He's ALLLLLL Boy!!!

Before swim class this week, I grabbed the camera and took a picture before we got in the water.  I just think he is so darn cute in his bathing suit and bare legs/arms/belly:

17 months old

My little guy is turning into SUCH a little boy!  He's always been all boy and it is so much fun to watch him explore and learn...

 He flipped his shopping cart onto its side and loves to climb up on top!

Cal spent last night at my parent's house.  Eddie and I are getting ready to go out of town and we are leaving Cal with my parents.  I wanted him to have one night over there before the trip to get used to their crib, etc.  He did great.  He went down at 7 and woke up at 7:30 the next morning!  He loves his grandma and grandpa so much....and we love having them so close!!!

Last weekend

I am wayyyyy behind in my blog postings...I've been taking a ton of pictures, but lacking the time/energy to post them into the blog!

This past weekend, Eddie's sister, Carrie came down from DC for a little visit. She is the best house guest EVER. She is SUPER helpful with Cal and keeps her room neater than it ever would be if she weren't here!  We had a showing on Saturday so she kept Cal entertained while I cleaned and then helped me get everything out that needed to be out.  I wish she could be here for every showing!

I'll start with Thursday... we had our swim class again and Eddie took some pictures of us swimming.  Cal is still loving the class and we have fun playing in the water together.

this is the "dig dig dig" that we are supposed to do to get his arms moving...he was cracking up

 During the showing on Saturday, we went for a walk:

And we had a little bit more time to kill so we went to Target where Cal spotted some wellies that look like Fireman boots.  He started shrieking and pointing at them.  Carrie Beth said we had to get them...I agreed.  They were a size too big, but he was CRAZY about them!  We put them on him in the store and when we took them off to pay for them, he started crying.  He loves these boots!  After the showings, we came back home and he walked around in his boots and played with Carrie's purse:

 And then, he was just getting plain silly.  He was running around the room in circles and falling on the floor.  He thought this was just too funny and was cracking up.  He was actually hitting the ground pretty hard, but it never bothered him!

 Saturday was also Carrie's Birthday!  We went to dinner at Kanki Japanese Steak House and Cal was VERY entertained by the chef!  He was a little unsure of him (the chef had a BIG personality!), so he leaned over to me and rested his head on my arm, and linked his little arm through mine (I seriously thought I was going to melt), and he never took his eyes off of the table.  Everyone at our table was watching Cal and his reaction.  It was pretty funny-- every time the chef did something, the table would react to Cal, not the chef.  The chef soon learned that to get a reaction from the table, he needed to get a reaction from CAL! haha!

After kanki, we came home stuffed for some birthday cake.  It was late, but Carrie Beth really wanted Cal to share in her cake with her (she's a good aunt), so they enjoyed a slice together!  Cal made a total mess of himself, so it was off to the tub.

 The next morning, we were playing around in Cal's room and he discovered how nicely he fit into a tote bag.  Carrie picked him up and swung him around and carried him over her shoulder (haha!).  We joked that he could be her carry on luggage from now on!

Now Cal goes over to the bag and tries to climb in (seriously, every time he sees the bag he does this), and whines until he is picked up and "carried" in the bag.  He is a mess, I swear!

I took Carrie by the new house on Sunday and she loved it too.  Our fingers are still crossed for that one...

We have had several other showings since the one above, and we just got some good feedback (like, really good) that we are trying not to get too excited over.  Who am I kidding?  I am totally holding my breath.  Eddie told me to not get too excited, but again, who am I kidding?  I am totally getting excited that it could potentially be something good.....

I'll keep you posted!

A MUST READ....hilarious!

This is a blog post that a friend of a friend sent out. I can only wish to be this funny. I am not. I find humor in my child's head getting stuck in things. Her humor is great...and so true. She is not anyone famous; she just writes it like it is! Enjoy!

