One More Day

Tomorrow afternoon we will be leaving for Seattle. We fly out of Billings, MT on Thursday afternoon so tomorrow when Mike gets off of work we will be driving there to stay with his cousin. And the weather forecast for tomorrow - up to 5" of snow of course. We were hoping we would be able to drive the car (to save on gas) but if the weather is crappy we'll be driving the truck. Better safe than sorry right?

On Sunday we went to another handful of open houses but nothing really jumped out at us. Yesterday my Dad & I went and looked at another house (Mike wasn't feeling well so he didn't come with), and as soon as we stepped through the door it was as though we had gone back to the 70's. Big mural on the living room wall, dark paneling, orange counter tops, and gaudy light fixtures. The house was HUGE though - over 3500 square feet! But it only had 2 bedrooms so as soon as I found that out it was out of the question to even consider it. I'm hoping to call on another house today so that we can take a look at it tonight.

In Logan news - he is becoming very aware of his "plumbing". He tells me after he has pooped (how do I get him to tell me before?) and loves to pee in the tub. Last week I bought him a potty chair and he loves to sit on it. The only problem - he will only sit on it with his clothes on. He refuses to with just a diaper and it's out of the question if he's completely naked. Anyone have some advice as to the next step?? It would be great if he were potty trained by summer!

To The Emerald City We Go

Next Wednesday Mike & I will be driving to Billings to fly out to Seattle on Thursday afternoon. I'm so excited that we get to go back there! Mike graduates from college Friday afternoon which is the main reason we are going back. And guess what? Mike gets to be one of the speakers for the ceremony! His classmates picked him along with two others - I think that is so great. I'm so proud of him to accomplish completing his degree.

Other than the graduation we don't have anything else planned yet. I'm hoping that we'll get to see some of our friends while we're there. Saturday is completely open so maybe I'll be able to convince Mike to go downtown - I can feel Crate & Barrel calling my name :) along with the cheesecake stand! (Crystal you would LOVE that place!!)

We had always planned on making it back for Mike's graduation but the plane tickets were outrageous so we didn't think it would be possible. Then early this week he got the news that they wanted him to address the class. There was no way we wanted to miss that so we scrambled to find a decent rate on airfare and possibly a hotel and car rental. It looked as though we would have to pay over $1000 to accomplish this but then Mike found a cheap fare from Minneapolis. The only problem - we would be flying on red-eye flights along with making an 8 hour drive.

The next day we again went on the internet and Mike decided to try Orbitz. We totally scored! For only $330 each we could fly out of Billings (6 hour drive) at a normal time and rent both a hotel room and a car. We'll be in Seattle from Thursday evening - Sunday morning. Still a pretty quick trip but now that we found such a great deal it will be a trip that we hopefully won't forget.

We Set A Record!!

Well I've got a lot of new things to write about, I'll try not to ramble on too long :) Here's another bulleted list to catch up on:

-Logan is learning more and more words. He knows where the garbage (dardj) is and loves having the "job" of throwing things away. I just have to pay attention when he starts saying "dardj" because some non-garbage items have been thrown in there.

-Also we've learned if you don't want him to touch something you say that it's icky (ittey) or hot. That usually deters him from touching it.

-We received a call from our realtor and our house is officially under contract - yay!! We will sign the papers on March 22nd, which means we can now begin house hunting. We went to several open houses today and are planning to meet with a builder tomorrow. We love both of the houses that we saw that he has built but we figure maybe he can help us build one that really stands out. He said it would take about 6 months to build so we would probably rent an apartment until it was finished.

-While we were out house-hunting we received a call from Jean (Mike's Aunt). Mike's Mom broke her ankle, it is the same ankle that she broke several years ago from falling off the roof. She went in for surgery this evening and is currently in recovery. We'll be able to go up and visit her again shortly. According to the nurse the surgery went very well, but since this is the second time that ankle has been broken it will be a fairly long recovery.

