Getting there

(Warning: A long entry with lots of pictures!)
We have been working day and night and day again on the house. But the real news is that Mia is quite gifted with a paint brush, is able to tape the trim, and has quite an eye for color. We finally figured out how to pay for our house - Mia will start to paint for a living.

I mean look at her form.

And then she gets right down there and inspects her work.

This is just plain cute.

We finally took a few more pictures of the house; however they are pre-paint. First is our dinning room.
Our kitchen leading into our dinning room.

Our living room.

I know, the same word comes to my mind, too... expansive!

It was also passover this weekend. We went to the farm and had dinner with the family. It was very nice and the weather was warm. We really couldn't have asked for anything more (other then maybe a Toyota). One of the first things we did was show our skills at jumping rope. Notice the height Andrea gets.
Mia and Madi tried some doubles jumping.

Then the girls tried to spin the rope for me... maybe next time.

And then there was Passover. It was great. It was fun. It was filled with food products that ensure you are able to read an entire People due to... ahem... toilet issues (some of you may know what I am talking about). Anyway, the kids got to look for a present. Madi and Noah proudly display their present. Mia, however, finds the matzoh to be a better present then the money. Perhaps she is a social worker in the making!

And last but not least, a wonderful picture of my niece, Madi!

Mia and her new outfit

Here are a couple pics of Mia and a new outfit she got from her Aunt Sue. (The background is our new house in the living room.) She was so excited to be able to wear this. Please take special note of her shoes, her ruby red shoes



I will post a couple of pics of the house tomorrow, both pre and post-paint.

The work started

I spent the whole day at the new house. However, I forgot to take pictures. I will take some tomorrow. Today I finished ripping up the carpeting. It was a bit old and a bit smelly. I also had to pull out all the staples that were used to hold the matting down. I don't know how many there were, but I am sure there were more then there had to be. And I am sure whoever put them in was probably laughing at the thought of someone having to pull them up.

I also welcomed an order of wood flooring into our home. It is gorgeous and I can't wait to see it down. That will be the first week in May with the help of my friend Josh.

I also finished taking down the fake pine paneling in what will eventually become my train room. That's right, I have a model train set. I got it from my grandfather when I was a kid... about 30 years ago. It has just been sitting in the basement all this time waiting for a place to live.

I also took up all the molding. I had wanted to save it, but with my demolition skills, just say there was not much left to save.

So, tomorrow Andrea and I are going to start to paint. That will really make it feel like our home. The plan still is to move May 10. That day is going to sneak up on us fast.

By the way, I met one of our neighbors and there is a 4 year-old girl who lives there. This is great for Mia.

Keep you posted soon.

Happy Home Owners

The deed is done. We are now the proud owners of our very own house. We signed the papers, initialed on the dotted lines, crossed the tees, promised our second and third born children to Wells Fargo, and took possession. Now the fun begins. What colors do we paint?

Actually we already have everything picked out. We have gone with Restoration Hardware Saffron and Benjamin Moore Lapland for our dinning and living room with Valspar Buttermilk Biscuit for the trim and ceilings. In our bedroom we have gone with Benjamin Moore Firenze and Behr Pita Bread. And for Mia's room, well it is up to her. I think she is leaning toward pink and purple, but we'll see. Actually, this room for Mia is just a holding room until we can finish the upstairs and move her up there and we can take the other room for a study.

So, the first project is to tear out old, smelly, ugly paneling in the basement.

Off to work I go!

House

For all of those people who still manage to make their way back to our blog in the hopes they will be updated on our life, this is for you. First, sorry that a month has passed since our last post. If it's any consolation, we talk about updating our blog all the time. I don't know why, though, we cannot manage to do it. So, here is the latest news.

Our adoption is moving along well. We ran into a little snag, but it has been resolved. Andrea's fingerprints were not accepted. We don't know why, but we guess it had something to do the stuffed animal trafficking ring she used to run. She used to sneak stuffed animals over the Minnesota boarder and make them do things they did not want to do - play dress up, have tea parties - really horrible stuff. But we submitted a new set of prints... and we are in. So, we are going to the next stage of our adoption process in June. We chose to wait until then for a multitude of reasons (really, we were just too busy on the days before that).

The other big news is we bought a house. We are closing on it on Monday. This is all very exciting. Here is a picture.


So this is it! This is the house we are going to spend the rest of our lives in... well at least until we decide to move to Guatemala in two years. Just kidding! It is a lovely 1.5 story house with two bedrooms, three toilets on one and half lots. The upstairs is unfinished mostly, but it will be the kids room when it is done. So that will give us three bedrooms. I say there are three toilets because downstairs there is a toilet, but no place to wash one's hands. Fun, huh!? The people from whom we are buying the house have lived there for 40 some years (kinda smell likes it to). But they took very, very good care of it and we can't wait to move in and make it our own.

We have to give a big thank you to our current landlord (not that he even knows we have a blog), but in case he happens upon this, he is our hero. He let us out of our lease months early. This has allowed us to take advantage of the current housing situation - low prices AND low interest rates. Thanks Tom!

As for Mia, she is wonderful as always. She is really coming along in her speech. She really is starting to develop well and can hear the differences clearly between words. She knows all her letters and numbers and is saying things in Hebrew.

This is Mia at the Walker Art Center, a world renown contemporary art center. Once a month they have family day where kids can come and do art projects. This is her building a chair (I know, you can't see the chair, but believe me it's there). She brought her good friend Tig (see below).

I don't even remember what the picture below is about, but it's kind of cute, so I thought I would post it.



Now, for anyone who thought they were a rock star, take a look at this rocker. That's right... the king lives (although he has lost a lot of weight and hair). Scroll down a bit for the latest, hottest rock star on the planet...












Jeff and the Doraettes!