PROUD

So proud of my Zippercow I am! He fixed our water heater! After much hassle to get the parts and proper tools he was able to fix it and now I can have hot showers that last longer than 8.5 minutes and we can take showers back to back and we can even run laundry or dishes without running out of hot water, it's wonderful! I have to admit I was little nervous about undertaking a project that involved something so crucial to our everyday lives that if something went wrong would be very expensive to fix, but he did a great job. He discovered that the wrong part had been used previously and it gave him some problems getting it out, but he fixed it and by doing so saved us a great deal of money. Yay for smart hubbies!



Oh, and we fixed the option that allows for our friends and families to leave comments without logging in. I didn't realize that was something I had to manually change, but anyhow leaving comments is enabled for those who choose to use it :)

Let it snow, let it snow, let is snow! NO MORE- I say Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop! We have far surpassed the previous record and have already had 63"of snow this season (most of which is still on the ground), and it isn't even the snowy part of the season! And of course, we are supposed to get more tonight...Our house can no longer be seen from the street because the plow is using the edge to our front yard to store all the snow in the cul-de-sac. It is a shame Little Moo isn't bigger to enjoy this more. We've taken him outside a couple times but he isn't a fan of not being able to move and since the snow is taller than him it makes it hard to walk and play. But we had a white

Christmas, and then some! Christmas was nice, my family stayed over on Christmas Eve because we were expecting a large storm (which we got) and were worried we wouldn't be able to get together Christmas Morning. We had a lot of fun and Little Moo got some nice gifts that he really likes, but mostly it was just nice to have everyone together. Unfortunately the weather prevented my Uncle from being able to get over so we did miss him, but otherwise we were able to get everyone here. We had fondue for Christmas dinner and we are pretty sure this will become a tradition, which is fine because it is tasty!

More exciting news, as of Christmas night Little Moo no longer sleeps. Which means we don't sleep. On Christmas he decided it was a good time to climb in and out of his crib and we felt it just wasn't safe anymore to leave him in there and despite wanting to ease him into it a little more we just didn't have that luxury. So we took the side of his crib off and now it is his big boy bed....tear...he's getting so big. Unfortunately I think our talk about him being a big boy and not sleeping in his crib anymore backfired, because it is still his "crib" the side is just off and there is no side rail so he has chosen not to sleep in it. Fortunately we happened to have an extra crib mattress that is on the floor, but he doesn't sleep on that either. He chooses to sleep on the floor in front of the door. The last couple nights he has pulled up a pillow, blanket and a doll to lay on the floor with. We tried putting him back to bed for a couple nights but since he insists on sleeping with his room light on he wakes up then takes forever to fall back asleep. We feel guilty leaving him but feel he is probably getting more sound sleep staying put, especially since he has a blanket and pillow. We are unsure how to fix this and are hoping he will eventually migrate to the bed, but who knows. I had no idea that I should look forward to no sleep after he had outgrown his infant wakings. Each day brings a new suprise and unfortunately all of us are too tired to know what to do with it!

Even I don't want my Christmas THIS white!

snow, snow, SNOW!!!!! I like snow but this is a bit ridiculous. We can't even go out and play because the snow drifts are taller than Little Moo! And with the wind the temperature is easily in the single digits. In a vain attempt to clear the driveway before Zippercow got home I bundled myself and Little Moo up to go outside, but every swipe with the shovel the wind would blow the snow right back. And in our face. To say the least LM was not thrilled with this and after about 10 minutes I had to abandon the shovel in the front yard and get us both inside. Since I've shoveled we again have snow drifts taller than LM blocking our front door. We tried shoveling the driveway and Zippercow tried to leave this morning to work. Ha! The snow is taller than our bumper and if you've seen our car you know it is small and light and isn't making it anywhere. Fortunately a coworker in a large truck was able to come get him. I wish I could get pictures to show just how crazy the snow is, but it is difficult to get a good shot through windows. The snow is absolutely beautiful and the wind has worked its magic added a unique design to the fallen snow, but truly, it is enough...

Our New House!

Right here! ------------------------------->
















And Here! ------------------------------>















And the view from our backyard!--------->





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Do not post when you are crazy!

