And then he was seven....

Seven years old.   It seems like a blink of an eye and seems like forever.  Forever, because I cannot imagine life without our Wythe.  A blink of an eye because the years are slipping by, how can it be that we have had seven years with him?  Admittedly, many of those years are a little blurry, years of no sleep can do that to you!  What a ride it has been!  This little guy has challenged us in ways we didn't think possible and has brought us joy we didn't believe was possible.  

"Birth" day

1st birthday

2nd birthday

3rd birthday

4th birthday

5th birthday

6th birthday

On his actual birthday he got to plan the day.  He was thrilled to get to "decide things"!  He woke up to balloons in his room and present on his floor containing a new outfit for the day.  Once at the table he unwrapped a set of Hess truck glasses while we waited for his waffles. 

Per his decision we spent the day at the children's museum, four hours...felt like a week.  But it was his birthday and he was having fun....and he got frozen yogurt for lunch!  As we were leaving the downtown mall he said "do you know what would make my birthday even more special?  Getting my own iced coffee drink!"   That's my boy!
When I asked what he would like to have for his birthday dinner he choose steak.  So, using a gift card from my grandma, we took him to Outback.  They sang a birthday song for him and....he LOVED it!   Those who know Wythe will know how unusual this is!  Maybe this is part of being seven years old!  
I did have a cake for him at home, he had picked it out at the store to go along with his new theme of a "United States party".  It was a win for me, especially considering it was a reduced 4th of July cake.  This change of birthday theme had just occurred and I was relieved and puzzled.  Previously, I had said to him, 
"hey bud, your birthday is next week. Do you want a cake? or maybe cupcakes?"  
"oh, I want a cake, and I want it to be rectangle shape, and on this side I want it to be a Star Wars cake with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker when Darth Vader is telling Luke Skywalker 'I am your father' and on the other side I want Spiderman battling the Green Goblin and in the middle near the top I want a 7 candle and in the very middle I want Spiderman marrying his girlfriend. Yep, that's what kind of cake I want."
Needless to say, I was regretting that I had asked.  I did consider making the cake he requested, I looked into buying the figurines to use on the cake but that alone made the cake too costly.  So, I proposed some other options and he decided he would like to have cupcakes at his party and each person could decorate their own......YES!!!   *fist pump*  
I told him he could pick out whatever plates he wanted, Star Wars, Spiderman, TMNT, Minions...whatever.  When we were at the store he picked out some red plates, blue plates and white plates and said "I decided I want to have a United States party.  To celebrate President Obama."    This kid!!

A 4th of July cake on clearance worked for him!

I asked him if he wanted to play any games at his party, maybe Pin the tail on the donkey, musical chairs....he said he would like to play a game at his birthday...chess.  Pretty sure he didn't get that idea from Pinterest.  
For his party he had a couple buddies, his family, red, white and blue decorations, decorate-your-own cupcakes, and....presents!

 

"another Hess truck!!!"

He got lots of Legos...which is awesome!

 This was the first birthday that was free of melt-downs!   Maybe this is part of being seven, maybe this is us finally finding a way to celebrate Wythe in a way that isn't overwhelming for him.  Wythe declared it to be "the best birthday ever!!" 

I'd say that makes it a success. 

 'til next time...

We are buying a house, non-sleeping kids, we are not buying a house, birthday and anniversaries, we might be buying a house.....

So, the house search is progressing. Possibly.  A couple weeks ago there was was a large price reduction in a house we had our eye on.   Peter jumped on it right away and put an offer on it.  Our realtor was a little worried that he had put an offer on a rehab house without me even seeing it and insisted on taking me to see it ASAP, I'm sure our realtor is beginning to doubt our mental competence.  Since the house needs a tremendous amount of work we submitted a low offer, the seller countered, we countered, they countered and at the end of the day they accepted our offer which happened to be $27,000 higher than our original offer.  Yay!!   We won......or did we?  We were thrilled that a contract had been accepted, we were slightly shell shocked that we went up on our offer by $27k, we are nervous about the amount of work ahead and we are reluctant to get our hopes up because there is still so much red tape to get through before we close. 

Someone asked me recently if Wythe was sleeping better at night.  At first I said "yes, he is."  Then the more I thought about it I realized that I am sleeping better at night, not him.  Wythe still wakes up a lot at night but instead of screaming for hours he now entertains himself.  Many mornings I go into his room to find tiny little green army men set up for war, fifty Matchbox cars lined up in a parking lot, pictures he has drawn, or a hotel and parking garage constructed out of cassette tapes and cds. 

hotel with parking garage

Since moving to this house I have had a bit of a hard time getting the kids to spend adequate time outdoors.  At our other house they were outside everyday, often most of the day.  Here they complain that "the yard is too small......there isn't a pasture....not enough space to run...."etc., etc.  Fortunately, they have decided that they are responsible for building homes for the fairies.   It has kept them occupied for a number of days!

Of course you need a tractor to build a fairy house!

and they need food.....

"I build a mean fairy house.....top that HGTV!"

Ainsley asked me to take a picture of her and bunny on her bed.  When I was looking at the picture I realized that she has come a long way in making her bed!   It is strange how many times you don't even see or acknowledge the progress that has been made.  When did she start getting her blankets so smooth?  That seems to be the way many things go; a behavior or phase that you think you just might not survive and then one day you realize you aren't dealing with that anymore. In fact, you don't even remember the last time it was an issue.  This picture helped remind me to stop and appreciate the progress my children are making, how quickly they are growing up and how fast these days are slipping through my fingers.

