9 Month pics

Here are Grayson's 9mo pictures taken Sunday. I could only get the horizontal ones to go into the slide show.
Since Friday, Grayson has started to crawl forward! It's so funny and so amazing to see our "little baby" moving to where he wants when he wants. It's hard to keep a home babyproofed when we're trying to pack!

A tough good-bye

Nearly 20 years ago, Pat (my "adopted grandma"), decided to pass on to my family an old upright piano. Tasha and I both learned to play piano on this old thing. Little did my parents know that introducing this piano into my life would forever change me.

When I saw Tasha taking piano lessons, I asked if I could too. So they signed me up. I practiced much less than I should have, but still loved playing. That piano helped me develop my innate musical skills. I used it to help me learn my vocal music and even play some of my clarinet music. It was there with me through many Share the Fun 4-H performances with my friends and was there when I was lonely enough at home to make cassette recordings of songs I knew.

My parents knew I was attached to this piano so they even took it with them when they moved, and I went to college. It stayed in their basement for 5 years, only getting played on weekends that I was home and mom would request "why don't you go play Fur Elise". When I bought my own house, my piano came out of the basement and home with me, much to Dad's dismay. It got a lot of use that year when I needed to figure out life like a grown up. Then it followed me to our current house, much to Brad's dismay. It hasn't gotten much use the past two years. I'm not as good as I used to be.

Now we are moving to our new house. Unfortunately no matter how you want to get in the house there are stairs, and stairs again once you're in the house. The poor piano has been through a lot through the years, except a tuning or maintenance.

It's been a really tough decision, but I decided to not take the piano on this move. I really want my kids to hear and learn music, but they need to hear the music somewhat in tune, and without missing notes (some keys didn't work). The past couple of weeks have been fun seeing Grayson pound on the keys. I hope we can find a play piano for Christmas or birthday for him.

I know I'll have another piano one day fairly soon. But right now I'm mourning the loss of an old friend. I feel like a writer without a pen, a pitcher without a ball, a dancer without any legs...or something like that. I hope the family who took it enjoys it as much as I did.

Good-bye Marion, Hello Cedar Rapids!

We sold our house and got a new one!
After listing our house in July, we had decided to take it off of the market Nov 1 so that we could use our garage during the winter (right now it's full of boxes/furniture). On Oct 23 we sold the house! We immediately started our search for a new home, seeing a few new construction houses the next day. That was followed by seeing 35-40 more houses, offering on two other houses, and much emotional stress. Finally, we were guided toward a house on Ashford Dr NE in Cedar Rapids. Tanner, Grayson and I didn't even have to say a word and we knew we wanted this house the second we stepped in the door. We spent Wednesday-Saturday offering/counter-offering directly with the sellers, as it is listed by the owner on IA Homes For Sale. I can't begin to explain the relief and excitement we had on Saturday when they excepted our counter offer!!

This house will not come easy. We close Nov 30 on our house and have to be out by Dec 4 at noon. But we don't close or get possession of our new house until Dec 17 at noon. This means we will be living with Autumn, Reed and Noelle for 13 days. Max and Marley will be staying with Trilby, Mike and the boys during that time. We are very thankful to have family nearby that have room for us and are willing to help us out! This also means we'll have to put EVERYTHING in storage for a couple of weeks. It will fee like we are moving twice! But it's all worth it for this amazing home!!

So here is a tour of the house (pictures taken by seller).
Front of the house. Deck off the side of the house leading to the back yard.

Back yard, view from house. We keep the shed, they take the swing.
Back of the house. Windows to Master bed and Bedroom #2. Small patio area at bottom of deck. Yard completely fenced.

Enter the house onto a "landing" area. Go up 2 steps to this room, Living room. New hardwood floors. (From the landing, you can also go up 2 steps the other direction to get to the hallway- not pictured, or you can get to the basement from there).

Dinning area leading to kitchen with breakfast bar, as viewed from Living room. We aren't sure how well a table will fit in the space where a table would typically go. But clearly there is room for the table to be moved toward the living room.

Kitchen as viewed from the hallway.

Turn around and head down the hall. This is the bedroom on the left. Set up as a boy's room now, but we'll probably have it as a play room until baby 2 comes along one day, then it will be Grayson's room.

Next is another bedroom, but I don't have a pic of that. Then it's the main bathroom.

Next to the master bedroom, which looks out to the back yard.

Finally we get walk in closets! It also has it's own bathroom! Yay!

Let's head down to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, to the right, you'll find a large room, currently a playroom. We'll probably keep this as a play room, or maybe an office, or exercise room. Oh the possibilities!! One day (before we sell the house) we'll throw in a closet and doors to make it an official 5th bedroom.

Standing from the play room at the bottom of the stairs, this is the view of the wide open space in the basement living room. There is so much space, I'm not sure what we'll do with it! Eventually we'll use this as our main living space. The door you see is the laundry/utility room, which is nice and big, but unfinished.

The view of the basement from the back. The basement has TALL ceilings so it hardly feels like a basement.

Then you'll find a 4th bedroom in the back corner. This is our guest bedroom. Next to the guest bedroom is a full 3rd bathroom.

Well that is the grand tour. I'll post more pictures after I visit this week for the inspection. I'll be sure to get a picture of the entry way as several people have asked about that.

Tanner and I couldn't be any happier right now. We had/have a goal in mind of taking advantage of the 4.0% interest rate we are going to get by getting a house we can raise our kids in. It's going to take a lot of work, an extremely tight budget for a while and some self control to make it happen, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, and the tunnel isn't that dark to start with.

Our Little Dragon

On our way to Hiawatha Elementary's chili night we stopped to get Grayson's picture taken in his Halloween outfit.
He is supposed to be a dragon, but I think he wanted to be a lizard the way he stuck out his tongue. That isn't a trick he learned for the outfit, just something he always does.
Grayson only went trick-or-treating at one neighbor's house.
He also helped hand out candy, then it was off to bed.

No matter how stressful my day has been, this little guy can always make me smile!