  I wasn't sure if he needed stitches so I texted a photo to my sister-in-law Stephanie and my cousin Christine (they are both nurses).  Both agreed that we needed to take him to a doctor.  Unfortunately, it was after 10pm and most urgent care places were closed.  I tried to get to one in Huntersville but it had just closed at 11pm.  I got there at 11:04pm.

We ended up going to the ER at Carolinas Medical Center-NorthEast.  The waiting room was full of people but we didn't have to wait very long.  The doctor and nurse that he had were phenomenal!  They kept him calm and distracted throughout the whole ordeal.  He did so good.  After Hayden was all stitched up (a total of 3 stitches), he was discharged rather quickly.  We got home just after 2am.  I can't say enough about what a great experience we had there.  I highly recommend that hospital.

H looks so cute with his wound.  He didn't want me to remove the stitches tonight but it needed to be done.  Hopefully he will make it through childhood without needing any more.

SOLD!!!!

After 5 months of worrying, the Colorado house finally closed this past Friday.  We are ecstatic!!  It is wonderful to finally be done with that chapter of our lives.  We didn't have to be at the closing thanks to the relocation company being there on our behalf.  It is a little bittersweet though since we will miss our awesome neighbors and nearby family.  I will just be glad to not ever have to slide down that iced-over driveway ever again. :P

I have many updates to tell you all about (surrogacy, becoming a Scentsy consultant, Hayden's stitches, I got a new job, etc.) but I don't have time right now.  I will post more this week.

Lake Day-9/10/2011

I am in the process of cleaning up my camera cards and these pics are from last month.  Better late than never, right?

We went to Lake Jordan with our besties, the Barnes'.  Jason bought a new tube for us to play on and it was a hit.  It was a perfect day out on the water. :)

Jason and Clayton pushing the boat out of the deep sand

We had a few funny mishaps that day.  Jason threw in the anchor using the rope but then quickly realized that the rope wasn't tied to anything, lol.  It fell to the bottom before Jason could retrieve it (he jumped in after it).  Clayton drove the boat at one point while Jason skied behind.  Well, the water was low in the lake so he ended up hitting a patch of sand.  It immediately stopped the boat.  All I saw was Natascha hanging on for dear life as she was almost tossed from the front of the boat.  It was scary when it happened but now we all laugh about our Griswold adventure at the lake.  

New Belgium Brewing Company-Fort Collins, CO

Clayton and his sister, Stephanie

We flew back to CO on 10/1 to see the movers pack up our house.  Since we had never done the New Belgium Brewing Company tour, we decided to try and fit it into our schedule before we left.  Stephanie came down from Wyoming to join us on Wednesday (10/5).  We had a few beers and then took the tour, which was awesome!!  They showed us around their amazing facility and gave us many samples of the beers to try.  I can't believe how cool it was.  If you are ever in Fort Collins, be sure to stop in.  You won't regret it.  At the end of the tour, you get to slide down a metal twisty slide (which is crazy when you are intoxicated, lol).  

 

The beers on the left are Hoptober (my personal fave) and the one on the right is a special edition Hefe that was my second favorite beer of the day.

New Belgium-Part 2

These bottles of Fat Tire were only 20 minutes old.  They came straight off of the bottling line.  How cool is that?!

Bottling area (we were looking down through a second floor window)

This was our awesome tour guide.  I can't remember his name but he was fabulous.  He made the tour a lot of fun. :)

Planet Box

I have an addiction to lunch boxes.  Don't ask me why but I love to buy them.  The Planet Box is something that I have been watching for years on the internet but I just never could pay such a steep price for them.  Well, this year I just had to.  And guess what?  I LOVE them!!  I was so afraid that I would spend all that money and feel like I wasted it.  They are sturdy metal and clasp shut with a clip that even a toddler can undo.  I always worry about my kids opening plastic containers and spilling their lunch all over themselves in the process.  With these, I never have to worry about that.  They are dishwasher safe (which is a MUST for me-I refuse to hand wash anything, lol).  The lunch bag is designed to hold the metal box perfectly.  It allows everything to fold out flat which would be great for car trips since they could hold it on their laps easily. If you are interested in learning more, you can check them out at Planet Box.  You can only buy them directly from their website or from Pottery Barn (which you can't customize as much there).  I am in no way affiliated with Planet Box nor am I being compensated to blog about them.  I just really love this product!

Your kids can choose from a variety of magnets to personalize their boxes.  Emerson chose the space theme and Hayden chose the modern art theme.  

