New Furniture

We got new living room furniture delivered - as many of you know, we had to give up a lot of our furniture with the sale of the old house - the buyer was in a situation where she needed furniture fast and I guess she liked ours. She made it part of her offer and we felt we had to go with it. In this market, we couldn't afford to take a chance! So here is our new living room furniture - which I love. The couch is a unique sectional that has the ottoman fit in several locations. In the picture, it is positioned to create a chaise on one end. Its a "stone" colored microfiber. We still don't have dining room furniture yet...

Aunt Tina's House

Tanner had a blast at Aunt Tina's house yesterday. We rode 4-wheelers and played in the sand by the creek. He didn't want to leave. I have to admit, the 4-wheeler was fun!

Pumpkin Patch

We celebrated fall by going to the Pumpkin Patch in Esperance, NY this weekend. Its literally less than 1/2 mile from Rob's parent's house, and this was my first time there. We had the freshest cider donuts we've ever had...still warm and squishy. Tanner loved them too... We went through the corn maze....Tanner didn't quite get it. I think he was expecting more. When we came out the other end and that was it he didn't seem impressed.

Looking at the goats with Aunt Tina...

The goats were walking along wooden walkways suspended high in the air. Strange but entertaining...

Nana and PopPop went on the hay ride down into the Pumkin Patch with Tanner...Poor Nana ended up chasing Tanner 1/2 a mile across the field...while Tanner was having the time of his life in a game of "chase" Nana was actually trying to catch him. Little devil... Anyway, we had a great time at the Pumpkin Patch and afterward Tanner got to play with his second cousins - Joey, Anthony and Krissy - back at Nana and PopPops. He had such a big weekend he was totally exhausted.

A Rainbow up in the Tree

A horsie from Gramma Va...He keeps saying "Ridin' to Town..."

A visit from Nana and PopPop Lockwood...he was very impressed that his PJ's "were like PopPop's"...

The leaves are changing here...and on the way to work this morning Tanner was in a great mood, chattering away...at one point he said "A rainbow." I said, "a rainbow?" "where?" he replied "up in the tree mommy." He saw the red, yellow, and orange leaves and thought of a rainbow. Its so fun to witness him discovering meaning and language.

He's been saying "alright (awight), mommy" after I ask him to do something...it melts my heart. Tanner is not a child I would describe as "agreeable." So to hear him verbally agree is so sweet. He's going through a cookie stage where nine times out of ten, he wants a cookie for his meal. Coming down the stairs to the kitchen at 5:45am (his usual get up time) he's shouting "cookie!" I wanna cookie!" with such delight that its hard to deny him (but I do). So then we end up in a struggle over what's really in front of him because he wants a cookie (or a popsicle - "pockatu").

The other day he counted to 6 all by himself. He was sitting on the floor taking crayons out one by one and counting very matter of factly. I was impressed, though I think he may have skipped two (I'm pretty sure it went "one, three, four, five, six"). Nevertheless, mommy was proud.

This weekend we hope to paint Tanner's room. It needs it desperately - they had it this bright orange. I mean BRIGHT. And ever since Rob spackled every hole in every wall throughout the entire house, I'm looking to move along with the painting. All I asked was for him to spackle some holes in one of the bathrooms (because we were planning to paint in there). Next thing I know, the WHOLE house is polka dotted. Looks real good folks. Men. I tell ya.

Quick Catch Up

I'm going to try to get in a quick update since they've been so few and far between this summer! We closed on our new house one week ago today and started cleaning and moving right away. We had a 24' Uhaul rented on Saturday. Rob somehow convinced 10 of his guy friends to help us move in exchange for beer and pizza. The move went very well. Although most of my belongings are still in the basement and garage, I've only found one casualty so far - a broken planter. No big deal. They made 3 trips that day with the truck...and then Rob and I made 4 trips the next day with our old neighbor's pickup truck. Whew! I was thinking about having Rob drive the last couple of loads straight to the dump. Who needs that much stuff!@#!!

Rob's parents came on Saturday. His dad ran some wiring (we converted the gas stove in the kitchen to electric) among other things and his mom looked after Tanner all day. I cleaned and expedited all day (someone has to answer "where do you want this?" "where should I put that?" etc etc)...somehow Rob's mom managed to clean and scour all 3 bathrooms top to bottom that day as well. I mean, she scrubbed walls with bleach water people! Unbelievable. His parents were only here 24 hours but they did so much for us.

In the past week, we've had so many people in and out its crazy...the furnace people were here twice (once to deliver oil and once to clean and service the furnace), Lowes delivering appliances, Verizon, Comcast, Carpet Cleaners, and Rob's brother Jim came for 3 full days helping to install appliances, lighting, repair water damaged drywall from the pipes bursting etc etc...

