Independent Kids

All dressed up for Independence day at school
Dancing to her fridge DJ

Ready to go

What happens if you hold a bike parade and nobody shows? Ok, not nobody - but only 2 members of the HOA, one pre-schooler and her mom? You get a parade route tailor-made for the pre-schooler, a $15 gift card for best decorated bike and a happy Laney!

Laney really didn't care that she was the only one - she had a blast. She still talks about it when we drive by the parking lot where we met. And hey, I got meet a member of the HOA board and pick his brain about our new neighborhood.

July 4th was the nations birthday and Alex's 7 month birthday. So without further ado - Toby pictures . . .

I chose to shoot them in his crib. As of July 5th, he'd only been sleeping in it (heck, it had only been set up) for two weeks. In addition to his very own room, 7 months has brought a big boy car seat in Mommy's car, way more solid foods, size 3 diapers and lots of toys. He is also ready to take off, as soon as he can get his knees under him and his belly off the ground.

Kat's Birthday

I am desperately behind on blogging - I am going to try to catch up this week. First some pictures of Kathryn's early 16th birthday party. We had it the Friday night before she left for three weeks with her mom. We'll have a bigger shindig in August with her friends.

Kathryn - complete with Laney's tiara
Getting photobombed by little brother

16 candles!

Alex was very disappointed that he didn't get to lick any frosting off a candle!

Kat was super-psyched to turn 16 - desptie the fact that there was no car or even driver's license involved. Hopefully everything will fall into place for her to take driver's ed after marching season is over.

It's about time

It only took 9 months & 22 days - women have been pregnant that long!

Our house is sold! Our new house is purchased! We move on Thursday! I am exclamation point happy!

I will post pictures of the new place when things calm enough to do so.

Alex's baptism

Photos from Alex's baptism on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.



The family


Alex with the grandparents - Daddy Ron, Mama Janie, Nana Jackie & Granddaddy

With his godparents - Uncle Ronny, Aunt Lauren (Lala) and Neil (the guest of honor is sound asleep)

Styling in Neil's hat pre-service

The kids with Father Desmond after the service - he has now baptized all three of them

6 months old

Alex turned 6 months old on Friday. He also took his first trip to Mama Janie & Daddy Ron's house, so we took his Toby pictures there.

At 6 months, Alex is 15 lbs 14.5 oz and 27 1/4 in tall. He loves to eat - he's up to five 8 oz bottles a day, plus a half jar of veggies, half jar of fruit & a couple of tbsp of cereal! He gets excited when he sees a jar of food & upset if he hears the bottle get shaken up but he doesn't get it soon enough.

He can sit on his own - although he still falls over every now and then. He can roll from back to belly (when he feels like it). He loves to jabber and blow raspberries - unfortunately he recently learned the joys of doing so with a mouth full of food. This was also the first time he expressed an interest in Toby during the picture taking, he's learning to like more and more toys.

Wouldn't you know . . .

It would take things going to you-know-where in a hand basket to get me to put up 2 posts in 2 days.

I believe the term for folks like us is "displaced". I think that's what they called people after the hurricanes.

I had a case of the "Mondays". We had trouble getting out of our friend's house and I had to drop the dog at our house so I was 20 minutes late to work. I had been there about a half hour when Kat called from the school nurse. I left work to pick her up. On the way to the school I drove by the house to see if the power was on. No go. Take Kat to the doctor, get her the gooood drugs and run back by the house. Still no power. We impose on my friend again and go to her house to plug in the laptop and veg to some BBC America and get the dog some AC. At 3:00 we head back over to the house dog in tow- surely the power's on by now. No go. So I call the power broker.

First, I get told they have no record of an order to turn power back on. Then after I attempt to tear the guy a new one, he puts me on hold and discovers that the actual power company had been out but our meter's broken so they can't turn the power on. I call the actual power provider (our local electricity system is MESSED up!) and sure enough the box our meter is sitting in is broken (not the meter itself - that would be their responsibility) and we have to have it fixed before we can get power back.

I cry for a little while. Call an electrician who hops to and comes over. He is super nice & apologizes constantly while telling me the repair is gonna cost $2500 and take 2 to 3 days. We take the dog to be boarded at the vet's and go back to the friends house and start to try to find a hotel. We're staying with her one more night, but we already stink like fish and it's time to go. We're headed to a hotel room - discount arranged by my MIL - tomorrow for the remainder.

Still no word on when we're going to close on this house.

Living in the land of frustration

This moving thing continues to not go as planned (starting with being moved in before Alex was born!). This last week has been an exercise in frustration and a reminder of our blessings.

We haven't moved yet. When we signed the contract on our new house we thought we'd be closed on Friday, May 21 & moved in on May 22. This was assuming we would close by May 15 on our current house. Our mortgage on the new house is ready to go, pending the money from the current house. The current house on the other hand - the underwriters requested 5 more business days. And they don't work Fridays. I've called them some creative names at this point. We're hoping we will move next weekend (sometime around baptizing the boy on Sunday). But our contracts are extended to June 2, so no freaking guarantees.

To top it off, a week ago when I thought we were moving, I started to TRY to move our utilities online. The phone/internet/satellite website was annoying so I decided to move it via phone, just like I ordered it. I started to move our electric scheduling to start the power at the new house on Friday and end the power at the current house Monday. Before I could finish the transfer the website told me it was unable to complete my transaction. I decided to call later. When it became clear I was unable to move I just let it go . . .

Until Kat came home to no power Friday afternoon. We thought it was outage (there had been storms) but then it went on too long. I got through the company and they told me I ordered a cut off for Friday and just as I was explaining (embarassingly loudly) that this was not the case & they better bloody well fix it, I got disconnected. I called back & got disconnected again. I called a 3rd time, got a human who told me "Our systems are down. Call back in 30 minutes". Rob called 30 minutes later, explained the situation to another Helpful Hanna and also got told I ordered this. He explained what happened last week, that there was no way in H*&! that I ordered a cut off for Friday (even if we were moving) and got told that yes I did, that's what the computer said. They apparently can't reactivate power after 3 PM on a Friday. He did eventually convince them to schedule the hookup for Monday. (5 month old babies do not constitute emergencies apparently) We will be billed for reactivation, but they will refund us later. Gee thanks.

On to life's blessings. Having survived Hurricane Ike we know what multiple days without power is like and it's not something I want to experience with an infant. We considered driving to my parents 4 hours north. But before packing up the car, I called one of my friends from church. Her daughter is with the grandparents so she has the house to herself. She took Elena, Alex, Rob & I, along with Rory & our laundry in until Monday morning. Kat's with her mom until Sunday and with a friend Sunday night to make getting to school easier. A very sweet girl at the kennel agreed to stay open past closing to guarantee the cats would get checked in on Friday. She's even checked them into a deluxe apartment for the price of a regular. After the J-As at the electric company who referred the lack of AC in 90+ degree heat (with humidity!) for 3 days with an infant & pre-schooler as an "inconvenience" it's good to have friends and people who are nice to cats.