Girls Night Out: The Revolution

As a kid, I remember my parents going out and leaving me with a babysitter. I also remember times that they would ship us to our grandparents so they could spend the weekend alone. And of course there were many times when my dad would go on fishing trips or leave to play golf with his friends. What I can’t seem to recall is a night where my mom would throw on her tightest jeans, a low cut shirt and 6-inch stilettos, and head out the door to party with her friends.

But that was then, and this is now. These days a Girls Night Out is a very common event. So common that it has earned itself an acronym… “GNO”. Personally, I hate acronyms, especially this one. It gives me chills when I see people write it, but due to my journalistic responsibility, I thought you should know. I needed to share this because it stresses how important this night is for our generation. These days, you can easily text a friend and say, “Hi BFF, I need a GNO badly. WTF is wrong with my husband? He makes me crazy, LOL.” Everyone would know exactly what you are talking about.

I believe that these nights have become so important to women because sadly, many of us are on the brink of depression, debilitating anxiety, and seemingly unmanageable stress. Therefore we each need a place to unload, compare, complain, and commiserate. What better place to do that than in some random Mexican restaurant, dressed up like we are going to the Prom, and slamming Margaritas as we try to relive our youth and find a way to remember what it was like before it all got so crazy.

This past Saturday night I went out with some girlfriends. I blew dry my hair, threw on some eyeliner and searched through my closet for something that didn’t scream ‘Ann Taylor’ or ‘Spring Break 1995’ (my closet seems to have only those two categories.) As I was getting ready my kids came in and said “Mommy, are you going on a date with daddy?” I looked at those sweet faces, those precious faces that I was literally racing to get away from, and said, “Not tonight little ones. Do you think I would be taking this much time to get ready to go out with Dad?”

See, the thing about going out with your girlfriends is that it makes you feel young and happy. Going out with your husband can be fun too, but at times, it can also make you feel old and tired. The problem is that when you go out with your husband, the expectations are extremely high. In about three hours you have to accomplish many things. You somehow have to find a way to reconnect with your husband, fall in love all over again, and successfully plan out your next ten years. It can be exhausting. And the best part is that in order to do this, you have to pay some teenager $18 an hour to check Facebook while your kids are asleep. How can that not be fun?

None of this is an issue when you go out with your girlfriends. Instead, all you have to do is hug your kids, kiss your husband, and head out the door. The drinking and driving issue is easily settled because some poor girl in the group is always pregnant. She has been forced into driving everyone to the bar and watching her girlfriends make fools of themselves. She stands there yawning, while holding her pregnant belly, and daydreaming about how much weight she will lose and what cocktail she will slam as soon as that kid is out.

I went out Saturday night and it was just what I needed. It wasn’t the craziest night I have ever had, but it made me laugh. These days, that is about as good as it gets. We started by rushing to the bar and ordering drinks, so quickly that you may have thought we were dying of thirst. For the next four hours we talked about three main topics…our husbands, our kids, and our sex life. Near death child experiences were shared, past boyfriends were remembered, and martial problems were solved. At the end of the night, a midget (this is not a lie, a real midget) came up to our table and told us we were beautiful and wished he could go home with us all. Does it get any better?

By 10:30 everyone was yawning and the waiter came over to give us the bad news. We needed to vacate our table because our two-hour time limit was up and another group of younger, hotter girls were waiting to be seated for dinner. Once I got home, I took off my painfully high shoes and snuck quietly into my house. I felt refreshed, content and grateful to be alive. I peered in at my two sleeping kids and lay down next to my sweet, snoring husband and smiled. Sometimes you just need three hours, a group of girlfriends, a margarita and a midget to realize that these may just be the best days of our life.

Have a great day!
xoxo,

Happenings...

I am feeling a little discouraged this week.  We put our house on the market last Thursday (2 weeks from tomorrow) and right away we had a rush of showings.  6 showings in 7 days!  Then, this past weekend, we did not have one showing.  NOT ONE.  Our last showing was last Friday.  I guess it's normal for home showings to ebb and flow, but it was hard because I was getting used to living "show ready" which is a total pain, but it made getting out of the house at the last minute a lot easier.   Yesterday, our Realtors did a "home tour" where they bring all of the local realtors through a bunch of the houses that are newly listed.  They brought around 50 through our house, so we are hoping that maybe one of them will know of just the right family to show our house to!  We will get feedback from yesterday hopefully today or tomorrow.

