Christmas, part one

We have officially celebrated our first Christmas eve and Christmas day for December! I love that our Decembers now include two Christmas celebrations (well this is only the second year but I hope its a new tradition!). My parents came out this last week to be with us and my sister's family. Although we say "we are not shopping the entire time!" we, yet again, ended up shopping each day away it seemed like. My parents don't have an "off" switch when it comes to buying for the grandkids. They sure get spoiled with Nana and Pawpaw around. Caleb has a new wardrobe, an awesome red wagon, legos galore, hot wheels and Justin and I got some much needed new clothes! Amidst all the shopping we did squeeze in a trip to Chuck E Cheese, Temple Square lights & City creek (to see Santa), a movie, baking and of course our awesome 'Christmas eve' party.

Needless to say it is far too quiet in our home now and Caleb is having serious Nana and Pawpaw withdrawals. Especially pawpaw, Caleb gave him more kisses than I have ever gotten! Maybe it has something to do with the mustache...

Now its on to Christmas, part two. Still lots of baking that needs to happen but all the shopping is pretty much wrapped up. We hope you are all having a merry wonderful time and enjoying the Christmas spirit!

Caleb loves to point at everything these days

Nana (the original Emma) and Emma

Pawpaw and silly man Matt

The "stare"

the 'Christmas eve' spread

Matt helping Caleb look at the camera

Caleb making a silly face

And Caleb siting on Santa's lap. Not a huge fan... when it came time to take pictures with all three of the kiddos Caleb had really had enough.

Thanksgiving / twenytwelve

We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with Justin's sister Amanda (& her family) and her in-laws again this year, this is our third year joining their family for Thanksgiving...maybe a new tradition?? I feel like the best way for me to get into the holiday spirit is by cooking...well baking really. So I made a few things and took up to the amazing feast we had.

We have so much to be thankful for every year and this year the blessings have just poured upon us. Justin got a great new job, we were able to purchase our first home in an awesome location, Caleb is continually growing and developing and I am so thankful to stay home with him each day. We have great health and so many loved ones and friends in our life. Anyway...the list is never ending. 

Since my child is losing patience with me being at the computer I wanted to quickly post some of my favorite pictures from Thanksgiving...

Caleb loves playing at our new railing

The impressive table spread

This begins the photo shoot of Caleb being silly during dinner.

"I'm not listening.."

Caleb, where's your nose?

Where's Caleb?

He's mastered the peek a boo game

And he LOVED the candy corn

And the slushy (a Blackham tradition)

And just to mention... we went downtown SLC to walk around Temple Square the Saturday night following Thanksiving. Although it wasn't too cold, there were a lot of people and Caleb was not a fan. So we quickly walked around and enjoyed the lights but definitely will be going back before Christmas comes. 

train ride to the lights

that dern coat bothered Caleb the entire night but at least it kept him warm!

much happier with the coat unzipped!

Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season, time to get into full blown Christmas mode!

Our home

I haven't taken pictures of every space in our home... I should probably do that before too long. But here are a few pictures that I did take last week. Caleb's room is put together (except for hanging pictures on the walls) but it isn't included in these pictures, sorry!

Speaking of Caleb...he is finally happy again (for good hopefully). This last couple of weeks have been rough between a cold, possible sinus infection, an ear infection, the side effects of the antibiotic, teething...he has been a constant fussy noise in the background unless I am holding him. Now that he is happy and content playing by himself with his blocks I can finally blog! Whew.

So here goes the [brief & incomplete] tour:

The "before" picture. This is what the view from the den to the kitchen was when we first moved in.

Another shot of the same view, including the staircase

View from the kitchen down to the den

Oops...don't know how this cute picture snuck its way into the tour...

Our master bedroom, we painted the room from a mossy green to this grayish blue color.

Upstairs guest/hallway bathroom

Although we have taken out some of the clutter in this room, it still pretty much looks the same. This is the front room, which will be a sitting room down the road (need to lay hardwood floor throughout this level, from front door through to kitchen...and get furniture!)

