2nd Birthday :)

Life has been crazy, which is displayed by the fact I'm blogging B's second birthday party 2 months late.  Oh well, I'll be thankful I have it later :)

Bear's birthday hit right smack dab in the middle of one of the craziest parts of life.  We had everything finalized with both houses and were in the process of packing the house up so we could move the next Friday.  I couldn't bear to think of not celebrating him on his birthday weekend, so we kept the guest list very small and had a small get together to celebrate!

We started on Friday morning (actual birthday) with Daddy driving all through the night to get home in time for him to wake up on his actual birthday.  He had been out of town for work all week, but made it a point to be there.  We are so lucky to have him!!  Both Matt and I went into his room that morning to greet him and sing "Happy Birthday".  He loved it and then wanted to love on his Daddy :).  After we hugged Barrett wanted to go downstairs.  When we asked why, he said"to see my birthday cake!"Oh. Fail. We totally didn't have a cake ready.  BUT now we know for next year! We thought quick and whipped on a birthday stash of mini pancakes instead :).

After breakfast, we took him to Skyzone Trampoline park for toddler time! He got to jump around and had a ball.  We took him out for a birthday dinner at Arni's (even though he asked for pancakes all day and when we said we were going out to dinner he said, "YAY pancakes!") and finished it off with an ice cream sundae and "happy birthday" song!

Next day was the party! Birthday theme: One of his favorite things right now is his swimming lessons. He is such a little fish! And he also loves the Bubble Guppies, so a goldfish birthday party was just right.  We had family over and did lunch, cake, and gifts.  It was so nice to be able to have your party in the midst of crazy life.  It made us slow down and be able to celebrate him!

 At 2: You are a spit-fire.  Wild child, free spirit, independent-it HAS to be your idea, active active active.  SWEET. Sweeter than any little kid I know.  You give the biggest hugs and the cutest kisses and you are very in tune to how someone is feeling, and are always checking in with a "you ok?".  Hilarious. We laugh so hard, darn near every single day.  Smart as heck.  I know every parent thinks their kid is smart, and we are just as guilty.  We can teach you something and you know it the next time.  You are going places, little one.  

You wear us out, make us laugh, and have taught us so much about you and ourselves.  We are so thankful we were chosen to be yours and are so happy we get to watch your life unfold.  Barrett Matthew, we love you to the moon and right back again :).

the Bear is TWO!

TWO years? Say it ain't so.  How has 2 years gone by since we first met this sweet boy?

Barrett is filling out the guesses we made that he would continue to be an active and very talkative boy.  He doesn't slow down, always on the go, imagination always on high, and says SO many words.    We always get remarks from people- "WOW, he talks SO much and so clearly!". He is putting sentences together (as many as 6 words together in a sentence...that actually makes SENSE!) and repeats everything we say.  We laugh all the time at what he comes up with.  We have conversations like adults with him, it's pretty hilarious...and convenient.  We find him playing and talking to his toys like we talk to them ("Be careful!" "You go timeout" etc), and he bosses everyone around-especially Jax.  

Favorite Toys: cars/trucks, his toy kitchen and"making food", balls, his "laptop", foam bath letters, Elmo, toy animals, coloring, and his Power Wheels which I'm sure he will love even more come Spring/Summer!

Favorite Books: The "Bear" Series (The Bear Wants More, Bear's New Friend, Bear Snores On), Goodnight Moon, Sesame Street In Your Neighborhood, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Favorite Show: Bubble Guppies, (hands down his fav), Sesame Street, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Daniel Tiger

Favorite song: "Sugar" by Maroon 5, "Old McDonald", and anything on Pandora Nursery Rhymes (starting to like DMB :) )

Favorite food: Snacks. Give him all the crackers, cheerios/kix (mixed together in a bowl please), grapes, oranges, pretzels.  He'd much rather eat a "snack" than a meal.  But also really loves potstickers, fruit, salmon, mac & cheese, spaghetti, veggie straws, and will eat just about anything and everything.