But, other than having our house on the market, life does go on!

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day!  We went to the best little restaurant that did a 5 course meal-- I was in heaven!  It was so nice to go out, spend some quality time with my sweet sweet husband (and be reminded that he is, in fact, a sweet sweet man!).  I think often times, we grab a quick dinner, or we eat with friends or go out in a group and we don't get the chance to really reconnect.  We were able to on Valentine's Day, and I was so appreciative of it. 

Cal helped me get ready for my Valentine's date...

I really wanted to get a picture of me and Eddie before we went to dinner,  but our sitter was running late because of traffic and she came from the same way we were going, so we knew we'd be late too, so we skipped the picture and ran out the door.  Oh well... we'll just have to get all dressed up and go out again!

As for the pregnancy, I am 26 weeks today!  Woohoo!  This time is FLYING by (I know, I keep saying that....).  I have officially POPPED.  People are now noticing I'm pregnant and asking me about it.  Before, I think people were just thinking I was getting chubby :) but now it actually looks like there is a baby growing in there!  He is kicking more and more and it gets me excited to meet him...not any time soon though!

Cal started a swim class again this year.  We had our first class last night and he LOVED it!  We took this same class last year and really enjoyed it then too.  It's much harder to do this time though because Cal isn't used to being held...he wanted to get down and go!  Eddie came and watched which was so fun.  Every time Cal did something, he would turn and look at Eddie and yell "DAH-DAH!!!" to make sure he was watching.  SO cute and sweet.  He shot a short video, but it's not very good....Cal is "digging" with his arms, kicking with his legs and blowing some bubbles:

Little did I know, Cal took a massive "bathroom break" on the way to the pool.  He had a HUGE one when he woke up from his nap, so I thought he was all cleared out, but he must have saved a little for the class.  After we were done jumping up and down, bouncing, kicking, etc etc, I took him to the locker room to change him and let out the biggest GASP ever when I saw what I saw in his diaper.... guess the swim diapers work better than I thought they did!  PHEW!  Next class, I will be checking him (and double checking him!) before we get into the water!  How awful could that have been?!?!

After class, we came home and ate some dinner and got a quick bath.  He was still pruney from the pool, but I wanted to get the chlorine (and, let's be honest, the doodoo) all the way off of him.  He was having a great time!

We were singing and started howling like dogs.  Not sure why, but it was reallllllly funny at the time! Here's a video of it:

After bath time, we got jammies on and were playing in his room.  He was WILD by this point.  I think he was exhausted and was hyper and his body didn't know how to handle both at the same time!  He kept running in circles and then falling to the ground.

The sweetest thing ever though, Eddie was able to catch on camera.  I have watched this a million times, and I will continue watching it over and over and over again as the boys get older. 

And finally, one last picture for today.  I updated the "Stuck" post, in case you needed to see more pictures of my child's large head stuck in things.  But, this last picture happened just a few minutes ago.  I was in the kitchen cooking (I am trying to prep dinner now, so I can actually eat dinner at night with the fam), and I could hear him laughing.  It wasn't a happy go lucky laugh....more like a I can't believe I did this again laugh.  Yup.  You guessed it.  For all of those people that said "you can bet he'll never do that again!"  Well...

Sigh.  Gotta love this kid!

Valentine's Day LOVE!

Poker Face

Dance party:

Stuck.

