New Pastimes

Lately it feels like all we do is clean, organize, and then get the heck out of the house so someone else can come in and poke around through our belongings. But we do other stuff, too. Like when it's rainy outside, we build castles so Casey can pretend he's a "knipe".

And Casey has finally taken up golf. Whew! We were starting to worry that our hopes of him becoming the next Tiger Woods were in vain. Look at that swing! He's a natural!

Connor continues to teethe - but look! Results! His first two teeth appeared early last week. Although he is sleeping better, as you can tell from the photo they have not helped to improve his overall disposition. Actually, he is a pretty happy boy. When he's not screaming.

Puppy Love

One of the sweetest elements of life around here is the mutual love between Ani & the boys. I'm always surprised at our pet's capacity to love, and that nobody ever had to show Ani how to love these babies - she just knew. I feel so deeply for the people who have lost pets recently with the pet food contaminations, and it makes me all the more thankful that we have had her for nearly ten years now.

Not A Morning Person

I may have to order this on a coffee mug from cafepress.com for myself and all the women in my family...

Trouble

On Saturday, I got into the shower while Casey was watching a video in our room and Connor was napping. When I got out of the shower this is what I found...

Psych!

Silly, silly girl. You actually believed you had sold your house? Not so! You might as well have been playing with the school bully who, after offering you the Oreos from his lunch bag, snatched them back from your little fingers while yelling, "Psyyych!". MAJOR burn, dude.
Actually, not so much burned as unwilling to give in to unreasonable demands made on the behalf of your buyer. Or maybe just naive to think that just because you sold your house at a discount from the asking price that you didn't have to pay for upgrades that the buyer desired. Oh well, another day, another lesson learned.
And we feel quite a bit better about the whole situation now that we have this guy out of our hair, and we're ready to move on and sell this baby to someone who will appreciate her as we have. Or at least not want to knock out walls and expect us to pay for it.

Peep!

I decided to distract myself from "The Great Move of '07" by crocheting a bunch of these little chicks to put in the boys' Easter baskets. The yarn is really fuzzy which made it a challenge at first, but now I'm totally addicted to making them and can make several an hour.

Casey is getting into the Easter spirit by sporting these bunny ears he made at storytime this morning.

And Connor just keeps rolling with it. Literally. Since he isn't really mobile yet, if he sees something on the floor he wants he just rolls himself over and over until he gets there. Pretty clever, if you ask me (but I'm his mother so I think everything he does is genius).

Housing Blues

The good news: We sold our house! The bad news: We sold our house!

After receiving a ridiculously low initial offer (try almost 6% less than asking price plus an additional cash request to pay for his closing and to "change the paint colors of the home") and several subsiquent days of negotiations, a buyer finally agreed to our second counter-offer on the house, and we rejoiced momentarily. Then the reality of our timeline set in - closing and moving in 5 weeks! I was informed at 10pm on Sunday night that the house inspection was at 12:30pm the next day, and so after spending another somewhat disapointing day on the hunt for a new house in Indy, I scurried around and straightened the house up so it was presentable for inspection. Our buyer apparently hired the team from C.S.I. to come out here and inspect every nook and cranny of our house as the inspection took 3.5 hours to complete. I was just waiting for them to break out the blacklight and scan the carpet for blood stains, and I'm pretty sure he took hair samples from my brush for DNA analysis. This morning we received his laundry list of requests, which basically amounted to a bunch of stuff he wants us to pay to have done in an effort to get us back down to his original asking price. I've had a bad feeling about this whole deal since the first offer came in - I feel like the turtle in "Over the Hedge" whose tail tingles when something isn't right, and my tail has been working overtime for the past week. All I keep asking myself is, "Does it really have to be this hard?". We're trying to keep our humor and sanity intact, but the stress of this entire process is starting to wear on the entire family (is Casey "playing" with Connor, or taking out his 2 yr-old frustrations? You be the judge.)

Meanwhile, I thought I'd share a shot of the jersey Brian Brohm autographed for me. I think Rob is just a wee bit more excited about it than I am, but since Brohm is becoming Rob's Manning, I guess I can understand.

Go Sit in the Port-A-Let!

While sitting here waiting for our real estate agent to call us back about ANOTHER counter-offer we have made (jeez people, just buy our damn house already!) I thought I would share with you the funniest skit on SNL in a long time.