Sleep: Goes to bed at 9 pm(read books and rock with Mom first) and sleeps until 8 ish.  Once he wakes up, he rolls around and talks for awhile before he's ready to actually get up and out.

Naps: Started skipping a nap about 1-2 times per week the month of January before he turned two.  I think it's a combo of not getting enough energy out like being outside all the time in the Summer and sleeping so well at night.  If he doesn't fall asleep, he at least gets quiet time in his crib to roll around and talk and read.  If he does nap, he usually sleeps for about 2 hours. The day after he skips a nap or was at the sitter the day before, he will sometimes takes a 3 hr nap.

Others: 

LOVES to learn.  He actively seeks out opportunities for us to teach him things.  He can count to 20 (sometimes he skips around once he gets past 12 lol, but has correctly counted to 20 numerous times) and counts anything and everything.  Knows every single letter of the alphabet and recognizes his name and Mommy and Daddy and Jax if written out.  He can spit off any letter so quickly if you show him one.  He also sings the alphabet song all the time (his own version haha), and says his letters all day long.  Knows all his shapes and colors too!

He is so compassionate.  When someone gets hurt, he is the first one to run up and put his hand on you and say "you ok?', kiss your boo-boo, and give you a hug.  He has to make sure you're ok before he walks away.

LOVES hugs ("huggies").  He needs one anytime he gets hurt or he will just randomly ask for one multiple times a day ("I needa huggie").  It's the very very best.  He will give you a kiss at the drop of a hat too.

Loves to swim.  He's been in lessons for almost a year now and absolutely loves the water.  He kicks and pulls and will reach out really far and jump/"swim" to you.  He blows bubbles and will float on a back for a little bit.  

Pees on the potty before bath/bedtime and randomly asks to as well, but not actively potty training. 

Has all his teeth except 2 yr molars.

2 year stats:

32 lbs 3 oz

36.5 in

Things he says:

"I'm ok!" 

(every. single. time. he falls down or hits his head on something)

"Come on Mommy, follow me!"

"More Cheerio Kix Mommy please right now?"

"Where my Daddy/Mommy/Jackson Dog go?"

"I go see my Granny/Grandma/Papa"

"A huggie Mommy. A kissy too.  Fank you Mommy"

"Fank you!" and "Pwease"

(He says please for everything and says thank you every single time you hand him something.  It's the sweetest thing ever)

"Whoopsie daisy!"

"Be patient!"

"Haha! Funny goose"

"Yes sir" and "yeah ma'am"

"What?" when he can't hear what you said

Says "Bwess you (name)" if someone sneezes

"'Scuse me" if something is in his way

"Go bye-bye daddy car"

"Hold on Mommy, Bear coming!"

Says "Hi!" to everyone when we are out in a store.  Will say hi and wave and smile :).

Knows his name if you say "what's your name?"

"Paci, arrree you?"
"Hold on Mommy, I go see my Daddy real quick"
"It my birthday now! I wanna have a cake"

We LOVE you so so so much, our little Bear.  Life is just so much sweeter with you in it and we are so thankful for you every single day!

starting 2016 with a bang

Why not start 2016 off with a move to a different city?  We had talked back and forth a few times about moving back home over the course of the last couple years.  Our last conversation was that we would move back by the time Barrett was 5 years old and ready for school.  But then we had a conversation the weekend after Christmas and decided the time was now.  Not gonna lie, it was hard for me to wrap my brain around it.  I love living here.  I love the friends I've made, the gym I teach at and the relationships made through that, Costco, and so many other things that this big city has to offer.  But for Matt, he goes to work M-F and then has weekends off.  He doesn't have those days off during the week like I do to make relationships and ties to this city.  So I totally get it, and I'm totally supportive of moving home, and it's happening...quickly!

We met with our realtor the week after we had our conversation to see what her thoughts were.  We wanted to see when she thought would be a good time to sell.  To our surprise, she said that right now would be best.  Right now?! Apparently it's been a really great selling Winter, and since demand is high but supply is low, we would probably sell fairly quickly and get a good offer.  She wanted to get us on before the Spring selling season started.  So I spent a week and a half getting things packed in boxes and the house cleaned, organized, and ready to show!