Well, I am doing much better now. We have unpacked a bit more and I discovered we do have room for things,we just need a little creative organizing, or reorganizing in this case. We've also discovered that there are a lot of things we no longer need. In the past we just kept most of the furniture we had because "someday" it may fit, and we don't know what our house will be like. Well now we know so what doesn't fit, goes! We put the Christmas tree up and I made out a bunch of our Christmas cards and I'm feeling like myself again, which I'm sure Little Moo and Zippercow are thankful for. Speaking of Christmas cards, in an attempt to forward my progress in getting them out shortly after we moved, I addressed a bunch of envelopes...before we moved. So, during the process of moving I put the box of envelopes "somewhere safe" (if you know me at all you know this place does not exist) and cannot for the life of me find them! So I started over. I guess I will have less work next year. Oh well!

Little Moo is enjoying discovering old toys in boxes and our new organization in his room. He can get to everything he wants or needs. Unfortunately that applies to the whole house. At the last place I had managed to set the whole living room up so that he couldn't really get to another part of the house without one of us. Well there isn't really a good way to do that here, and honestly he has to learn sometime, right? It has added a new element to preparing meals and doing laundry. I'm really looking forward to doing some holiday baking, but that may not be so easy we a Little Moo underfoot. Especially since he likes to be my helper now. It is cute, now we have to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everyday because I let him spread the peanut butter and jelly. Now only I could get him excited about folding laundry...

We're moved, now what?

Home ownership. It's not quite what it is made out to be. I've been told for years how important it is to buy a home and not throw your money away renting and have been lead to believe that it is this magical thing home ownership. I haven't witnessed it so far. So far the water heater has been broken, the sink is leaking and we aren't sure that the bathroom heater works correctly. Before I go on I should say that I am very happy with the choice we made, it is a wonderful home, and I can only imagine the nightmare that would have been awaiting us with some of the older homes we were looking at. But I can't help but feel slightly mislead. This is it? We are living in a place that is ours, so that means I can't call the landlord to fix our list of issues and we have to pay for it too!!! I know that I shouldn't complain, it is wonderful that we have gotten ourselves into the position to buy a home, and the only comparison I can think of is having a baby, it is exciting and new and after a few days the blinders come of and reality sets in that you have a lot of work ahead of you. That being said I would never give my baby back, so I'm sure the work on the house will be well worth it too.

There are some theories (my own) on my blahness factor. First is the fact that we worked so hard to be in a place to purchase a home, there was a goal. Now what? I know we should be working towards retirement and college education for Little Moo, but those things are really far away so it is hard to be really excited about either. We have no idea where to put most of our stuff. The garage is piled high with boxes, so much so that our car barely fits in the two car garage! And, well we have clothes in our closets, toys in little moos room and our kitchen is all unpacked so what on earth is in the rest of the boxes?!?! Did I mention the meds I'm taking to try and conceive are making me crazy. This too could play a large role in my blahness. Actually, it could be to blame for this entire post! Just think if I wasn't crazy I most likely would not be complaining about a new house. It is slightly bonkers I know. I'm sure I'll feel better when we do things like paint the interior walls, add a fence, and build a deck. But for now, it just feels like another rental, only now we are responsible for the maintenance!

We Have a House!!! And more excitement...

Hooray! We moved into our new house right after Thanksgiving, talk about a lot to be thankful about. We love it here, the space, the space, oh and the space! Little Moo is very excited about his new room and the new house. All of his toys fit in his room, so Mama Moo is happy too. We still haven't completely unpacked (nor are we anywhere close) and we are aware we have a lot of work to do but still couldn't be happier. Speaking of which, I have to wrap this up to go do some work, just wanted to update everyone! Pics and more stories to come!

Etiquette...or lack thereof

Over 30 days since we put in the offer on our house and we are still....waiting. I've tried looking up etiquette for situations like these, is it rude and pushy to put in a call daily to see what the progress is or is it perfectly reasonable. I get the sense that they are just patronizing me and then I get the "we'll call you as soon as we know anything". But on occasion, I've spoken to the agent or our loan officer halfway through the day and they will say "oh, I haven't checked my email yet today" and other similar comments. So I call. I understand that our family buying a house is not the center of all that they do, but it is the main focus in our life at this time and that is why it seems necessary to call everyday just to see how everything is progressing. This whole process if overly frustrating (though from the sounds of it, we are not doing any worse than anyone else at the same point in the process) and neither Zippercow nor myself do so well with things being open ended and unresolved. We just want to know the date!

