Last post (for at least a week anyway)

Hi everyone! Hope you are all enjoying this awesome weather we are having. I just love summer!
Well, this is going to be our last post for just a little while. Once I am finished with my lunch here, I am heading to the phone company to turn in our DSL box. So no more internet :(
I'm having withdrawals already! We should have our DSL active in St. Clair by the first of June, but I'm guessing we will be doing a lot of unpacking for the first week or two.

I have lived in my little two bedroom home for nearly four years (just a month shy of four years). This is the longest I have lived in one place since we moved from California in 1990! I guess I have gotten pretty settled in, because I find myself having a hard time trying to picture us not living here. I think it will be a little bittersweet walking out the door for the last time. So much has happened in my life since I bought this house - I found an amazing man to share my life with, Maddie has gone from just a little kid to a pre-teen, and now we are planning the arrival of our newest family member. Ben, Maddie and I have had so many laughs and spent so many quiet family nights here. We have a lot of great memories in these rooms. Just last night we lounged on the deck (in the wonderful, warm weather) while we grilled our dinner.
What will make it easier to leave here, is the excitement we have about our new home. We are all really looking forward to settling into the new house. Maddie has already decided she wants her room painted pink, I'm pretty sure Ben is mentally outfitting his shop with tools, and I have already started to mentally organize the kitchen.
Of course, this also means we can finally buy a crib, cradle, and carseat for the baby!
I think the reality of the baby's arrival is going to dawn on us once we have a place we can actually "settle in". We have felt unsettled for a long time, knowing this is not going to be our permanent home. We are all going to be able to let that weight fall off our shoulders now, and really relax and enjoy our home.

The closing on the house we are selling is at 9:00am on the 31st of May, and our closing on the house we are buying is at 10:00am on the 31st of May. Once we are done with those we can officially start moving in.

We still haven't gotten our stolen money back, but hope to have in back yet this week. Right now, our biggest inconvenience is that we don't have check blanks (well, not preprinted with our names, etc.) yet. I am expecting those to arrive any day now though.
So things are pulling together!

My lunch is done with, so I better go take care of my errands. So long everyone, hope to blog again soon!

Love,
Janae, Ben, Maddie, Colt, and baby

The big little news...

Well, my first bit of news is big, but about someone small. My friend Sherri had her baby girl on Monday morning! She came into the world just after 8:00 am this past Monday, at 6 pounds, 6 ounces (I believe she was 20 3/4 inches long).
She is just the most adorable, petite little girl! I knew Sherri would be an excellent mother, and so far she has proven me right. Both Sherri and her husband, Dave, are completely in love with their little Tayla Marie. I was fortunate enough to get an hour or so to visit with the new family on Tuesday (after my own OB appointment). Wow, holding a new baby has to be 10 times more addicting than any substance known to man! Colt was pretty intrigued with the new smell when I got home from the visit too.

Things are still on track for the closings of both houses, so that's good news. We don't have an actual time set for the closing on our new house, but we know it will be on the 31st (same day as the closing on the house we have sold).

We have another prepared childbirth class Monday night, then skip next week (since that will be Memorial Day). Our last class will be on June 5th, so we are almost done! This coming Monday it is our group's turn to tour the birthing center (the maternity ward, basically). I look forward to seeing all the brand new, little people in the nursery. I think that will be the highlight of the tour for me. It's not obvious that I'm a baby junky or anything is it?

On a more somber note, we had someone get a hold of my debit/check card number and run up $600 in postage stamps at the US Postal store online. Luckily, I check our online banking every other day (at the very least). We caught it right away, and the people at our bank have been extremely helpful. Unfortunately, we won't be getting that money back for at least a week. This makes paying our bills and covering moving expenses trickier, so I am getting pretty creative with our finances right now.
I'm pretty certain I don't have any telepathic powers, but just in case I do, I am sending deeply disapproving messages to the thief who stole from us. You never know, and it makes me feel better to direct my frustration somewhere.

