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!

House update!

This could be a VERY boring/long blog post, so I'll apologize now!


Those that have been reading a while might remember to this past Mother's Day when Eddie got me a lot in an awesome new neighborhood for us to build a house.  We (he) decided we should be reasonable and wait until our house sold.  We (he) also decided to try to sell our house For Sale By Owner for a while. 

We had a good amount of showings for FSBO, but it just wasn't selling.  Well, the awesome neighborhood is a HOT neighborhood, and they realized that they could raise their prices and people would still want to move there (even in a crap economy, go figure!).  Once they raised their prices, we were basically out.  Their lot prices went up, and so did the floor plans from which to choose.  We would have brought new meaning to the phrase House Poor!

So, then I get pregnant, and I am sick of thinking of where this little bambino is going to go in this house-- as I have said before, the layout just won't work with another baby and we are flat out of space!  I contacted an AMAZING Realtor who had been referred to me by another friend and she is outstanding.  It's a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law team and they are really hard working women.  They have a lot of connections with doctors at Duke in the residency program, so we are hoping when the new doctors come in (late February/early March) they will show them our house!

One afternoon, Cal was in mega destruct mode where he just wanted to throw everything in sight, so I loaded him in the car and we went for a drive.  I decided to drive through a little neighborhood that I've always thought was really cute and right away, I saw a For Sale By Owner sign in the front yard of a very cute house.  I grabbed a flier and, are you ready for this??  It was BELOW our budget.  And it was bigger than the house in pricey neighborhood, had a larger lot than that n'hood, AND,  it was almost $100,000 LESS!!!  I thought it had to be too good to be true.  There was a website with pictures to view so I went home and looked up the pictures.  It was adorable...that got me motivated even more!

The wonder team had a Stager come out to our house to walk through room by room to discuss things that needed to be done in order to get it sold.  The stager came up with a packet of "suggestions" for us to complete-- our packet was 15 pages....!  Some of the things were pretty common sense (clean out closets to make them look bigger), and other things were things we never would have done on our own without someone telling us to (get rid of our living room furniture and rent furniture in there to make the room look bigger).  The leather on our couch is VERY worn and it has not worn very well.  The leather is peeling off so it looks very cheap and unattractive (unfortunately!). We also have some large pieces in there, so we are going to store those to show off the maximum amount of square footage.

Soooo.... in the mean time, we had our Realtors show us the house that was FSBO and it was even cuter in person than in the pictures.  The pictures do not do it justice at all!  It has great crown molding, the hardwood floors are immaculate and the back yard is HUGE!  There are some things that will need updating: the carpeting needs to be redone, it could use a fresh coat of paint (although every room is white except the dining room-- the walls just need a little refreshing!), and there is not granite in the kitchen....but those are all minor minor things, if you ask me!  The layout is perfect, with a guestroom downstairs, and the other rooms upstairs.  There is also a HUGE playroom and a walk up attic that is beyond huge.  I gasped when I walked up there. It's that big.  All I could think about was all of my crap that needs to be stored!

Okay, so we are in love with this house.  But, we still have to get ours sold first!  Our goal is to have it on the market by Feb.1st.  That way it will reset on MLS at 0 days on the market and we will hopefully have all of our stuff on the list completed.  I had a painter come out yesterday to do some touch up work and paint a bathroom (it was a crazy red color done in a HIGH sheen-- not picked by us!), and now it's a light khaki color-- it looks great! We also are renting a POD storage bin and we are packing things like crazy.  If we aren't going to need it in the next 3 months, it is going in storage.  I have cleaned out every closet, taken out the majority of the items in our kitchen cabinets (the open glassed ones), and removed every picture of us from the house!  The stager said having personal pictures around makes the people forget to focus on the house, but instead on the pictures of the "cute baby" or the "fun wedding" etc.  I can understand that, I guess...  I always walk into people's houses and look at the pictures!  I am a picture person--haha

The stager will come back hopefully this week to move around some furniture and bring in some rental stuff.  She thinks we should replace our Pottery Barn rug with a very neutral rug that will make people look up at the lines on the ceiling instead of at the rug.  Makes sense...right??  Our realtors are suggesting we do whatever the stager tells us to.  They said she is amazing at getting houses sold quickly.  Let's hope so! 

This process is SO SO complicated, but if we can move (and quickly!), it will all be worth it.  We don't have the POD yet, but I have about 25 boxes stacked in the living room right now waiting to be loaded.  We have several large pieces of furniture that will be loaded in there as well.  Could be interesting to do all of this pregnant, right?  Oh, and doing all of this with Cal "helping" has been beyond difficult.  Did I mention that I am sick too?  Yeah-- killer cold.  Can't stop coughing. 