Our house listed on Thursday evening (1/21), and we had a showing already scheduled for the next day just hours after we listed.  WHAT?! My anxiety was sky-high.  I couldn't believe it.  I wanted the whole process to go slowly so I could ease my brain into it, but that didn't happen. We had another one pop up for Saturday, and two for Sunday!  We got some great feedback from the showings, but no offers yet.  It was a slow next week of no showings, which was nerve-wrecking, but a request popped up Thursday evening for Friday morning (who ended up being the ones who put in an offer!), and one for Sunday evening.  Showing your home is quite exhausting.  Making sure it's in tip top shape every single time you leave the house just in case one pops up.  One of our showings only gave us an hour notice!  We had to get Jax up to our mom's houses so he wouldn't be stressed with the showings and then lug Barrett out of the house somewhere for an hour while it showed.  Our first showing, Jax was still home, so I took both boys to Petsmart for the evening to look at all the animals and walk around :).

We had been looking at houses in Lafayette, but weren't sure if we'd be able to time it out right.  We had no clue how quickly we'd sell and where we would live if we sold before we bought.  It was quite stressful.  We found a house we really liked, but when we went up to see it we found out it had an accepted offer on it placed the day before.  Boo!  We saw a couple others, but didn't love them.  We saw a few more, and found another we really liked.  A house we wanted to see had an offer pending that popped up that morning, so it was out.  Man, houses are flying!  We saw the one we liked and ended up loving it even more.  It was definitely my #1.  We saw a few more houses through the week/weekend and found another one that we both really liked.  We got more info on it, and received info that it had a pending offer as of the day before even though it'd been on the market for 3 months! Grr. This was just frustrating.  So we were back to the other house we loved.  We were still looking for other homes, because this one already had an offer on it but it was confintgent on the buyers selling their home.  Our realtor advised us that we should sell our home first, then make an offer if we still wanted it.

Once we were noticing the trend of how quickly houses were going, we knew we had to jump on this one.  It was such a perfect match for us.  Close to the interstate but out in the woods by the creek, close to our moms, beautiful area, gorgeous house we could grow in to, community park/pool, etc.  We got pre-approved with our bank just in case.  But now we just had to wait on an offer for our house and hope that no one else put another offer on this home.

We went back up to look at some houses on Saturday, and that evening got a call as we were driving around looking at other houses that we....had an offer!! Woohoo!!  It ended up being a great offer, nearly our asking price, and we said YES!  We were SO excited! Our house sold in 9 days! (8.5 to be exact :) )  Next step...put an offer on the other house!

We scheduled a second showing for Sunday morning to go see it one more time.  We got the call it was approved and had to leave church early.  We headed up north with Barrett.  About 15 minutes into the drive, he got sick all over the backseat :(.  Great timing, bud.  We got him all cleaned up and continued our trek (with a naked baby in the back haha).  We made it to the showing 15 minutes before it was over and took another look around.  We still loved it and felt like it was the right move.  We met at the park nearby and went over our offer with our realtor and sent it off! We set the deadline to that night by 9 pm so we could hear back before they could get anymore offers (they had multiple showings that weekend), but they said they couldn't get back until the next day by 1 pm.  Ugh.  We unhappily agreed and just waited.  We were so nervous!  And annoyed that they may have just been waiting on more offers to come in.

Matt came home on his lunch break so we could receive the response together.  1 o'clock hit and still nothing,  We got an email at 1:06 pm. Boo.  But at least it was a counter offer! They barely budged on the price, but we made a plan, wrote a counter, and sent it right back.  We gave them until the next day (Tuesday) at noon, but although we fully expected them to take the whole time they wrote a counter back that night around 8 pm!  We looked it over and decided if we really wanted to house we needed to go for it.  We sent back and accepted offer that night! Woohoo!!

So now we wait for appraisals and inspections on both homes.  Cross fingers for good news both ways!  The plan is to close on both homes AND move on the same day.  Yikes!