-I have come to realize that I do not do well in hospitals. Just while visiting people though (when I had Logan I was fine the whole time). When we got to Charlene's (Mike's Mom) room I began to feel dizzy and my ears plugged up. And I became so hot. I left the room and found the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, got a drink, and since then I've felt better. I don't know what it is but the same thing happened when my Dad had open heart surgery a few years ago. Although that time it was worse because I almost passed out and had to lean against the wall for support.

-On a better note on Saturday we helped North Dakota set a world record. Visit here to read more about it. It was the perfect day to do it and everyone had a great time.

I'll write more later, we're going up to see Charlene - have a great night everyone!

*The first picture is the capitol lawn before everyone was on it, second picture shows the capitol lawn filled with over 8000 people, and the third picture is the capitol building*

Valentine's Day

My little Valentine has been sick for the past couple of days. I feel so bad for him because I don't know exactly what hurts :( I know he has a little bit of a fever and a horrible cough. I'm also pretty sure he has a sore throat since the only food he's had for the last 24 hours are bottles of milk and some apple juice. I've been giving him Triaminic and Dimetapp on a regular basis and it seems to take the fever away and help his runny nose. I felt so bad for him today because he got all sorts of cool new toys for Valentine's Day. One of them being a giant red ball. The poor little guy though will play with it and end up overexerting himself which sends him into a coughing fit. And there is no stopping him if he wants to play - he just doesn't understand that he should just sit and rest.

Our Valentine's Day was nice. My Mom got off of work early and treated Logan & I to lunch at a Chinese buffet. Then later this evening Mike & I went out to dinner at TGIFriday's - very yummy!

The buyer's *fingers crossed* of our house accepted our counter-offer. They did the inspection on Monday and nothing major was found wrong. We've agreed to most of the terms they listed on the inspection and Mike faxed the paperwork back tonight. All they have to do is initial it and we will be in a contract with them. That would be so great and relieve so much stress AND we could start house hunting :)

Some of you had mentioned that the closing costs they wanted were a little steep and yes they are. Basically though if you give a mortgage broker that much money to use towards closing they will use it anyway that they possibly can. Whether it be buying down points to lower the interest rate or putting more in their pocket. What we decided to do was agree to the $10k in closing costs but raise the price we were asking on the house by another $5k - so we're giving them $5k in the end but this way they can hopefully get a better rate on the loan. Either way I'm happy since we're still coming out ahead in the long run.

*It's kind of hard to read but Logan's shirt reads "Little Casanova" - what a perfect t-shirt for Valentine's Day :)

My Little Hippy

Some of you have mentioned how long Logan's hair is getting. I took this picture the other night while he was in the bath. I guess it is getting a little long :)

All Things New

Logan's vocabulary has expanded quite a bit while we were apart from him. Here is the list of words that we can understand (for the most part) - hahaha:

-Hiiiiii! = hi
-Byyyyeeee! = bye
-See = see ya
-juice = juice, milk, water
-bott = bottle
-Mama
-Daddy
-traco = tractor
-ball
-moosey = stuffed moose of his
-whee = his stuffed orca whale (whaley or Willy)
-chews = shoes
-boots
-ar, ar, ar = what the puppy says
-rarr = what the tiger says
-mooooo = what the cow says
-maaaa = what the sheep says
-shee = sheep
-side = outside
-kiddy = kitty
-dardj = garbage
-done = done
-a bie = a bite
-Mmmm = he says this whenever he tastes something that he really enjoys
-itty = icky
-oh sjee = oh geez

Ok I think those are all the words - I might have forgotten some but oh well. He's also turned into quite the helper! He loves to help unload the dishwasher, sweep the floor, pull out the laundry from the dryer, and throw things in the garbage. Thankfully he only throws stuff away when you ask him to.

He's also become stubborn in some other areas. He absolutely detests getting dressed in the morning and no longer likes to lie still while we change his diaper. He's begun kicking while his diaper getting changed which is just so much fun to deal with! Especially when it's a dirty diaper.