It's a long post, and if you've read this far, I am impressed!  Wish us luck....my fingers are crossed everything works out.  I think we are going to put a contingent offer on the other house.  It's really perfect for us!

Ahhhhh.......I'll keep you posted!

Jackson's birthday party

My nephew, Jackson, turned 3 this past week and we went to his birthday party at Playnation on Saturday morning.  It was the PERFECT place to have a party!  The place is huge and they shut it down for birthday parties, so his party had the run of the place.  I meant to get more pictures of the other kids, but (of course) Cal was grabbing my attention.  He really wanted to go on the big slide, but is not quite big enough to go on his own.  It was wayyy hard for momma to get up the stairs while holding Cal and balancing a belly, so my mom took him.  She thought she was just going to take him once or twice, but he kept running over to her and doing the "more" sign over and over and over again.  Here are some pictures of them going down the slide.....

 ready.....

 set....

 go!

 He would giggle all the way down the slide, starting at the top, and everyone was staring at him because he was laughing so hard.  After about his 50th time down, he got very brave and didn't want to wait for Grandma!  Luckily, she was quick and was right there to grab him to go down together.

 cracking up!

 All of the electricity in the place did a number on Cal's hair and I thought it was SO funny!  So, of course, I had to document the wild hair....

 There was one slide that was a blow up slide-- the whole thing was like a HUGE jump house, and you climb up the ladder and then go down the other side.  Eddie took Cal to the top and I thought they were going to slide down together....Eddie got up there and let Cal go!!!!

 HE LOVED IT!

He was squealing all the way to the bottom and started doing the more sign over and over again.  It scared the life out of me, but once I saw how much Cal loved it, how could I not crack up?  It was so stinkin' cute to see my little man going down such a huge slide!

After playing, all of the kids went into the eating room for some pizza and cupcakes.  Cal, never one to turn down food, chowed on both.  In the below picture, he took a bite of cupcake, then shoved pizza in his mouth immediately after.  He is looking at me like, what?  It's good! haha

 Who me??

 This was 4 minutes after we pulled out of the parking lot of the play place.  His eyes weren't even all the way shut, but his eyes were crossing and he was OUT!  So fun!

On a side note....happy birthday to my sweet nephew!  I love him so much and can NOT believe he is THREE!!!

Hank

Have I mentioned that my dog is a saint?  He deserves all the doggie treats in the world, if you ask me.

NC Aquarium

We are fortunate enough that the NC Aquarium is about a 30 second drive from the beach house down in Pine Knoll Shores. I took Cal there when he was really little, but we went with his cousin Jackson, so it was more for Jackson than for Cal. This time, it was all about Cal! Eddie's grandmother lives down there, so she joined us to scope out the fish.


At first, Cal didn't know what to think about the place, and he had a tight grip on whoever was holding him, and he did NOT want to be put down either!  As he warmed up to the place, he started screaming as he pointed at the fish and they were cracking him up.  The pictures are horrible...it's really hard to take good pictures in an aquarium-- all that glass for your flash to reflect off of-- it was crazy!  But here are a few....

looking into the tank of sting rays with Grandma

Cal with his dad and his great grandmother (notice the cut above Cal's lip? He was carrying my iPad and tripped and cut his lip on the corner of the cover.  Booooo

My dad is holding Cal and Eddie and my mom are on either side, looking into the HUGE tank of fish-- this tank had lots of sharks too!

Now he's warmed up, and feels the need to point out everything to us (while letting out the biggest gasp ever! haha)

Where are the fishies going???

We had a great time at the beach with my family...I love it down there in the winter- so relaxing!  My aunt came too so my mom, aunt and I had a Rumicube competition every night.  That game is addicting!  You all have to try it! 

Sadly, the pictures above are the only ones I took the whole weekend.  Oh well.... there's always next time!  Being down there made me think about this summer and how CRAZY it is going to be with a NEW BORN and CAL!  YIKES!  Welcome to motherhood!  I think we might be taking this summer off from beach trips....haha

NC Museum of Life and Science

On Friday, before our ultrasound appointment, we headed to the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science with our friends Kelly and Wyatt.  Wyatt and Cal had the same due date (I think....maybe give or take a few days), but Wyatt decided to come a month early! I love getting together with them to let the boys burn off some energy.

We met them at the museum, and Mr. Cal was extremely shy and didn't want to leave my legs....!  I am not sure what was up with him.  I tried to get some pictures of the boys playing, but none of them are very good:

that's one way to go up a slide...

almost to the top!