My mom turned the big 6-0 this year!  We had briefly discussed a big family vacation but there has been a lot going on in everyone's life; babies, new houses, moving, new jobs......it just didn't seem possible that it would work out.  Right now our idea of vacation is ordering pizza and renting a Redbox movie, not the most exciting for my mom.  So, I invited the family to my house for her birthday weekend.  I believe my actual words were "come-stay-with-me-while-I-actually-have-a-house-that-is-big-enough-and-has-enough-bathrooms-for-everyone-because-based-on-the-houses-we-are-looking-at-in-Charlottesville-we-will-soon-be-living-in-a-place-too-small-for-us-physically-fit-in-to."  It was a very gracious, elegant invitation.  Only having the words engraved could have improved it.  

They all arrived at my house around lunch time,everyone had just come into the kitchen when we heard the doorbell ring.  It was my sister Kara, pulling off a surprise visit for most of us!  It was great to have everyone together, I enjoyed having a house large enough for us to fit in comfortably!  Most of the family  spent the night and the next day here as well.

grandma's birthday

siblings.....of course we waited until the end of the night to take pictures!

The following weekend we had a reception to celebrate my parent's 40th wedding anniversary.  It was an open house for friends and family to stop by, visit with my parents and enjoy some dessert and coffee.

40th Anniverary reception

40th Anniversary Reception

40th Anniversary Reception

40 years rogether!

If you know my children you know that eating vegetables has been an ongoing struggle.  The boy that vomits when eating almost any vegetable decided that he would forage for his own greens.  He picked some pine needles, put them on a plate, added some ketchup and proceeded to eat them.  It was obvious that he wasn't enjoying it but pride or stubbornness kept him going.  Finally, with tears in his eyes, he said "I really don't think I can eat this but I was trying so hard to eat some healthy greens!" 

"vegetables make me vomit but pine needles are delish!"

The house we are renting has some beautiful carpet on the basement stairs, people compliment it all the time!  Err...."comment" on it, not "compliment" it.

Be jealous...you know you want this carpet!

Wythe drew me a picture of the two of us in "one of your favorite places".

future trip to Paris

So, back to the house.   We had the house inspection which confirmed all the bad things we already knew about, no surprises so that was good.  The termite inspection was clear, that was good.  House was appraised, the amount it appraised for was good, the notes in the appraisal.....not good.  The appraiser noted some nasty stuff in the cellar, things we were aware of and planning to address immediately. also noted that the house is set up as a duplex rather than a single family house.  We also knew that and planned to convert it back to single family.  Unfortunately the mortgage company was less optimistic about the house, they don't have the vision we have, basically no imagination and obviously no faith in our ability to restore this house.  They pulled the financing unless the seller converted the house back to single family and had some remediation and abatement.  The seller didn't have the money to do this work, the lowest bid on the abatement alone was 12k.  Further compounding the problem was that the paper work for the abatement would take 6 weeks, that alone would take too long for our financing.   This was the news we got one week before our closing date.  Despite our plan to "not get our hopes" up we were completely emotionally invested in this house.  We had our plans for adding onto the house, pages of to-do lists started.  We had some very serious, grown up conversations about how much we wanted this house, what our other options are, how much risk we were willing to take to make this happen.  With elevated blood pressure, ulcers forming, and nervous tics developing, we borrowed money from our other house, broke open our piggy banks and located all the change from under couch cushions and under floor mats and managed to scrape together enough money to buy this house!   The closing date was back on, we wanted to celebrate but can't afford champagne anymore so we raised a celebratory glass of water!  But a small glass, we pay for water now.

'til next time....

Christmas 2012

This Christmas season was nice, low key, quiet.  I never even got all my decorations put up but that was ok, we didn't seem to miss them.

We started the season out with the Warrenton Christmas parade. It was the first time I had ever been to a parade that was after dark but it was fun!  Cold, but not miserable and my children seemed to enjoy it.

We had fun times decorating cookies with friends, we decorated cookies on several occasions and also decorated gingerbread sleighs, the children were loving the sugar overload!

We picked a lovely day to go cut our tree. In the interest of keeping our money local we picked a tree farm a few miles from our house.  Actually our interest was more in convenience but hey, we are also glad to keep our money local.

After days of decorating the tree, only to have little hands move all the ornaments around and clump them together, I finally gave up on having a "balanced" tree.  The good news is we only shattered a few ornaments this year and none that were significant.  Truth be told, we packed away a few very fragile, of huge sentimental value ornaments.

new ornaments in rememberance of the 2012 pigs

"hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" monkeys 

We were lucky to have the weather cooperated this year!  It snowed on Christmas Eve, then again the day after Christmas!

Christmas morning had been anticipated as only a four year old and three year old can!  Wythe had been concerned that our tree didn't have a star on top. It had a bow that I happen to really like but he was adamant that we needed a star.  He kept asking if Notch (our Elf) could tell Santa to bring a star and if he could write another letter to Santa to ask him to bring a star. So, after the kids went to bed I removed my ribbon (sniff, sniff) and replaced it with a star. Sigh.

It was worth it in the morning as that was the first thing he noticed!  In typical Wythe fashion the presents, stocking and general excitement was a little too much for him. After beginning to unload his stocking he melted and removed  himself from the festivities for awhile. We took a little break to fix coffee and breakfast and enjoyed a leisurely morning of opening presents.

checking out her loot from her stocking

enjoying her new table and Pete the Cat

enjoying some Christmas presents

You may think these were for the kids....

...but you would be wrong. It was a gift to me from my husband. He knows me so well.

'til next time...