Stressed Out

All this moving business has me stressed to the max. Seriously stressed. Drinking-vodka-from-the-bottle-at-1-in-the-afternoon-in-my-closet kinda' stressed. Between all the showings last week (8 total) and driving to Indy on Saturday to look at houses (and realizing that we were going to have to spend more than we wanted to) and the crappy offer we received on our house Sunday, Momma is VERY close to the end of her rope. I was laying in bed last night internally debating about whether or not to go out today and buy annuals to plant out front to help with "curb appeal", and also considering performing a little voodoo Catholicism by burying a St. Joseph statue upside down in the backyard (family folklore swears by this method to help you sell your house) when I realized that this whole process is quickly making me a crazy person.

So I've decided I need 2 things to help bring me back to a peaceful, tranquil state (ha!):

1) A pedicure, because my toes were not prepared for this unseasonably warm weather we are having, and looking at their shaggy condition makes me sad;

2) This new bubble machine, because Casey LOVES bubble machines (who doesn't?!?) and this one is the mack-daddy - it blows bubbles inside giant bubbles!

I'm pretty sure that playing outside with our new awesome bubble machine while staring at my perfectly manicured toes will make me feel much, much better, regardless of whether or not St. Joe is out there with us.

Erin Go Braugh

You'd expect a girl with "Erin" as her middle name to be up on all the St. Patrick's Day celebrations, and although I've unofficially celebrated Green Beer Day a few times with my friends, I had no idea that an actual celebration existed. Those clever students at Miami University of Ohio created "Green Beer Day" (some say the tradition was started in 1952), celebrated every Thursday before St. Pat's day to help kick off their spring break. Bars in the small college town of Oxford open at 5:30am so that patrons can enjoy a full day of green beer before students head out of town on Friday (with, one could assume, the largest annual collective hangover on record). Here's the link if you don't believe me: www.greenbeerday.com. Apparently, the administration of Miami highly disapproves of GBD, which seems to strengthen it's appeal to students. Go figure.

I'm hoping to partake in some sort of St. Patty's celebration tommorow as Kathy and Courtney will be in town to run the City Run. The mastitis I've been battling this week made the decision for me not to join them, but I still hope to toast their successes at some point. And I'll have to dig out the "'Tis Himself" T and see if it fits either of the boys, as that has become tradition in our house.

Sciarpa

I finally finished my "DIY" Christmas gift from my Mom. She brought me back 4 skeins of this really beautiful yarn from her trip to Italy so I could make myself a really long, skinny scarf. I rarely treat myself to expensive yarn so this was alot of fun to work with, and I love the way it turned out. But by far the most interesting part about this project was my effort to find the Italian word for scarf to use as a title for this post. I found an English-to-Italian online dictionary, and was given 3 results for my query of the word "scarf". Sciarpa is the translation of the noun scarf, and mettere la sciarpa is the translation of "to wear a scarf". And then for the third translation I received: "masturbarsi strangolandosi", which means "to masterbate while strangling oneself". Hello, I'm sorry? What? Is this a phrase that commonly needs translating into Italian? What kind of freak is checking on this phrase before vacationing in Italy? Mom - maybe you should check with Carol on her Italian, because we may have solved the mystery of why the man at the drugstore was so rude to you two.

Pop-aholic

While searching online for bubble wrap that has adhesive on one side to help make the packing process a bit easier (I had read about it in a magazine) I found this seriously addictive website that lets you virtually pop packing bubbles, which happens to be one of my favorite pasttimes. This has helped me find my "happy place" in the middle of all this moving insanity...
http://www.virtual-bubblewrap.com/popnow.shtml

On the Market

Yep - that's a "For Sale" sign in our front yard, as we officially put the house on the market yesterday. We've told Casey that he can pick out the color of his room in the new house (current pick: yellow. We'll be working on that.) and that we will get a swingset for the backyard of the new house, so we are fielding daily questions about where his new house is and when can he go play on his swingset. In hindsight we may have jumped the gun on the new house discussions with him just a little bit.

We've been busting our butts getting the house cleaned and ready to show, and I can't help but notice the irony that our houses never seem to look better than when we are about to leave them. Perhaps that's something to work on in new the house, but I don't know how realistic (or fun) that idea is with two kids and a dog. Maybe "lived in yet organized" is a better goal.

What Snow?