Tanner has done great with the move. He says he likes the new house...he's sleeping well - only got up one night...and has made it past 6:00 most mornings! Yay. Good thing he's so adaptable b/c today is his last day at the daycare he's been going to for the last 2 years. He starts a new daycare next week. We went twice this week to transition...I think he will love it. Amanda, his current provider, is having her 3rd baby...so that's why he's changing...its time for a bigger, more structured environment anyway...I think he'll do great and am very excited for the change. It just so happens that it coincides with our move a little too closely. Ah, he'll be fine.

There's so much more, but I have to go get Tanner. So I'll leave you with a "funny" story. Last night, Tanner got a hold of a black permanent marker. He came strolling into the living room where we were trying to hook up the TV, with big bold black lines drawn all over his face. At first, I thought it was just his washable markers in dark brown...then I realized how black it was and he doesn't have black in his washable markers. My heart sunk as I walked quickly into the family room envisioning black lines on furniture, walls and carpet...luckily, he had only decorated his face...whew! I took a pampers wipe to his cheeks and it worked quite well. Between that and his bath, there was only one faint line left...
:)

Tanner Update!

Despite all the craziness with the house shananigans, Tanner is still the center of our world. He turned 2 on August 15th. He is doing great, talking more than ever with 3-word sentences the norm these days. Today on the way home, he yells "mommy mommy, icky toes!" I look back and he's got his toes up next to his eyeball and I see that he has a little dirt on his big toe. He's sleeping great in his big boy race car bed (though still an early riser by 6) AND he went poop on the potty yesterday! He's been telling everyone he sees "poop the potty"...

We went to Beaver Lake last weekend after a day of moving stuff into storage. We grilled chicken and corn and played on the beach. Beaver Lake is just a 10 minute drive from our house now, but it will be walking distance when we move! We'll live about 1/2 mile walk from the Lake and our house includes lake rights!

We didn't have a party for Tanner's bday this year - we just had our friends Scott and Mark and Andrea and their kids over for some pizza and cake....

Playing with the Aquadoodle from Mark and Andrea...

The $2.99 slinky we bought him got the most attention that night!

A visit from Nana and PopPop a couple of weeks ago...

One of his latest capers..."Captain Tanner" - He puts on a dishcloth cape, his sunglasses and ballhat and he shouts "Captaaaaaain Tanneeeeeeer" He climbs onto the ottoman, puts his hands out over his head and jumps...where did he get this from?

At the playground with his friend Kameron...so cute together.

89 Babcock Tavern

Allegedly we are closing on our new house 2 weeks from today. So far so good. Everything is in line. We're waiting on one small issue with the title that hopefully won't hold anything up. We are super excited and have been working on getting our existing house on the market for the last 4 weeks. So after 6 years, its finally entirely painted (fresh paint on 3 sides this summer alone), we've been spiffing it up from every angle painting this and fixing that...the yard has never looked better and we've cleared out 1/2 the contents for showing. Luckily, there is a storage unit just 1/2 mile away at the end of our road which has made that much easier. As of today, the "For Sale" sign is in our yard. Cross your fingers for us!!!!

The new home was built in 2002, is 2500 square feet (instead of our current 1600) and sits on 1.4 acre. There is a beautiful stone walkway leading up to the front yard/farmers porch. The back deck is enormous and is right off the kitchen. It has 3 bedrooms and 3 full baths. Second floor laundry, a huge kitchen with a long breakfast bar and vaulted ceilings in the master bedroom are a few of my favorite features. Rob is excited about the whole house stereo system, large walk out basement, and 2-car garage. We've been shopping sales for the missing components and have quite a collection already (it was a foreclosure property and the owners stripped it down pretty good before they left). So far we've found great deals on our appliances, cabinet knobs, a couple of light fixtures, etc. We even had to buy a mailbox - that was gone too. The rest will come in time...including the AC units that they took off the outside of the house (yup, they even took the central air and central vac units).

We weren't planning on spending our summer packing, moving, buying and selling a house...but when we saw 89 Babcock Tavern come on the market for 1/3 less than its value, we got interested...We drove by it on the way home from work that night and as we walked around the outside, we became VERY interested. Low and behold a door was left open and we went on in and looked around! Rob and I became VERY excited...Rob's exact words "I'd buy this house tomorrow." I made a phone call and a realtor was there within 30 minutes...by the next day (Saturday) we had an offer in on it...We had to raise our price a couple of days later b/c there were multiple offers. We agonized over how high to go, what we could afford, etc...One week after we first saw the property, we got the news that our offer was accepted. 10 days after that, on Rob's birthday, we were signing the Purchase and Sale Agreement (a good omen?). Just this week, we signed the papers to list this house on our 4-year anniversary (another good omen?)...We are finding everything very synchronistic with this whole transaction and hope that the sale of 85 Highland goes as smoothly...Its a great house that will always hold a place in our hearts as our first home that we put so much sweat and toil into...It will suit someone really well.