Friday afternoon, before Eddie got home, Cal and I were playing and having a great time. Eddie called me so I was talking to him and Cal wandered off. I heard Cal doing his panic cry from the other room so I walked in and this is what I saw:

Yes.  I took a picture.  BEFORE you judge me as a horrible mother for taking a picture while my child was in distress, I had to document this!  No one would believe me otherwise!  And, Cal has had a tendency lately of sticking his big ol' head in things and getting stuck.  Most of the time it's his lawn mower (on three different occasions):

But other times it's his bucket of bath toys:

(note: he wasn't really stuck here...he was pretending...)

So when I walked into the other room and saw my little munchkin' with his head in the spindles, I wasn't too worried, and took the time to take a picture  So sue me.  Don't really though.  We don't have any money.  And the little money we do have is going to our house...hopefully!

Actually, Cal was a little more stuck this time than normal.  I had to go up behind him on the stairs and lift his crazy flailing body up, and then back him out...it was much harder than I anticipated.  I started panicking a little bit (which I am sure caused him to panic even more) when I couldn't get him out.  I was thinking I would have to break the spindle to get him out.  And you know you can't explain to a baby that he just needs to hold still while momma gets some soap to try to squeeze him out of that.  

Turns out, I just had to lift him a little bit higher and pull a little bit harder.  When he was free, he looked at me with his eyebrows up and BURST out LAUGHING!  Are you kidding me?  What part of that was funny (other than when momma was taking a picture of you with your hear stuck)??  hahaha  He started to go back up the stairs to do it all over again, but I quickly pulled him away and we had a little dance party to Lady Gaga.  The incident was soon forgotten :)

Ahhhh, the life as a mom of a BOY! haha

A mind dump

A friend of mine from college just told me she was preggers (YAY, you know who you are!!!), and she started a blog.  One of her posts was a big mind dump where she posted random thoughts about what was going on in her head right now... seems like a good time for me to do one of those too...

1. I have been thinking back lately about what a HORRIBLE sleeper Cal was when he was younger.  Am I really about to go through all of that again? Now that Cal is sleeping through the night, we will add a new little guy to have to sleep train.  Y'all just prepare yourselves for me to blog like crazy about him crying it out and me crying it out too...ha!

2. What should I do with the side bar of my blog?  Now I have the month by month pictures of Cal... should I do a whole new section for month by month pictures of Andy (?) too?  Or should I get rid of the Cal ones all together?  (yes, this is something that runs through my brain right now)

3. How am I going to fit 2 babies and ALL of their STUFF into my car?  Is my car big enough?  Where will Hank go?

4. Does Cal has any idea how much his little world is going to be rocked?

5. We are a beach loving family.  Will we be able to go to the beach at all this summer?  Or is it going to be wayyy too crazy to try to get away? Can we all fit in the tiny little beach house?  It's doubtful.  But it could be kind of fun trying.  But will this bambino wake everyone up in the night to eat?

6. My dreams are CRAZY lately.  I don't remember having weird pregnancy dreams with Cal.  These dreams are wild...and so realistic. 

7. Why am I dumping my brain out on this?  We have another showing this afternoon.  Just got the text.  I should be mopping/vacuuming/picking up the house.  This is our 6th showing in 7 days.  Not too bad if you ask me.  I am happy with it.  Now...SELL!

8. I'll dump more later.  Gotta go clean :)

videos

KISSES!

Strong Man!

25 weeks! (and more on the house, of course!)

I am 25 weeks pregnant today! Woohooo!  Still feeling great and don't have any complaints.  He is moving more and more and sometimes that will keep me up at night, but other than that, all is well over here! 

A picture at 25 weeks, for those that have asked for it.

Last night, or around 4:15 this morning, our home alarm went off. We don't have the alarm activated, so it only goes off if there is a short or something.  Turns out, it is plugged into an outlet, and Cal managed to unplug it when we weren't looking, which I guess made it go off this morning-- who know.  Anyway, we made it stop, and I guess it woke up the babe in my belly because he was WIDE awake after that and was doing some kind of flips and karate kicks.  Finally at about 5, he calmed down (dear LORD, do not let this be a sign of the future sleeping habits!), and then the alarm started chirping.  One little chirp every 30 seconds.  I laid there timing them and counting for about 5 minutes-- that's 10 chirps!  I thought I was going to lose my mind.  Eddie, of course, was sound asleep.  So I went down to investigate, fixed the problem, then came back to bed.  I guess that got the baby going again and he was at it again with the karate kicks.  Finally, we both fell asleep....then Eddie's alarm went off.  Cal slept until 7:30, so I got a little bit of rest until he got up.  PHEW!  There might be a nap in my future today....maybe??