The kitchen...plans are to have cabinets refinished and new countertops put in...but those plans are a ways away. You can see the left side of a door on the right side of the picture. That is the door to the backyard and patio. Not included in this picture...the garage access door, it is on the same wall as the fridge.

Sorry for the dark picture! This is the eat-in kitchen area.

The "after" photo of our renovation. The railing and walls need to be painted still.

The new view from the den to the kitchen. The door on the right side of the photo is to the unfinished basement. On the wall right of that door is the laundry room and another guest bathroom. There is also a guest bedroom off the den.

View of den from kitchen.

So there it is. Its a work in progress but thankfully not so much work that it is a constant stress. We are so happy to have our first home!

The one-eyed [two]-horned [crawling blue brownie] eater

Title: Special liberties taken from the original classic: Bopper Big, Flying Purple People Eater lyrics *Caleb LOVES brownies by the way.

We got Caleb a cute blue monster costume this year from Old Navy (with the goings-on with our move, I am glad I bought it well in advance or else we may have totally overlooked Halloween this year-and that would have been such a shame since I love it!) ...anyway I definitely didn't have the time, energy or motivation to make a costume again this year. We were planning on going downtown to visit Justin at work and participate in his work-sponsored family activities but with Hurricane Sandy wrecking havoc on the East coast and causing problems with GS's servers, it also created problems at Justin's SLC office. So the activities were cancelled, bummer.

So instead we packed up and headed to the Living Planet Aquarium for their Halloween festivities. Caleb loves looking through the displays and tanks at the colorful fish. He wasn't such a fan of wearing his costume while in his stroller but I can't blame him, for it to be the last day of October it was really warm out. After the aquarium we came home and made pumpkin jello jigglers and mummified hot dogs and passed out candy to the kids that came by.

Caleb and his cousin, Emma. 

The front of our home! We have quite a bit to do in the whole curb appeal department!

I think, or I know (in my opinion), it really isn't worth getting a costume for a child that doesn't walk or talk and especially if you aren't going out in public on Halloween. But it is worth it for pictures-sake and the memories. But I am looking forward to next year when Caleb is walking and hopefully can say "Trick or Treat"-it will definitely make the holiday more fun for the whole family.

And just as a quick update on Caleb... ever since we moved into our home he has been taking off developmentally. He can move around however he pleases, although most of the time that means scooting on his bum. But he can transition from laying to sitting to crawling and he does it frequently. He tries crawling up the stairs but has only made it past the first step once. He is pulling himself up to standing in his crib constantly now and that is much easier for him since he has learned to get into the kneeling position. We had some genetic testing on him which took 4 weeks and we got the results back this Monday that everything is normal! That was a relief. We transferred his Kids on the Move file to the Jordan School district program (Jordan Child Development Center). They come out on the 14th to begin physical therapy with him again. I think our goal now is just to get him walking! Or at least that is the only goal left on our original IFSP that he hasn't achieved. I can't get over how big he is getting either. I love seeing his progress and how he is figuring out things on his own.

10.11.12

We are finally getting settled into our home! We got the keys (after several more delays and kinks in the process...even after we'd already signed all the papers!) on October 11th, at 4:30pm. And by "got the keys" I mean they gave us the code to the lock box on the front door....which we already knew....oh well. No grand exchanging of the keys like we see on House Hunters. We had been crashing in my sister's basement in between the time we moved out of our condo (Oct. 6th) and when we got the keys to our home. So when we they called us to give us the lock box code we scrambled to pick up all our over night bags and hauled the uhaul to our new home! Surprisingly the move in went very fast, even with only 4 or 5 men helping. The next day, Friday, was a "clean every surface possible" kind of day. Thank you Amanda and Heather for all your help in cleaning! I was able to get my kitchen somewhat in order and unpack just enough to feel like we weren't completely living out of boxes.