I had an OB appointment this past Tuesday. It was a fun one, thanks to the gestational diabetes test (sarcasm is really wasted in writing, isn't it?). I gained a frightening amount of weight, but the doctor was pleased with the progress anyway. He said the baby is "measuring big", which is something we have heard quite a few times this past few months.
I think we are clear of the whole placenta previa upset now, so I don't think we will have anymore ultrasounds. While I'm relieved things are going better for baby and myself, I did enjoy seeing the baby during the ultrasounds we had. But we have just about 10-12 weeks left until we will get to see the real deal! We are going to have to do some serious shopping once we move, because we have nothing ready for the baby yet!

I better go start dinner pretty soon - it's spaghetti night!

Take care everyone!

We have a home!!!

We got the word yesterday that we have a home! We found out just before 5:00 pm last night that the seller on the house in St. Clair accepted our bid.
I'm sure you can all imagine just how excited we are. It's a great house for us, and we are really looking forward to moving in.
The best news is that the seller is going to try to be out May 31st so we can close on this house the same day we close on my house!
I have included one photo of the exterior for now. But you will get to see the inside soon enough once we are moved in.
We are going to have quite a bit more room now. There is an extra room so we will actually have an "office" to put the computer in! And there will be room for my piano (that has been sitting at my mom's house since we moved from California) and my antique hutch. The two and a half car garage is pretty spacious, so Ben is already mentally moving in all his tools - I envision this just like the "visions of sugar plums" dancing in the children's dreams in "T'was the Night Before Christmas". I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure he's smiling in his sleep, dreaming of the shop, and the tools, and all the fun he's going to have. :-P
The yard is pretty good sized, as well as landscaped. The deck is bigger than ours (of course), and will have two bathrooms now! Maddie is also pretty excited, even though she was at school when we saw the inside of the house. I think she is going to be very happy with the change. She will be only a matter of blocks from school, so she'll get to ride her new bike there.
We feel very fortunate that things have fallen into place for us like they have. Once we are moved in to this new house, we are almost ready for baby! We only have fourteen weeks (or less) left until the official due date. I am hoping to have us unpacked and settled before the baby arrives, but we all know that unpacking can take years sometimes. :-P
A quick side note: my friend (Sherri) is due Memorial day, but it sounds like things are moving along for her already. So her little girl might make her grand entrance sooner than expected. I can't wait to meet her, and I am so happy for Sherri and her husband Dave. I wish all three of them the very best!
I hope everything is going well for each of you as well. Summer is almost here, it's almost vacation time!

Maddie's new bike, and more

Well, Maddie got her new bike last night. Looks to us like she really likes it too. We didn't find anything we wanted at Shopko or Target, so we ended up at Scheel's. As long as we were there we walked around a little to see everything. It's a pretty cool store, but I think Cabella's has a lot more to look at.
The realtor called me this morning and told me the closing on our house will be the 26th of May. Unfortunately, I was extremely displeased with him. It was agreed upon that we would close the 31st of May, and we need that extra week to get moved (to where, I don't know yet). So I did some checking and found out that if the buyer can only push the closing up if the seller agrees. Last I heard from our realtor they are changing it to the 31st.
I guess it's safe to say that the selling of our house has not been anywhere near a positive experience for us so far. Yesterday it made me think of the movie "Series of Unfortunate Events". Remember the aunt who had a phobia of realtors? I can commiserate with her now.

Other than the real estate drama, our lives have been pretty awesome. Maddie is continuing to improve in school, Ben is done with that "project" that occupied his evenings and weekends, and the baby is growing by the hour, it seems. Sometimes it's hard to believe we have three months left. It doesn't seem like there is that much more room to grow some days. Other days I actually forget I'm pregnant, because I feel so good.
I paged through the baby name book once more this morning. We are really having a tough time agreeing on a name. At this point, we pretty much have nothing. Good thing we still have three months!
Looks like this post is long enough, I'm done. I hope you all have a wonderful, sunny day!

Sold!

I just got the call that our house is sold. The guy that put in an offer on Friday came to look at it again today. He has agreed to our counter offer.
This is exciting, though we will be homeless until we find a house that is right for us. We have to be out by May 31st.
One of Ben's coworkers is moving to the cities, so his 2 bedroom apartment up by MSU will be empty. He has offered that to us, so worse comes to worse we can live up there.
Well, Maddie is dying to pack something so I better let her. By the end of the month I'm sure packing won't be "fun" anymore, so I'm going to take her up on it now.
Take care everyone!