Here's the latest on the house:

We had another showing on Monday night at 5:30.  Cal was napping and at 3:30, he woke up and was just kind of talking in his crib.  I was standing up to go get him when the call came in.  So I left him in there to play with his animals-- thankfully he was SO happy in there!-- while I ran around like CRAZY getting everything ready.  Cookies were out, vacuum was run, toys/golf clubs (grrrr) were loaded in my car....we were ready!  I went in to Cal's room, cleaned it up and then grabbed him, changed him, and walked him straight to the car so he wouldn't have a chance to touch anything!  Having a house on the market with a little one (and a dog!) is not easy!  We went over to my parents house...again!

It took a LONG time to get the feedback...well, it was long for me.  I prefer instant gratification!  At lunch on Tuesday with Andrea (holla!) and Julie, I got the email and this was the feedback: Beautiful place, my clients loved it. The cookies were a really nice touch, please send me the recipe! This is #1 on our list, but it may be out of their price range by a bit.

First question is why is their realtor showing the something out of their price range?  Hmmm.....Turns out that they are pre-approved for an amount that is quite a bit less than our asking price.  I think they are ready to make an offer, but I think their amount is not quite high enough for us.  If I was 3 weeks from delivery, or if our house had been on the market for 5 months, then maybe we could have jumped all over it, but the house hasn't been on the market a week yet and only 1 weekend.  We will hold out a little bit longer....maybe they will come through with more money??  Fingers crossed!

Sunday, Monday

It was SOOOO nice having Cal and Eddie home. The house was way too quiet without them here!  My mom is keeping Jackson and Catherine (my niece and nephew) this week (she's sharing duties with my brother's mother-in-law), so she has Jackson right now.  We took Cal over to their house Sunday late afternoon to let Jackson and Cal have some play time together.  It. Was. Awesome!  I loved watching the two of the play together!  They are hilarious!  Cal follows Jackson and Jackson loves to say "c'mon Cal! C'mon!"  They were like two little peas in a pod playing together and it had all of us in tears cracking up. 

My parents have a tent in their basement for the grandbabies and Cal and Jackson thought it was SO much fun to run into the tent and then run out screaming while we all cheered.  Cal was beside himself he was laughing so hard.  My dad crawled into one side and pretended to be stuck and Jackson was trying to pull him out by his jean pockets.  Cal had both hands over his mouth and was laughing so hard he was snorting.  I was crying I was laughing so hard. I only took one picture of the tent, because I was laughing too hard the rest of the time!

After all of that play time (and oh yeah-- there was a football game on too!), it was time for bed.  The boys were stinky from sweating so much so mom and I put both of them in the tub together.  They had a blast!

I love how close they are already and, as cheesy as it is to say, I love the thought of them becoming even closer as they grow up.  Between these two and my next little guy, these kiddos are going to have a blast wrecking things together! haha!

This morning, I had a doctor's appointment, the glucose test-- ugh!, so I had Cal up in the bedroom with me while I got ready.  I looked back and him and cracked up at how he was sitting:

 He had his little feet crossed and was just chilling on momma's bed!  Love this little guy :)

 oh, and check out that bedhead/cowlick! haha!

I think my glucose test went well.  The drink didn't taste as bad as I thought it did last time, but I felt pretty bad afterward.  Guess that's just a realllly sugary drink to consume!  Hard to believe I am already 24 weeks!  ACK!

The weekend alone

I survived!  I was missing my boys like crazy, but it ended up being a blessing: we had THREE showings!  WOOHOOO!