Since we moved in... we had our contractor start work the Monday after we moved in. We enlisted his help in opening the wall that separated the den from the kitchen. The den felt more like a basement before, completely closed off from all other living areas. We are pretty happy with the results, now we just need to paint the banister they installed and paint the walls the drywall guy had to patch. The construction lasted longer than expected (why were we surprised?), the finally finished on the 23rd. While the construction was happening Justin and I were painting maniacs. We wanted to get Caleb's bedroom, our bedroom and the den ceiling painted before the new carpet was installed. We were able to get both rooms and the den finished (and love them!) by the 24th, when the carpet was installed.

Here's a lovely unexpected home ownership situation we've encountered...
...Yellow jackets. We knew we had a problem with a yellow jackets nest hive on the backside of our home and had seen a few dead ones inside the home. We had a pest control technician spray a "slow kill" formula on them outside. The next morning we had hundreds of dead yellow jackets...inside our home! They mysteriously came in during the night and died everywhere. On our couches, floor, window sill, pillows. Gross. Justin said at least they were getting to die in comfort. We sucked them up in our vacuum and continued sucking up both dead and the nearly dead yellow jackets for the following week. The pest control guy came back another time to spray inside. And as of this morning, two more quasi-living yellow jackets were spotted in our den. So I called and they are coming out again tomorrow. I just wish we could find the hive and remove it altogether and be done with it all. If we keep finding them inside we just might take more drastic measures.

I am loving our home more each day  because it progressively is starting to feel more and more like home. We have met most everyone on our street and have been warmly welcomed to the neighborhood. Its great living in a cul-de-sac, its super quiet and I feel like we are able to interact with our  neighbors more.  Just about every family on our street has children, though the youngest we've met so far is 3 years old so Caleb doesn't have any buddies just yet. I can't wait for him to want to play in the yard and ride his bike in our cul-de-sac. I think he'll love this home and area when he gets older.

Anyway, we have tons of projects and "to-do's" still on our list. I am excited to continually work and make home improvements but I think our bank account would like a break from it all. In the short term future (next couple months) we are going to put in wood floor on the main level (front room, dining area, kitchen) then that should be our last major renovation for a while. Its hard to plan out my days with normal, routine activities since I've been so focused on the home the last couple weeks. But Halloween in is two days and I don't have a single piece of candy in my home! I guess since we are going to have tons of trick-or-treaters this year it might be a good thing to load up.

Hope you all have a great Halloween and please come visit! :-)

Pictures to come btw.

Down & Out (The reality of buying a home)

Justin and I have been trying to close on a home for nearly a month now. a MONTH. Doesn't sound that bad but it. is. TORTURE. We found this home in South Jordan that was a foreclosure. It came on the market August 22nd (I think). Here's our timeline so far:

August 22nd: View home, put offer in on home
August 23rd: We are told there are multiple offers (ugh!) and we need to give our best and highest offer. So we submit our highest offer.
August 24th: All offers were due this day by 1pm. We were told after this period there would be 48 hours then the bank would have their selected buyer.
August 25-29: We wait. Well past 48 hours. Excrutiating.
August 30th: I attended the foreclosure auction for the condo we are living in now. It was sold back to Fannie Mae. After the auction I come home and we find out we were the selected buyers! Finally!
August 30-September 10: We have a our due diligence time period. September 6th we had our home inspection, the home is in great shape. September 7th the appraiser was sent to our home and conducted the appraisal.  September 9th we attended Sacrament meeting at our new ward. It is a much older ward that's for sure. I think the woman who looked most similar in age to me was actually in Young Womens (meaning she wasn't any older than 18). But hopefully it means plenty of babysitters for Caleb!
September 10: Our realtor confirms with us that we do want to continue with the purchase since it was the end of our due diligence period.
September 14th: The appraisal comes back $6,000 less than our offer price. We wait for the banks response.
September 18th: Bank responds that they'll lower the price of the house but will not cover all the closing costs. :-(
September 19th: We put in our new amendment to the bank that includes the new cost of the house and the amount of closing costs we will be paying (We just agreed to the bank's offer).
September 20-21: We are still. stinkin'. waiting. I HATE the wait!