On a much different note, I have found the perfect art table for Little Moo. A box! He has helped decorate most of the boxes we put his toys in and we had to sacrifice one large box just for the purpose of coloring, stickering, playing in, building forts with, racing cars, and the list goes on! Now obviously I won't be able to save these boxes in a scrapbook or anything, but it certainly is fun! He seems to be doing well with the idea of moving (we will see if that continues to be true once the move takes place) and asks every time we leave our current home if we are going to buy a house. We tell him "yes, but not today" because heck, we don't even know when!

Under Construction....

So we have merged the blog I started with our original Zipper Herd page. There are some format things we want to fix but we will not be taking care of that until after we move. Just wanted to let everyone know that I have not already abandoned the blog but we are busy packing! Hopefully moving day will come soon, we shall see!

The Uneatable Cupcake

In quite a few kid friendly cookbooks and magazines I have seen that a nice treat for kiddos is frosted angel food cupcakes. And for extra added fun let them frost them! And to that I say DON'T DO IT! As fun as it should be to frost cupcakes, these were no ordinary cupcakes. Anyone who has ever had angel food cake should instantly know where the problem lies. IT IS AIR! Therefore impossible to hold to frost be cause they just squish, and lets face it, children are far from being "delicate" when holding things, especially if they are trying to concentrate on getting

frosting on to a delicious treat they will soon devour. Oh, and you can't eat them either. They are trick cupcakes. They look delicious and innocent enough, a nice tasty treat. Until you take a bite, the whole thing folds and you end up with frosting all over your face and hands. Ha, ha! You didn't really need the empty calories anyway! Lets just say is was a bit of a cupcake disaster. Little Moo couldn't frost his and just ended up eating the frosting (which I am sure he didn't mind) and anyone else ended up with cake in their face. I'm pretty sure the term "angel" just didn't fit the bill with these treats. Silly Mommy!

Moo?

What has two feet, blue eyes, and rings? A wee Little Moo!



So about a week later, here are some pictures of Little Moo in his costume on Halloween. Is it any shock that our Little Moo was, well...a moo! He was so cute ( to a ridiculous extent) in his little costume and the cow bell added a nice touch. We visited friends and family to "trick-or-treat" just intending to visit a few people and not actually go door to door. However when we got to our last friend to visit the neighborhood was bustling with children and it was pleasantly warm out so Little Moo and I went to the houses on our friends small street and the cul-de-sac at the end. It was pretty fun. Every step LM took his cowbell rang (hilarious!) and he got pretty good at saying "trick-or-treat". He got a good amount of candy which he wanted, but strangely his favorite treat was the apple he got from Nana and Auntie Raino. It was a pretty tasty apple (we cut it up and shared it after he took a few bites). Me thinks our Little Moo will enjoy this holiday in the future.

The Selfish Mom

Little Moo woke last night crying. He usually is a pretty good sleeper but has had an ear infection so I wanted to be sure he didn't need some medicine. When I went in, he stood up. I picked him up and it was clear all he needed was a hug, but I was selfish, I offered to rock him for a few minutes. I was The Selfish Mom. Why would it be selfish to rock your 2 year old in the middle of the night? Because he simply needed to be righted in his crib, re-covered, and pat his back and he would have gone to right to sleep. But I was willing to rock him for some extra cuddle time. Considering I stay home all day with him it could be assumed I get enough Little Moo time, but that is simply not true. I am greedy and steal any mommy moments I can because as he gets older I know there will be fewer. I doubt you can "stock up" on stolen moments, but I will take them when I can get them. To be honest, with the exception of when he is REALLY sick and inconsolable, I don't mind getting up with him, even if we don't end up rocking. Because as wonderful cuddling and rocking with him is, it just as nice to snuggle him into bed and in his half sleepy voice say "I love you mommy" in the dark and quiet of his room. It is about that time that my heart usually bursts and I can't help but smile. Definitely worth getting out of bed.

There Were Two in the Bed and the Little One Said "Rollover!"

Well actually he says "peek!" but still. Little Moo's new favorite game with Daddy is to lay on either end of the couch under a blanket. He either "yoinks" (taking Daddy's toy or seat) or peeks under and above the covers. Sometimes he's even content laying there and playing with his cars quietly. Still, it is too cute to see. Very special those two!

The Latest Moos!

