Another week

Sorry for the long delay in posting. My life has just been so busy and hectic lately, that blogging is getting put on hold. It doesn't help that the computer room is in the far corner of the basement and some days I don't even make it over there. Aidan had only one day of school last week because of a school conference and I was very happy to send him back yesterday. We walked to school, so nice, althugh it was pretty chilly went we left.
Over the weekend we were able to start on some projects. Steve began ripping apart the moldy bedroom in the basement and now has it down to the studs. To update you there, our insurance adjuster is just writing a $2000 cheque for us. This is a huge surprise and answer to prayer! Plus more money then we need for what we have to do there.
We also ripped all the carpets upstairs out. We are having the floors professionally refinished next week. I am so excited to see nice shiny hardwoods! The floors are in rather good condition but they still need a facelift. There are a few bad stains, although the picture makes them look good. This picture was taken when just the dining room carpet was up but these are the floors all the way through the living room, dining room, hallway and three bedrooms.
Saturday morning is Cassidy's ballet class. This is her second year in ballet.

Saturday night we were also able to check out Boo at The Zoo. This is our second year going, and the kids loved it just as much. The evening was very nice and didn't get too chilly.

Sunday we raked, raked, and raked. This yard is big and we have too many trees with too many leaves. I mowed it all and bagged it once, we raked it again, and today it is still covered with leaves! Aidan and I also started digging out a gigantic tree plant thingy, (i don't know what it is!) in the front of the house. Makes a huge difference now that it is gone!
Steve is off of work next week for two weeks. Our floors will get down, we plan to paint and get the yard ready for winter.

As most of you know, I like to decorate for Christmas the day after Halloween. This year, unfortuantly I am going to have to put it on hold since that day will be the day after the floors are done and we are supposed to keep them bare for a week or so. Plus, we want to paint in there and hang some new curtains. So I guess my Christmas decorating will be a little later (and more normal I guess) then usual. I am anxious to put my big fancy tree we bought last year up! Plus......I am want Steve to string all our outside trees with lights, which I am sure he will be excited to do!

Overwhelmed!

That is the one word that describes the way I feel right now.
First of all, the move went very smooth and fast. We had lots of people helping and we apologize for the backs we may have broke. I don't think anyone wants to see us move in a year again! We really didn't have alot of big furniture, but we did have a ton of stuff. The biggest thing was the piano and Steve's mom had rented some equipment that helped in the moving of it.
Now thinking about never being in the other house is kind of bitter sweet I guess. I don't really miss it but it is still hard to see a home we had gutted and made beautiful now belong to someone else. Although, we are so thrilled with the space here. Over 2400 square feet of living space and our living room is empty because we need to buy more furniture!
So....the reason I am so overwhelmed is......there are SO many things I want to do here. I have already stripped the wallpaper in the kitchen down, so glad to see it go. The kitchen needs to be gutted and redone but that project won't happen for a while
Steve is off in two weeks, so the plan is to paint the entire main level, and then rip all the carpets out. We have hardwoods so those will all be refinshed. I can not stand carpet.
Now, as a welcoming gift, one of the basement bedrooms revealed some lovely mold around the bottoms of the wall. We were trying to determine what was cauzing the mold and figured we needed to do some landscaping in the back. No biggy. Well, all of the sudden water started backing up in the basement bathroom and flooded the bathroom. So we had the unplug guys some and unplug the pipes. They were full of tree roots.
Now, anyone reading this and knows about our Brandon house is probably laughing because they know how many times the rental has had the lines cleaned because of tree roots. So this really isn't new for us.
Our property has alot of huge trees on it which has cauzed this, and the previous owner was an old lady who probably never had it done. So right now we are currently working with our lawyer to work this situation out with the previous owners. Just kind of ironic that this happened the first day we move in...hopefully we can get it all fixed up and taken care of. Gotta love those new house surprises!

Not much to update here. We have been on major packing mode and trying to organize all the things for the move. Tomorow we head to the lawyers to sign all the paperwork and get the keys. Friday we will take posession.

The plan is on friday to go in the house and evaluate what we need to clean or do before we start bring big stuff in. We won't be doing any big renos before we move in since we only have a few days. Steve is taking two weeks off at the end of the month so those will be devoted to those projects.

Saturday we will get the moving truck and start moving in, leaving sunday for any last minute clean up here. Monday the buyers take this house so we have to be gone by then.

We are very anxious to get out of here. We really look forward to haveing twice the amount of space, and of course a very quiet street.

On the other hand, I don't look forward to unpacking.

As for other news, we are very excited that my brother and his wife Laura had there little boy Judah Daniel Harder. We have waiting anxiously for this little guy and are so thankful he arrived safe and healthy, and how perfect is it that he was born on Thanksgiving weekend.

our week in pictures. . .

