We have a house!

So I promised pics of the bamboo floors - so here they are:


And we have a new house picked out! The offer was accepted, we are in the process of getting all the stuff done that we need to for closing. Our house is now on the market.

So the link to our new house is here (it is new contruction from 2006 that has been sitting empty... the price of the house has dropped about $135,000 for the original listing price.... good for us, bad for the builder/seller). On the other hand, we are listing our house for about $35,000 less than the assessed value as well. Weird housing market.

So here is the link to the new house:

http://www.tavernerridge.com/1712.html

Here is the link to our current house for sale:


http://www.equitygroup.com/listings/detail.php?lid=26653662&limit=0&offset=0&aid=004602114&oid=004600011&temp=1197&aname=CHRISSY+DEFIBAUGH&aimg=1&agent_hasfeat=6&&posc=6&post=6&cfq=feat%3D1%26aid%3D004602114%26oid%3D004600011%26temp%3D1197%26aname%3DCHRISSY%2BDEFIBAUGH%26aimg%3D1%26agent_hasfeat%3D6%26SRSearchDate%3D1214349402%26SRRecordCount%3D6%26SRPage%3D1%26SRPageCount%3D1%26SRPageLinks%3D6


If that doesn't work, the MLS number is: 8062411

I lost the rest of this post and Teagan is protesting... so I will have to get back to it later and hope blogger doesn't eat it again!

June!

OK... so somehow it is now June and in fact almost 1/2 thru the month at that! Andrew is done with 3rd grade. The twins had kindergarten assessments done today that will help determine their class placement for the fall... unfortunately they both cried about being pulled out for the testing (they were in a classroom setting with other kids doing projects and then a few kids at a time were pulled out for one on one assessments). They are at such a tough age in some ways -- really wanting to be big but still having trouble always adjusting well. If things go like they did for Andrew, next year will be great for them. The whole process of meeting friends and learning to read, write letters and numbers, create, etc. and getting used to the school routine and such is good for them.

Teagan was in such a good mood this evening... chuckling and chasing everyone around. He can crawl FAST. He is also very competent at cruising the furniture.

We have new bamboo floors in the family room. My brother and SIL's brother installed them for us. They look great. I need to get after pics (we got some pics of the room with the carpet all pulled up too).

The house hunt continues. We still haven't put ours on the market. I am seriously considering renting it out so we can hang on to the property until this housing slump readjusts a bit. We don't seem to need the equity in this house to qualify for a new loan and I think we can swing the new heftier mortgage just fine. The only problem is finding the right house! We found one we both loved but in the end that RR tracks behind it were too much for me to deal with. I just kept imagining the boys going down to play around there and it scared me too much.

Anyway -- enough of an update for now. Next up I will reveal our crazy summer schedule... for now we have all next week with nothing really planned -- just me and the boys home everyday. I figure we will go on a few outings but haven't decided where and when yet.

Nothing much to report

Feels like it has been a lot of days since I posted, so I thought I would sign in and say something. Teagan is going to be 7 months old tomorrow. He is still determined to stand and is crawling very fast now. He is fun to watch and is getting better at not falling or bonking his head quite so much.

The twins are done with daycare and I am about to start working weekends all the time -- which I have been practically doing anyhow, but now it is more official. So that makes me the stay at home parent during the week... I feel like I need to get more organized and creative in order to make that work well -- especially when I have all FOUR boys home every day all summer. We will indeed be signing up for summer camps, but not for everyone every week -- there will be a lot of down time. Generally I am a big fan of not over scheduling the kids and letting them just play, but at the same time there is only so much "I'm bored..." whining that I can take.

We are still house hunting. We have found a few options that would work OK -- but nothing where we feel like "yes this is it, we should make an offer." The up side to looking at houses in this market is that nothing is moving very quickly, so we don't really have to worry about something we like getting sold before we make a move. It is hard to pick out a house which we hope is our 'forever' house (meaning we would like to stay put for the next 15-20 years or so) because it is really hard not to be picky about it. I keep thinking maybe we just need to find something for the next 5 years or so and then possibly trade up again at that time. The problem is, the boys are at an age NOW where we want land and space to roam and they need a play room and all that -- whereas 5 years from now we are likely to need less room as they will be busier with school activities and sports and such that doesn't require as much play space at home. So I feel like we need the big house and big yard now... sigh.

Anyway... that is about it for now. I work the next 2 nights and then we are having a little BBQ at my parents' on Memorial day.

Growing up TOO FAST!

So Teagan went from crawling, to getting to sit up on his own all in one day! He was very proud of himself and now has moved on to pulling up to stand and trying to cruise. I have tried explaining to him that he is my baby, my last child, my joy and delight (because he is not my first and not a twin and life has been grand with him! -- boy, I did NOT mean for that to rhyme...) Anyway, these first 6 months with him have just gone by in a whirlwind and I am sad to see babyhood going so fast.

I am also concerned that a 6 month old who thinks he can walk could be big trouble down the line. I mean he is clearly a bright boy (of course ;)) but even bright 6 month olds have still only been on the planet for 6 MONTHS! What do they know about gravity and sharp, hard table edges and tippy chairs and boxes that aren't meant for standing against. He just has no caution and no sense of what is safe to climb up on. He is also rather top heavy still -- I mean I think about 25% of his weight is in his head, can you imagine trying to walk if that were the case for you?!