A couple things happened this last week. First, we had out of town guests . We had a great time and the kiddos got to play together! I can't believe how big they are getting! The visit was far too short!

Next we flew to Western Washington for Zippercow's Grandma and Grandpa's 65th Anniversary. The ceremony was beautiful and it was nice to see all of his family (his Dad's side). It was kind of a whirl wind weekend as we flew there Saturday and flew back on Sunday. This was the first time Little Moo ever flew on a plane! Unfortunately we found out he had an ear infection which would explain his refusal to smile for any pictures on the flight back. Well, that and the fact that it was an incredibly busy weekend with little to no napping.

As much fun as we had in the last week we are now recovering from terrible head colds, sinus infections, ear infection and just general exhaustion from the busy week. Hopefully the weekend will provide us with some rest and relaxation. We'll see what surprises this weekend brings!

Here are some more fun photos of the last week!

The Great Pumpkin

We took Little Moo to Green Bluff this past weekend and he had a great time. It was a bit chili but he didn't seem to mind, in fact he was content with stripping himself of his coat and gloves just to be that much closer to the pumpkins! He really thought the gourds were interesting and enjoyed sitting on a Little Moo sized pumpkin chair. We are hoping to try and go frequently this month since he likes it so much, and to be honest, so do we!

Downsizing

How much space do we really need? We have been asking ourselves this question while looking for a home to buy. At first we insisted we needed no less than 1800sq ft in a home. Of course this space could be split between the main floor and the basement but we absolutely did not want anything smaller than where we currently live. What we were finding though were homes that needed a lot of updating whether cosmetic and/or large and complex (like updating the wiring) or the house had a horrible floor plan that would sacrifice family living space, which is really the most important to us anyways. And of course there was the combination of the two above mentioned scenarios. We are realistic people we know what we could get with what we could afford but we were hoping to find a "diamond in the rough" something that had recent enough plumbing and electrical that our only real worries would be some paint, carpet and a good weed eater. We liked a few, and even put an offer on one (which was not accepted) and then we found it, our perfect home! Or half of it...

At only 1008sq ft it is much smaller than we set out to find but we fell in love the first time we saw it, despite viewing it with flashlights, we knew this was the house we really wanted. So now we had to re-evaluate what we really wanted and needed. We wanted a place with a basement so we could expand if we had to and so we would have space for our hobbies, storage and pets. But how much space do we really need? Here's what we had to consider;

• No it does not have a basement, but it has 3 bedrooms, a 2+ car garage and it is on approx. 12,00sq ft lot
• Unlike every other place we looked at it is 100% move in ready no updating or major work needed (contingent on a reasonable inspection, but no obvious flaws) with exception of creating a lawn, which is something Papa Moo enjoys doing
  
• We are not really construction people, nor can we afford to hire someone else to do it (don't get me wrong, we will learn and fix things, but we want family to come first, not our old broken house)
• While I like having my craft room, I never use it, so it just stores unused junk. I use my craft stuff, but not liking to feel isolated, I bring everything out into the dining room so I can visit with Papa Moo while I work on my various projects.
  
• We don't currently use the basement except for storage (hello! huge garage and just one car?) and laundry (which is in the house)
• This house is nearer to Papa Moo's work (he won't even have to get on the freeway!) and unlike any other home we looked at it is not a block away from train tracks, the freeway, a busy street or in a terrible neighborhood
• Did I mention we like the neighborhood?
• Can we accommodate the second child we would like to have?
  

After much deliberation we felt it was far better to be in a house that was in good condition in a nice neighborhood even if it is a little smaller. But hey, it will save on energy costs right? We will have to creatively organize to maximize our space, but we are convinced this is our best possible option and we love the location!

~Our next conversation of course was how we can rationalize anything amongst ourselves :)

Peanut Butter Jar

Sometimes I wonder why we bother buying children toys. Of course they all have their place, our Little Moo loves building with all kinds of blocks especially his duplos and enjoys "cooking" in his kitchen. Right now however, his very favorite toy is an empty peanut butter jar. Yes, I did say an old washed out peanut butter jar. He takes it everywhere with him opening and closing it, putting things in, taking them out, eating snacks out of it. This jar has become his carry all. It seems fitting since he loves peanut butter everything (toast, crackers, sandwiches) but of all the toys he has it is curious that something I would normally throw away (or recycle if I remember to) tops his list of favorite toys. Sometimes simple really is better.