Perhaps allowing Casey to watch the Caillou episode about "winter fun" several times was a mistake, because now he is obsessed with playing out in the snow. The only problem is that we've only received a few pitiful inches here in Louisville, which is not nearly enough of the white stuff to go out and enjoy. But that didn't stop Casey from trying to make the best of the half inch of accumulation we received last week. There wasn't even enough to make a small snowman, but he did make "snow faces" (he lays face first in the snow and waves his arms and legs. I have idea who this child belongs to). Meanwhile, Connor is staying inside and just getting cuter.

Hoosiers Now

We found out this morning that Rob matched with the residency program at IU in Indianapolis. This means we will be moving to Indy in just a few months. I don't think we have fully wrapped our brains around this news, but we're both excited. I'm already sweating some of the details (finding new pediatrician, etc.) and am a little worried about the process of selling our house. However, I am delighted to be in the same city as Peyton so that I can stalk him up close instead of from afar! Go Colts!

Winning the AFC Championship: Priceless

I'm still a little giddy over the Colt's win last night. I have to admit that I spent much of the first half sweating and swearing, and when Peyton threw the interception for a Patriots TD, I was inches from just turning the damn thing off. But I hung in there and was rewarded with another fine example of Peyton completely dismantling a defense. I almost felt a little sorry for Tom Brady as he watched helplessly from the sidelines as Peyton controlled the game clock and ultimately the game. Now all he has to do is win the SuperBowl. I predict more sweating and swearing in the Alderman house in 13 days.

My sister and brother-in-law noticed that Peyton mutters something under his breath during the last scene in his most recent Mastercard commercial. I found this "behind-the-scenes" short on Youtube and I'm pretty sure he's saying "That kid's got a cannon". Or perhaps he's saying "Bill Belichick can suck it". Here's the link, you be the judge:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBalnYaqVXI

Funny & True

I found this little cartoon on babycenter.com and thought it was right on the money!

My Boys

I had to build a backdrop for a photo session this past weekend, and so I took some practice shots with Rob & the boys. This one pretty accurately captures life around here...

Sunday Morning...

... a few donuts, some milk, and the funny papers. Does it get any better than this?

Pumpkin Cookies and Bad Hair Days

Wow! I haven't added a new post in over 3 months! What in the world could I have been doing with my time?! Oh, wait - I remember. I was super pregnant and chasing a 2-yr old, and now I am caring for a newborn and chasing a 2-yr old. Damn - no wonder I'm so freakin' tired!

So, yes, there have been many changes in our home over the past few months. Casey moved into a "big boy bedroom" and there was much discussion over the size of bed we should use, and whether we should put it on a frame, and where in the room to place the bed. All of this was apparently in vain as Casey has chosen to sleep on the floor in front of his door rather than use the perfectly good twin bed and box springs we carefully chose for his room. All night long I can hear him rolling over and thumping against the door. I've tried asking him why he doesn't sleep in his bed, and he just shrugs. I guess even at 2 we all have our quirky preferences.

And why is it that I am awake in the middle of the night to hear my eldest son snoozing on the floor of his room? Because my youngest son wakes up every 2 hours to eat. And I mean every 2 hours from when he started eating. Which means that if it takes him 30 minutes to eat - well, it doesn't take a math genius to figure out that I'm not doing much sleeping. Aside from his endless appetite, Connor is certainly low maintenance in comparison to Casey. Sleep, eat, poop. Sleep, eat, poop. That's his daily agenda, with the occasional period of alertness thrown in just to let us know he's around. All while sporting a head full of dark hair that stands straight up, no matter how I try to brush it. Casey on the other hand continues to be a whirling dervish of energy - constantly in motion and frequently getting into something he shouldn't. I've found the key is to keep him busy, like helping me make pumpkin cookies (which turned out very pretty but not very edible). I can't believe I once thought taking care of one newborn was hard. That wasn't hard. This is hard.

This is hard, but also wonderful. Although we have technically been a family since the day we took our marriage vows, I haven't truly felt like a family until now. We had our first outing as a foursome last weekend to do some pumpkin hunting, and I felt such contentment with us all being together. Of course, I also participated in a wine tasting during the day, so that may have helped emphasize the "warm and fuzzy" way I was feeling. But I'm pretty sure it was mostly due to the happiness of being a mom to two beautiful boys and a wife to a man I love very much.

I have to cut myself off here (probably a good thing, since the post was starting to resemble a Hallmark card commercial) and get back to taking care of these boys. These boys who sleep on the floor or don't sleep at all and make pumpkin cookies and have bad hair days. These boys who have made my life challenging and wonderful, all at the same time, just by being here.