He is so determined also. It is like he has this internal voice urging him on: "YOU MUST STAND, TRY TO WALK, CATCH UP WITH THOSE BIG BROTHERS!" It is kinds cute to see him excitedly crawl at warp speed over to the open door (main door open, storm door closed) and pull up to stand against the storm door and watch all the big kids go running back and forth out in the front yard. He so wants to be in on all of that.

So we are loving this stage but mourning the fact that it is passing quickly. The older kids, esp Andrew, are at a particularly challenging age, so I am happy to have the entertainment factor from Teagan to make me smile on tough days with Andrew. I am learning lots about myself from these kids... parenting truly must be the toughest most wonderful job out there.

Here are some pics of the crew and the wonder baby too :)

More milestones!

So the little guy is crawling in his own way. He gets up on his hands and knees and moves his hands and moves his legs and gets going forward -- but it isn't very coordinated yet and he often lunges forward to get something and then gets back up on his knees again later. Nothing is safe from him now though -- he gets all around the downstairs now. He seems to like getting caught up under the baby swing, something I seem to recall one of the other boys doing too.

I rearranged the living room and plan to donate the baby swing away. I need to go find our box of childproofing stuff as I need more outlet covers and such. He hasn't discovered the stairs yet, but I assume it won't be long, so we need to think about a gate as well.

The other really cool new trick he learned today (and he is just pleased as punch with himself about it) is he can get himself back into the sitting position. So if he is lying on the ground in any format he can roll over, get on his hand and knees and then push back into a sit. Pretty cool. He was just grinning at me today about it and it took me a moment to realize what he did because I didn't see it the first time and though one of the boys had helped him up.

Anyway, it is only 7pm and he just zonked out. I will assume it is a power nap because I put him in his crib with just the diaper on. But he has been busy today, so we'll see. May have to go sneak some PJs on him. I need to get better about real nap times -- but we run around so much of the day, it is hard to fit them in between snoozes in the car and such.

Ta ta for now. :)

Survived TV Turn Off week!

So it isn't like my kids watch much TV anyhow these days. But we opted to go without all screens -- which includes Nintendo DS, the computer, TV, movies, and even the Leapsters. They did really well -- only asking about computer games every once in awhile and having no trouble finding other things to do. BUT -- for me it was hard to deal with all the wrestling, playing, screeching, etc. that goes along with playing games that don't inovlve screens! It was hard to get Teagan to nap with all the noise and hard to get them to remain outside when they wanted to be loud (lots of coming in and out and slamming doors and all that).
I also missed the idea of just plugging a movie in and cuddling up with the twins and having some zone out time. Oh well. So the lesson learned is that mommy is more dependent on the screens than the rest of the household.

I also missed my computer. I did make the arrangement (with Andrew the dictator of TV TURN OFF WEEK) to check e-mail once per day just so I could keep up in case there was some pressing news and more realistically, just so I wouldn't have 500 messages when I turned it back on. But I did my part and avoided playing computer games or replying to e-mail or blogging. I did sneak in some Tivo watching on Thursday when they were all at school/daycare and I was home with Teagan all day.

The weather is lovely today and we had a nice playdate at the park with a friend of mine and her son. I am ready for Spring weather without the weird hail storms and crazy rain we have been getting.

Anyway... enough for now. I still need to get professional photos some day of the kids and really all of us. Ugh. I am not really excited about the idea of trying to pull it all off.

General update & Spring Break pics

So I feel like I need to write because it has been a couple of weeks. We went to Cannon Beach for Spring Break like we have done the past two springs and this year it turned out to be a bit chilly. The week before was weird weather week with snow and hail and rain storms at all elevations all over WA and OR. So we fared better than the Oregon schools in terms of weather. But, it wasn't really great 'play in the sand' weather.
On the up side, Teagan is now the proud owner of a new really cute hat (and so is cousin Mary, though I have no pic of hers):

Here is Connor playing at the park -- turned out to be a really nice snapshot.
And here is what the kids spent a lot of the time doing in the hotel room at the beach (playing Nintendo DS):
At least I got all 4 of them in 1 picture!

We so need to go get formal family photos. Today I was going to look for some nice coordinating outfits for kids at Kohl's (just thought it may have some stuff even though I don't really shop there often and more importantly it is near Panera which I where I wanted to go for lunch). But Teagan was fussy and the twins' kept asking for stuff and it just wasn't working out. Instead I end up coming home with toys, new water type sandals for the twins' and a shirt & socks for Teagan. Hmmm.

In other news my brother and his wife and baby are going to rent out their house and will be moving into an RV they bought. I think this means we will see them even more often at my parents house and such and I will invite them over also because Mary will want to have room to crawl and move about. The RV is being parked at Angela's brothers house I think.

Andrew is doing WASL testing this week and next. So far he says "it is easy." I think he kind of likes standardized testing. Personally I can't help but think it is a waste of time for the kids and the teachers who spend so much effort "prepping" for it.

We have Kindergarten Round Up next week and I am really looking forward to it. We get to meet the teachers for next year and see the classrooms and Connor and Quinn get to come along also. It feels like a bigger deal than when Andrew started for some reason. I think just the idea of have 3 kids in school feels like a big change. I am planning to try out working every Sat-Sun and then being home all week and therefore dropping the kids out of daycare entirely. I think I'll start the schedule in the summer. I need to run it by my supervisor first.
Sounds like Teagan is waking up -- gotta go!