Furniture!

This weekend we got our kitchen table and chairs, couch and loveseat, and mattress set. So now we're finally feeling like it's more of a house. We'll get our bedroom set mid-August and can't wait for that, since we have no furniture in the bedroom and clothes and things are just piled on the floor in baskets.

We'd like to get some more bookshelves and similar types of things to organize the house a bit, but we're running out of house-money and would like to keep some in savings, so for now the house will be unorganized. Plus, just found out the car needs new brakes and rotors and that will cost $450, gee great. We tried to trade it for a used Camry which is bigger and more reliable, but the people were crazy with their offer, so we just walked away. Right now we're "renting" my dad's Kia as a second car, paying that monthly payment, until we can figure out how on earth to afford a second car. The second car needs to be bigger than our Elantra to comfortably fit two carseats safely, fit a double stroller with groceries, etc, yet still be economical on gas... which isn't something you can find in an affordable car. Yikes! Not sure how we'll do it but we need to soon...

There are also the other household items that we'll need to get that we didn't necessarily need with our small apartment. More towels, washcloths, some kitchen items, a new vacuum, air purifier for my allergies, lawnmower, weedeater, etc. We're crossing fingers that maybe some people will see it as a time to get a housewarming gift so we won't have to wait much later for some things... but I'm not really expecting that.

Oh and grass, someday we'll need to plant some grass seed which is the cheapest way to go, and the best time to do it is now... but I have a feeling that won't get done until next summer maybe. I do feel a little bad that Toby won't have a nice grassy yard yet, but he does have a nice big house!

Speaking of Toby, his favorite new thing to do is either growl like a dinosaur (or like his daddy imitating a dinosaur) and stomp (Toby does this by just lifting one leg really high when walking), play in the kitchen cabinet, or sitting at our new table and pretending to laugh within a conversation he's having with invisible people. Very cute, and can all be seen at www.dropshots.com/adspencer. Enjoy!

Helloooooooooo.

Well we've done it - bought a house! With baby #2 on the way we had a little extra motivation and of course that worked. Now we're in our OWN home, just the three (and incubating 4) of us, probably 3-4 miles from my parents' home (and their swimming pool, ahhhh).

We closed last Friday and over the past week have moved in little by little. Our first night spent in the house, July 4, was our own independence day. Toby was with Aunt Kathy that night so Thurs night was his first night and he only threw a little fit when we tried to get him to sleep in his new room. Actually, he has two new rooms. A "big boy" room for when baby comes and hopefully we can move him into either his new toddler bed, or a borrowed crib from our friends; and the nursery, which is where he sleeps now, with the crib and changing table in there. He also has a playroom which is also the office, and 4th bedroom for his grandma when she comes over to play.

Unpacking has been interesting, since we hardly have any furniture. From our Virginia apartment survived a bookcase, desk and tv stand. Toby's rooms have furniture, the big boy room is fully furnished by DH finding a clearance sale at KMart - such a clearance that everything together - dresser, side table, toddler bed, and two toy chest/bins cost under $100 total. The toddler bed itself was $7 (which is why we got it now instead of later). We ordered furniture from Ashley furniture in town and in a week we should get the delivery of the kitchen table and chairs, couch and loveseat, and our king bed mattress and box spring... however the bedroom set we ordered won't arrive until August 18. So right now we're sleeping on an air mattress, and once the mattress comes we'll sleep on that on the floor which should be more comfortable than the air mattress. We also bought 4 lawn/patio chairs which we are using right now as our furniture, and two side tables for the living room from craigslist (but they look new and will go nicely with everything. So basically most of our unpacking, except for the kitchen and bathrooms, has been sorting into boxes - for the attic, for unpacking later once we have furniture, and what little stuff we can unpack now. We've finally finished that, and now DH is going to take all the cardboard and newspaper we used for packing to the recycling center, and I think that's it, other than a good vacuum over the floors.

Most of our stuff has been in storage for almost 2 years, since we moved down from VA, and some of it didn't survive thanks to mold. So we threw out our toaster and sandwich grill, among a few other things. Nothing too important and have since replaced the toaster. We've also realized that we need a lot more things for a house than we had for our one-bedroom apartment!

Toby has enjoyed the new house, and our unpacking mess/frenzy. He has "helped" by moving things from box to box, room to room, and rearranging what we've managed to unpack. He also loves running from room to room chatting about everything (in his own language).

Here are the pictures of our progress so far...

By the way, more molars and canines have come in, look at the set of munchers he's got now!

Unpacking and Sorting in the living room. Lots of things to go through.

Helping mummy and daddy.

More helping, also very tired but not yet wanting to nap.

The clean and unpacked Kitchen!

Well, sort of clean. The boxes and recycling.

Big Boy room!

New washer and dryer... except when on the pedastools they're too tall by 1/4 inch. Have to get a carpenter to either raise the cabinets or cut 1/4 inch off to have them underneath like they should be. Still, they're hooked up and we're using them!

Extra bathroom, the duck bathroom! The people before us had it also as a duck bathroom and left the duck decals up on the shower and toilet. The rest of the ducks are ours (should I not tell anyone most of our duck bathroom stuff was before we thought about having kids?). Need a curtain rod to hang shower curtain... and maybe some extra towels and handtowels.

Master bedroom... our air bed and tv tray side tables for the moment. I did take a picture of the other side of the room but... you don't need to see a bunch of clothes and things lying on the floor that have no place to go until August 18!

Our bathroom.. the drawers are on the bottom instead of on top of the cabinet doors, which makes things awkward, so we're looking for wire shelving or wire drawers to put inside the cabinets to put everything. Can't have me bending over to get things while pregnant and this dizzy, I won't make it back up!

Playroom/4th bedroom/office. We're going to try to make it look more bedroom-y for grandma's stay - we want her to feel as comfortable as possible so that she'll want to visit more and more!

That's all the pictures for now. We still have to put grass seed down in the yard to grow some grass, and there are lots of extra things we need to get... but we're crossing fingers that maybe a few housewarming presents would help. If not, we'll just get things little by little and eventually it will be a real home! Well, it's a real home now, but you know what I mean.

And as far as unpacking boxes that have been in storage for 2 years goes... DH just found an egg, the size of a marble, he cracked it and yes, it's an egg. What the heck kind of egg? I'm scared to know. Time to vacuum. More pictures and Toby videos at www.dropshots.com/adspencer.