Let me back up.... we knew we had the first showing on Saturday, at 11:30.  I went out to dinner with my parents on Friday night and came home early to mop the kitchen and the hardwoods (quite the exciting Friday night, huh???).  By 10:30, I was pooped, so Hank and I went and got in bed.

I couldn't sleep Saturday morning, so I was up early and showered and started getting my house completely "show ready."  It also happened to be POURING down rain.  I took several tubs of toys out to my car, took out Hank's stuff and was baking some cookies to make the house smell yummy :).  My dad came over to fix a lock on the back door.  It has always worked just fine, but for some reason, the key would not turn, so people would not have been able to get out the back of the house.

In true dad fashion, he fixed the key and was noticing that the back yard was not draining very well because of all of the leaves on the ground (not to mention the torrential downpour that had been going on for hours and hours).  He decided that we needed to go out back and do a little yard work.  In the pouring rain.  I put on my tall Hunter boots and rain coat and out we went...in the rain....raking leaves...less than an hour before the showing.  We dug out the ditch that helps the water flow out of the yard and cleaned off some furniture.  Finally, about 20 minutes before the showing, I said we were done.  I still needed to do one more walk through of the house.  Oh, did I mention that Hank was outside with us and rolled in something...? Not sure if it was poop or dead animal, but he covered himself in something.  Classic, right?

Dad and I went in the house and opps!  He had poop on the bottom of his shoes!  And it was tracked into the bathroom.....refusing to panic, I hauled tail to get him out of the house, get stinky Hank into the car, and my floors wiped down (again), all before the showing!

As I was driving away from my house, I got a call from the showing agency and my heart stopped thinking it was them canceling the appointment after all that!  But, even better, they scheduled another appointment for 3:30!  I went to my parents house and hung out for a while, and made more cookies to have out for the visitors (not sure how many the first group would have taken...!).  I went back over to my house to check on things and get it back in show-order.  You know, make sure lights were on, doors were how they should be, etc.... I could tell the first showing lasted a while-- they ate several cookies (haha), left me a note about the cookies, and I could tell they sat on the couch for a while.  After running through the house top to bottom to checking on everything, I headed back over to my mom's house!

At about 6:45 Saturday night, I got a call for a showing on Sunday!  I was SUPER excited to just have the exposure.  At this point, we had not received feedback from the first two showings so I didn't know if this was someone new, or a repeat visitor.  Turns out, it was a new visitor.

Feedback:  I got both feedbacks from Saturday when I woke up Sunday morning:  The first one I got (not sure which showing it was from) LOVED the house, loved the layout, loved all of the upgrades (um, we don't have any.....), but unfortunately, did not like the lot...I am thinking all of the rain draining off in the back yard was a turn off.  The second feedback said they loved the house, but the layout was not conducive for their family. Understandable!  The third feedback said she liked the house and the layout, but felt there wasn't enough light in the kitchen (um, it's SUPER bright in there!).  But the realtor said he loved the house and would definitely like to show it again to other clients--that's good, right??

So, all in all, it was a productive weekend on the home front, but I didn't really take a whole lot of time to myself.  I didn't care though.  I was working hard and glad I did.  The boys got home on Sunday around 1:30 and I am pretty sure I kissed Cal about a million times.  Is it possible he grew over the weekend?

If you are sick of hearing about the house *stuff* feel free to ignore the blog for a while-- I won't mind! ;)

I turned this before entering it, but can't get it to rotate...oh well!  I left these cookies out at the showings (the plate was full though), and every showing left a note thanking me and in each of the feedbacks we got, it was written how much they enjoyed the cookies!  Isn't that hilarious?  Guess I will keep it up!  I made some extra this weekend and froze them, so the house won't smell like freshly baked cookies, but they can nibble on some while the look around...haha!

This weekend

I am pathetic.

Yes, I am.  I can admit it.