With Wyatt-- the boys wore matching overalls--not on purpose (my heart was melting)

Cal watching Wyatt run

Cal is getting even more teeth (sigh!) so his hands have been living in his mouth lately.  I can't blame him-- these teeth are sharp cutting through, so I guess it feels good to rub them?  I am hoping he will free his hands when the molars are done breaking through. 

We had a great time and Cal was exhausted and almost fell asleep on the way home.  He took a great nap, and I had to wake him up for the appointment. 

Ultrasound!

We had our big ultrasound on Friday and I was super anxious/excited to see the baby and hear that everything was looking okay.  Eddie and Cal went with me since we were going to leave for the beach right after the appointment. 

Everything looked great and she was able to get some cute pictures of the little guy....oh yeah, and she confirmed (with exclamation marks) that it is, in fact, a boy (wink wink).  We thought it would be hilarious if we were told by one place that it was a boy, just to find out that it was a girl-- surprise! haha!

Here are some of the pictures from the ultrasound:

The profile

We were boring him....a big yawn!

his sweet little face--his nose looks just like Cal's :)

Covering his face with his arms-- little does he know his mom is the paparazzi-- he will have to get over the shyness!

Glad to know everything is okay and he's growing like he should!  He's right on track to be a healthy sized baby!

Such a big boy!

Call me sentimental, I don't care.  Cal is growing up and is looking more and more like a big boy now, and not a baby.  And it makes my heart hurt a little bit.  I love watching him grow and learn new things.  He just is growing up SO FAST it's scary!

He was given some 2T jammies and I remember looking at them thinking, "these are HUGE!  He won't be in the for a looooong time."  Well, guess what?  He's in them.  They are a little big, but he can wear them just fine.  18 month jammies fit much better, but he can wear the 2Ts and 24 month ones also. 

His littler personality is coming out more and more too, which I just love to witness.  He was carrying around an old calculator today (his new favorite toy!) and talking into it like it was his very own iPhone!  He would hold it like a phone, then push some buttons, and then say, "yeah yeah yeah..."!!!!!  I about died! 

I grabbed my camera to get some quick shots of my little BOY:

 Sitting in his new big boy chair

 And because push toys are SO much more fun if you carry them... :

 Who me?  (this is the one that really tugs at my heart for some reason....)

He has been running laps through our downstairs while "chatting" with himself while he ran.  I scooped him up to hug him and his little heart was pounding so hard! I think that was quite the workout!  When I asked him if he was ready to go night night, he walked over the the stairs and said: "Night-night, Momma."  I mean- how can that not melt your heart??  We've come a LONNNNNG way from our previous sleep battles....


And finally, we have decided to hire a Realtor to help sell our house.  We did a for sale by owner service for a while and had quite a bit of showings, but it's time to get serious.  I am starting to have some nesting urges (a little early, I know), but there is no where to nest this little baby!  The team we hired are notorious in our area for being "ball busters" and SUPER hard workers.  They have a bunch of connections with doctors at Duke who then have connections with the residents who will be coming in at the end of February/beginning of March.  The Realtors are coming over tomorrow to look at our house and give us a list of tasks to complete.  I don't know why, but I am SO excited about tackling this list!  I wish they were coming today so I could start! Yesterday we had an "ice storm" and I use that term lightly, but the roads were pretty bad, so Eddie stayed home with us.  I took advantage and got a LOT done around the house.  My closet is completely empty of everything but maternity clothes.  Amazing how much bigger it looks!  I took 8 bags to Goodwill this morning. Closets are cleaned out, baby toys that are no longer played with are put away....we just have so much STUFF! 

I'll keep you posted on the hopeful selling of our house.  Oh yeah....and we have not even started to look at where to move...not a clue!  The place where we wanted to build has increased prices (a lot) and we think it's out of our range now...BOOOOO!  Sometimes it is really hard being married to a practical person.  ;)

Tractor Ride!

(last video of the day, I swear!)

When Cal was born, a friend sent us a John Deer Tractor toy that we stored away in a closet.  It seemed like forever until he would be big enough to ride the thing.  Well, I pulled it out last night and we put it together (read: I asked Eddie ever so sweetly to take care of it!), and I literally cannot get Cal off of the thing.  He doesn't ride it the way he's supposed to though.  He stands on either side, holds on to the steering wheel and walks with it in between his legs. This is the first thing he goes for when we walk in the door and when he gets up from his nap.  I thought this was too funny:

http://gallery.me.com/cewilliamson#100742

STRONG MAN!!!!

Cal has started this new trick and we don't know what to think...but it cracks us up!!! This was after dinner the other night (pre-haircut!) and Eddie and I couldn't get enough!  He does this all the time now...

http://gallery.me.com/cewilliamson#100741


Happy Friday, Y'all!