I wish I had a couple more of these for myself and Clayton or so that I could pack up another day's worth of their lunches in advance but Clayton has already put the kabosh on that. :P

Wildcat Night at the Local Skating Rink

The boys' school had a skate night last Tuesday.  I was bummed because I couldn't skate.  A little known fact about me is that I am quite good at it.  I am one of those geeks that can turn around and I skate better backwards than forward.  Anyway, I have apparently busted my knees from running so skating was out of the question.  I was sad but the kiddos had a fun time.  Emerson started off slow and got better by the end of the night.  Hayden started off fast without caring how many times he fell.  By the end of the night, he was whiny from hurting himself so much, lol.  I can't wait for next month's skate night as I plan to be rehabilitated enough to participate, dang it!

These Floors---*Swoon*

This is not our house.  This is a spec home we toured that had beautiful dark hardwood floors.  We fell in love with them and I have to say that this pic does them no justice.  They are deep java brown and have no shine. There is lots of distressing (which isn't visible in the pic) and the planks are 5" wide (which is hard to distinguish in this pics also).  They look like something straight out of a Pottery Barn catalog.  We would have bought this small house that didn't fit our needs just to get that gorgeous flooring.  Thank the Lord that our builder offers it as a upgrade in the house that we are likely going to build.  We visited the design center yesterday just to see what options they had.  After seeing this flooring, we knew we had to have them.  I would give up all the other upgrades for these floors.  They are that fabulous.  Luckily, the upgrade to them wasn't too bad so we are planning to roll with it. :) 

So far...

Model Home-"Dorsey Hall"

We have decided to go with building this house. I don't love this elevation though so it will likely have a fully bricked front and a cool roof line rather than this one. I don't know. The inside of this home is amazing and we haven't been able to find anything to rival it at its price point. We did find homes better but they were a lot more money and less square footage. What made it a pain to choose was because the more expensive homes are districted for the best schools in the county. I hope that the school in this development's district will be okay. We currently have the kiddos there now to try it out ahead of time (the apartment we are in is actually districted for the really amazing schools, sigh...).

Progress, maybe...

We may or may not have sold our house last night.  Considering the way things went back in July (our house sold but then had to return to the market 2 weeks later because the buyer's loan fell through), we aren't jumping up and down just yet.  We have our guards up.  Last time, we jumped for joy and immediately joined the country club here in Concord.  Big mistake.  We won't do that again.  We will wait and see that everything is going to work out before we get excited.  The good news is that these buyers put down more earnest money than necessary and they have a rather large down payment.  It looks great but I am still very cautious.  If our house does indeed sell this time, the closing date is currently set for 9/14.  I have said many prayers and crossed all my fingers/toes that this time it's for real.

Chimney Rock, NC

Tracy and Addison

Last month, the boys and I headed up to the mountains to spend some time with Tracy.  Tracy was my best friend when I lived up in Hendersonville (near Asheville).  Hayden and her boy Austin are close in age and spent most of their early childhood together before we moved out to Colorado.  We had a blast revisiting.  I got to meet her cute daughter Addison for the first time.  She was born one month after we moved so I never got to see her.  She's now 4 years old.  Time sure does fly!  Anyway, it was like old times.  We ate lots of good food (Papa's & Beer and The Fireside are 2 of my faves) and goofed off a lot.  One day we headed out to Chimney Rock to mine for gems and to wade in the river.  I wish I had my regular camera with me but all I had was the iPhone.      

Hayden

Emerson

Chimney Rock, NC-continued

Austin and Hayden

The guy in the corner would never move.  He insisted on being in my pics, lol.

Random pics from the end of April

Hayden's last day of 2nd grade with Mrs. Nelson (this was the last day we spent in Colorado)

Road trip to NC (Topeka, Kansas)

Awesome brewery in Topeka that we stopped at

Finally Back Online!

We are still sitting in an apartment while we wait for our house in Colorado to sell.  It has been a nightmare.  Our house supposedly sold back on 7/29 but then the buyer's loan fell through 2 weeks later.  As a result, we have been stuck in limbo land.  We can't buy or build until that house is sold.  Money is becoming an issue since we have to still pay the mortgage and utilities for CO while paying rent and utilities for our apartment here in NC.  On top of that, we have paid some money out to reserve our lot to build (if we end up going that route).  I have tried to get a job to help pay some bills but nothing has worked out.  Everything seems to be a big halt at the moment.  So that's what has been going on.  Sorry for my absence here on the ole blog.  We didn't want to shell out the money for cable internet until we got a house but we broke down this past week.  I just couldn't deal with watching Netflix and Facebooking via my iPhone any longer.  3G isn't good enough for all my techie entertainment, lol.  BTW, all of our stuff is still in CO so we didn't even have a tv to run movies on (I used my laptop or my iPhone).  Suffice it to say, it has been rather dull around here.

Anyway, I plan to return to blogging now that I have glorious wifi once again!  Hope everyone hasn't left me.