Eddie left today at 1:00 with Cal to go to South Carolina to visit Eddie's grandparents and Eddie's parents.  Last year, we all went, and it was good to see everyone, but it is SUPER low key.  This year, Eddie's mom encouraged me to stay at home and rest, relax and recharge.  I agree that I need some downtime, especially after all of the hard work I've done on the house in the past week, but still....

The car was loaded with Cal's bags and gas when Eddie got home and my tears were already starting.  What is wrong with me??  Other moms I know are telling me how I should be celebrating and kicking up my heels and loving life right now.  Of course, I do love life right now...it's just reallllllly quiet here.... like, SUPER quiet...  When I hugged Cal goodbye, I started blubbering.  Yup, blubbering.  I am ridiculous!  I KNOW!  I am going to blame it on the pregnancy hormones, but come on.  I can only blame so much on that. 

On the PLUS side...I got notice that we have a showing tomorrow!  Our first one (since doing ALL of this work!), so I am going to turn my blah/sad mood into cleaning every inch of the house.  It is already clean, but I am going to clean it without a 16 month helper following me.  This means that when I Windex the table, I will not have little finger prints all over it as soon as I am done (but I love love love those finger prints!), I will put away toys and they will stay put...not look as if the toy bin threw up all over the house, and I will do laundry and the only person here to generate more laundry will be ME!  I can handle hiding my laundry! :)

Here's my thing...those boys mean the world to me.  I mean, everything.  The weather is nasty and I don't like the thought of them driving in a downpour.  Eddie will be safe driving.  I just can't imagine anything happening to them.  And that's why I get so emotional.  But I will continue to blame it on the pregnancy.  It's easier that way. 

Help a sistah out and keep your fingers crossed for us for tomorrow.  This could be one of a BUNCH of showings, but it could be the one showing that matters. 

Wassahappening? An update...

I am due for a long update...on everything!

The House:

We put in an offer on the house we loved, contingent upon our house selling.  And they accepted it!  YAHOO!  So that put us into full-on get out of this house mode.  It has been CRAZY around here getting everything ready.  We rented a POD and when it came, it was much much much smaller than we anticipated, so we filled it and started to fill my parent's storage unit too (thanks, mom and dad!).  I've been busy every day taking loads of stuff that is not needed on a day to day basis out of here.  We moved out our couch, love seat and recliner and it was replaced by the stager's furniture which is very neutral and small-- makes the room seem HUGE!

Here are some pictures of me packing up the....STUFF (I would use a different word here, but I am not totally clear on who all reads this, so I will keep it PG, but I really want to use a different word that starts with S....)

loads of boxes!

Here are some of the after pictures:

 The family room-- the couch, chair, rug, table and art are all rented!

And into the dining room: we brought in our kitchen table and staged it as a dining room table.  The rest is wide open!

And we had a power washer come out today to power wash the driveway, side walk and front porch.  We didn't really think the driveway needed it, but here is a pic (from my phone) when he was halfway done:

You think we needed it??  SHEESH!  It was necessary, for sure!

Our house is just about completely ready for showings.  We have a professional photographer coming out this afternoon to take the pictures and we will be "live" tomorrow!  I am excited/anxious/thrilled/sick of waiting, all wrapped up in one.  The house looks great.  It really does.  Now if we could just get an offer, it would make putting all of this time (and money!) into getting the house ready worth it!

Cal Boy:

Cal is doing great!  When we hit 15 months, I swear to you, he was like a different child.  Everyone said to just get ready because 15 months is when they turn into little monsters...they weren't kidding!  He isn't a monster ALL the time, but boy, he sure can throw a great fit!  When he hit 16 months, the fits were fewer and fewer.  I think we got better at dealing with them too.  Now we  just ignore him when he's on the ground having a melt down and it will end fairly quickly.