Basically all that needs to happen at this point is the bank signs the contract, we send everything to the title company and they need to look at things for 48 hours then everything goes to Provident Funding (our loan company) and they have to look at everything for 48 hours, THEN everything has to be officially recorded which take 24 hours... and where does that put us? Most likely not getting the keys until October 1st or 2nd. Which means we will have 3 or 4 short days to demo a wall, put in new railing, clean the house top to bottom, put in new carpet and paint. Because we, of course, have signed a contract to be out of our condo by October 7th. Each day that passes my stress level rises significantly. I know after all is said and done things will work out. I just can't understand why all the involved parties have to be SO SLOW with their reviews/approvals of things. And I'm sure the fact that we are purchasing a foreclosed home is causing more headaches then if we were buying a home from a normal seller. But such is life.

Now to the home... I love it. I couldn't imagine us moving into a newly constructed home (the kind where the finishes are all perfect, the flooring is brand new, the kitchen is great)... yeah a newly constructed home sounds ideal pretty much but something about that idea didn't sit well with me. I think I really want to start with a home where we can add value and equity and I can make it my own. I grew up painting rooms in our home and always wanting to taking on a home improvement project so I think that must be at the root of my thoughts. But this home was built in 1998 so it isn't a total fixer upper. By painting, putting in new flooring, changing out the finishes on the hardware, things like that, I think the home will look great. But that is the fun thing about the home, I know we won't be doing all these changes right away so we are going to have a project to do probably all the time, which for some reason makes me really happy. The location is perfect. We are minutes away from Jordan Landing, probably 2 minutes away (or less) from the Trax station and 2 miles away from my sister and her family. AND our neighborhood is probably the best we have seen while house hunting. Everyone maintains their yards and home and the neighborhood is centered around this great park (probably a 5-10 minute walk from our house) and there are sidewalks everywhere. AND our church building is probably a 5 minute walk from our house. And we are in a cul-de-sac and its super quiet (so happy to not have people living below and beside us finally!).

As soon as we get the keys things are going to be in mad-dash mode. So I guess maybe I should try and enjoy this weekend and next week since they'll be the most calm we'll have in a while. But I am so looking forward to mayhem if it means we'll be in our home! I'll post pictures as soon as we get the keys and move in!

15 months

Caleb turned 15 months yesterday, can't believe he is already so old! We had his 15 month check up on Wednesday, here are his stats:
-Height: 29 1/2 " (5th percentile)
-Weight: 21.4 lbs (27th percentile)
-Head circumference: 45 1/4" (12th percentile)

The doctor was impressed with his weight gain, I thought he would weigh more more! He seems like a solid brick to carry around these days and he eats like its always his last meal. I am so grateful he hasn't become a picky eater (yet, at least).

Caleb is still working with the physical therapist from Kids on the Move. She has been coming usually every other week and working with him on getting onto all fours and crawling around, standing at surfaces and shifting his weight back and forth and overall just getting him more comfortable and confident with moving in different positions. He has been making improvements, which are more obvious to our therapist but he is now getting around by scooting on his bum. It takes so much more effort to move this way than crawling but silly man doesn't understand that. He loves walking around when we hold onto his hands. He loves to stand at surfaces and is beginning to take a few steps around a table or our recliner. I think he has the strength to do whatever he wants to do, its more a confidence thing. He seems to be afraid of falling and unsure of what to do sometimes.

This picture was taken several days ago but is the most recent we've taken. (It was for my sister's birthday card)

C's pediatrician isn't worried with his development. He has 3 of his 4 daughters that he always references, as they were slow developers and didn't crawl until after they were 15 months. The main thing that indicates learning development, says pediatrician, is the speech development. Right now Caleb says "Dad" and "Mom" all the time but other than that he repeats vowels over and over.  We'll see how his speech develops. I have my days where I really worry about him, I just want him to be happy and healthy now and in the future. But then more often than those down days, I just feel so grateful for him. He is so incredibly sweet and silly and a joy! I love being able to stay home and spend so much time with him.