With Cassidy's birthday, packing and everything else on the schedule, I am finding it hard to find time to blog anything these days. But....I will try today. Again it is monday, another week has gone by and it seems like it was a blur just like every other week. Cassidy turned four last wensday and we made sure she had a very special day.When she woke up in the morning, Aidan and Liam gave her there gifts. Of course, polly pocket princesses to add to her growing collection.

Then after Daddy dropped Aidan off at kindergarten, he took Cassidy out for a special birthday breakfest, just the two of them.
Later that day we gave her our gift which was the pony scooter she had been asking for and ordered pizza for her birthday supper! We hit the park to try out the scooter and enjoy the last bit of nice weather.

On saturday we held her princess party. We had 14 kids running around. Some from her preschool, from church and her cousins. It was very busy, loud and insane but we all survived and the kids had a great time. They enjoyed crafts, games and food. All the kids did super good and we had no problem keeping them all busy!

Here are all the kids playing one of our silly dress up games!
Cassidy's sleeping beauty cake. I wasn't too impressed with how it turned out, but the girls loved it and it tasted pretty good. It had a TON of icing on it. Baking it was easy, I just used a pampered chef batter bowl (which my pampered chef consultant told me worked perfect for this) and cooked a cake in it. I then stuck a barbie in it and iced it!

Over all Cassidy had a blast and got spoiled rotten with all her gifts!

Sunday ended up being a really nice day. We headed to Fraser Grove park for some family pics for the Christmas cards I will have to find time to make. Taking pictures with three kids is really impossible. Out of zillions of pictures, we may have only a few to work with! Here is just a sample of the ones we took.

So now it is the count down. 12 days till we get the house, less then two weeks to get this house packed and ready to move!

Happy Birthday Princess

Today Cassidy turns 4 years old.

At birth. . .
3 months old. . .

6 months old. . .

1 year. . .

2 years. . .

3 years. . .

and now, 4 years old!

We love you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH!

Today we celebrate a very special day. A milestone two years ago we didn't know if we would ever see and here we are today. May God bless you Noah and we praise him for the special gift that you are. Happy Birthday little man! We are excited to celebrate your birthday with you and your family tonight!

I must blog about the good news. We have finally bought a house. We are so thankful things are coming together. We get posession October 12, a few days before we have to get out here. The house requires some updating cosmetically but nothing to hard. We plan to rip out the carpets and refinish the hardwoods and paint the place. It is a Granny's house so we had to see past the decorating and bulky furniture. It is a 1238 square foot bungelow. That gives us over 2400 square feet because of the finished lower level. Twice the size we have now. It has 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It is on a big lot but the yard needs some work. The back yard has alot of concrete which will go and be replaced with sod. It is up in North Kildonan, great quiet bay only minutes away from Aidan's school. Because of the area, we thought it would be hard to get this house but we gave them a good offer and won it. Houses in North Kildonan are hard to come by and when they come up on the market they fly off for way more then list. We also ended up spending below our max which was a relief so we will be able to do the few things that need to be done. Because of the size we knew that it would be a good project to take on since we know it will be harder to grow out of this house.

Aidan also started his first day of kindergarten on monday. He was so excited! He was pretty tired after his first day but was gearing to go this morning.

Here he is at his cubby! Here he is waiting for me to leave

Cassidy had her first day of preschool yesterday. She will go every monday, wensday and friday afternoon. The school is only about 2 blocks away and a 5 minute walk. (This will probably change when we move!) She did very well on her first day and was excited about her new friends.
Aidan doesn't start until monday. He is getting very anxious!

Is it September already? Hard to believe summer is already flown by. I am sad to see the leaves are already changing colors.

September 2nd marked our 7 year wedding anniversary. Hard to believe 7 years have gone by. I honestly think the kids have made it more of a blur. We celebrated the day by taking the kids to tinkertown. We hadn't gone yet all summer and the kids have been asking for a while now. This was Liam's first year enjoying the rides and he loved it. We then ordered in some food for supper that night!

Update on our house situation, still no home yet. The frustrating thing was the long weekend. Not much comes on the weekend right before it and what does isn't showing until the end of this week. The GREAT news is, there are a bunch of great houses, at great prices taking bids this weekend so we have the chance at some good ones. All in areas we want and alot of them require some cosmetic work which originally we wanted. I have gotten caught up in the 'pretty' houses and unfortuantly I know we need to buy something that doesn't look perfect because we have a better chance of winning it. In the meantime we are just trying not to stress about it and trusting God will work it out.

Cassidy starts preschool tomorow. She is very excited and has been counting down the sleeps for a while. Aidan doesn't start till next week on the 10th. He is very excited about getting to eat his lunch at school!