When we were out in California for the bowl game, he bit me a few times.  When we came home, he bit my mom once.  We told him NO very sternly every time he did it, and he would cry and be done with it.  The other day, he bit me, and I lightly smacked his hand (for those of you against this, I apologize if I offend you here).  He got reallllly mad at that and took my hand and stuck my finger in his mouth and bit down HARD!  It left teeth marks!  I held him by both arms and said NO, we do NOT bite! Then I gave him a little pat on the bottom. I would not call it a spanking, but it's about as close as I'll come to that for a while!  He screamed and was mad at me, but just wanted to hug me after that, so we hugged and I explained that biting is not allowed (he obviously has no idea what I was talking about), BUT, he has not bitten me since!  Hoping it worked!

He is starting to talk more and more and I love listening to him try to talk.  He says Momma and Daddah all the time and he also says: ball, peeese (please), dogggg, keys, booo (for books)...hmmm, I am sure there are more things I am forgetting....

We are having the best time with him right now!  He has his moments (enter the biting phase), but he is so sweet and so loving.  We can't get enough of him!

Sleeping is great: from 7:00 at night until at least 7:30 in the morning (most mornings it's around 8) and he naps every day for 2-3 hours.  If he had a big morning, his nap will be 3.5 hours!

He loves to show off his tricks, like pointing to his nose and his toes and if you ask him where the baby is, he will come over and lift up my shirt to pat my tummy.  PRECIOUS!

Bath time is the MOST fun part of the day.  He plays SO hard in there!  He loves to put his face in and blow bubbles.  It's awesome to watch him have no fear of the water!

 Cal loves his chair from Pottery Barn that my parents gave him for Christmas.  He does, however, have a tendency to hoard.  I am hoping we don't see him on that show when he's older... he had his chair filled with every toy he could find in it, and he couldn't fit.  I got some pictures of the process of him trying to sit with everything in the chair, but I am only posting the cute ones of bozo.

And I can't write about Cal without writing about his rubber boots!  The kid loves his boots!  He wears them non-stop, and God help you if you try to take them off of him.  He puts them on every day and stomps around the house in them!  I think it's pretty adorable....

Pregnancy:

I can't believe how little I have written about this pregnancy!  I am so devoted to getting this house sold and us moved that I am not focusing on this pregnancy very much at all!  Don't get me wrong: I am eating healthy (although I am sure I will still gain 50 lbs...whatever), taking vitamins, and doing everything else I should do to grow a healthy baby, but I am not reading baby books, setting up his nursery, shopping for baby clothes....guess it's a good thing it's a boy!

really and truly, I am feeling great still.  It will hit me towards the end when I am feeling HUGE just how pregnant I am, but for now, I feel great.  No complaints.  Actually, one complaint: with all of this moving and prepping jazz going on around here (not to mention the meltdowns from the little one), I would love to drink a bottle of wine a night.  Is that too much to ask??  haha-- last pregnancy, I was allowing myself one glass every now and then by this point, but honestly, alcohol doesn't even sound good to me.  I just want to relax with a glass on my couch and just SIT.  (does that make me sound like I have a drinking problem??? I don't, I swear!!!)

I am 24 weeks today-- how IN SANE is that???  It's just flying by and I am enjoying all of his little kicks and punches and I think he is going to be as active as his big brother!  Eddie was able to feel him kick from the outside the other day so that was really cool.  I think it always seems more "real" to the dad when they can feel the bulge in my belly move.  haha

As for names, we go around and around... should we keep the CEW monogram that Eddie, Cal and I all have?  That way, all of Cal's monogrammed clothes could be passed down.......???  But honestly, can you think of some good E names for me?  That's a toughy!  So then we thought that since Cal got Eddie's dad's name, that we should give baby two my dad's name, Steven.  But we would give him another name and call him that-- does that make sense?  We've been thinking Steven Andrew and calling him Andy.  I LOVE the name Andy....it just seems really sweet to me.

So what do you think?  Stick with the CEW?  Or go for Andy?  My dad would be over the moon if his name was in there somewhere....

Well, I think that just about covers it all!  I'll keep you posted on the house.... sorry for the lengthy, boring updates.  I will try to be better about blogging since most of my to-do list is done for now!