He also knows when he is in trouble. Last night he was slapping my arm and I kept telling him "no", but he would not stop. I grabbed his hand and looked him in the eyes and said "no" again. This time he stopped and as an apology he kept saying "hi" until I said it back. I've noticed that every time he gets scolded he'll immediately start saying "hi". It is kind of cute and sometimes it's hard not to laugh at the little man.

Other news:
We are all settled at my Mom & Dad's house. We haven't really started house hunting yet since we can't afford to buy one until our house sells. Our luck would be that we would find our dream house and by the time we could make an offer on it it would no longer be on the market :( On a really good note though, an offer was made on our house yesterday :) :) :) We have looked over the offer and it seems to be pretty good. They want us to pay $10k towards their closing costs and they would like the hot tub included. We are going to make them a counter offer - probably offer to pay $5k in closing costs and still include the hot tub. I'm going up to Mike's office tonight so we can call our realtor to see what he thinks. Send some good thoughts our way because it would be fantastic if we would be able to sell it this quickly!!

I know I have more to write but this post is already longer than I had expected ;) Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Sunday the 28th

(eating yogurt with Uncle Taylor)

I think this day, by far, was the best. Mainly because when we woke up we knew that we would be seeing our little munchkin later that day.

We woke up around 6:30, showered, and treated ourselves to the yummy breakfast that the C'Monn Inn provided. I think we were on the road around 7:30. The roads were good and the mountain passes were behind us so by the time we got to Billings we decided to ditch the car dollie and drive the rest of the way separate. I was so glad we did! From Glendive to our destination the wind was very strong and pulling the car would have been really hard to do.

Mike's Mom had Logan for the weekend so we drove to our little hometown to pick him up. We had prepared ourselves for seeing him and knew that he might not have a great reaction to us. We had been told that he might begin to cry or get clingy towards Grandma (a now familiar face).

(getting pulled by Grandpa)

The feeling I got when I saw my little boy is indescribable. We walked into Charlene's (Mike's Mom) house and they were sitting at the kitchen table. Logan was having a little snack. He looked up at Mike & me and just stared at us for the longest time. For what seemed like forever, he continued to look at us. The whole time we were both talking to him and saying hi. After about 2 minutes he decided he wanted down from the chair. He got down and walked over to Mike and held his arms up. Mike scooped him up and Logan said "Hi" - my heart melted :) He gave us the biggest grins and from that point on we had our little boy back. For a little while though he was wringing his hands constantly. I think it was because he was either nervous or didn't quite know how to react. Maybe a combination of the two. Either way it was great to have him back!

It had definitely been a hard 3 weeks being away from him but it also gave Logan a chance to get to know everyone, without Mommy and Daddy around. After seeing how he is around all of his "new" family, the move has been worth it!

(folding laundry with Uncle Taylor)

*The router has been fixed so I'm back up and running. Well, almost, Mike still has to get our server back up so that my videos and blog title will appear again.

Saturday the 27th

We started out very early in the morning. Like, way before the butt-crack of dawn early. It was still dark out early. Have I told you how I am NOT a morning person? We got up around 5 am and on the road at 6. Thankfully the roads were good so pulling the car wasn't too bad. Except anytime we came upon the tiniest hill we would slow down to about 50 mph. But it was definitely better than driving alone!

The day was pretty uneventful since we spent it mostly driving. But I did have one highlight - I got to meet another blogging friend!! Since I knew we were going through her area I emailed Honor earlier in the week. I gave her a call when we got to close to where they live and they all met us for breakfast. It was great to meet her, her hubby, and their two boys. Unfortunately the boys had gotten a little carsick on the way to meet us so they weren't too talkative at first. But by the time breakfast arrived they were feeling much better.

It was great to get to meet them, they were so nice. It's just a shame that we probably won't see them again. But now I can add another real-life blogging friend to my list :)

We drove to Bozeman that night and stayed at the C'mon Inn. It was a great hotel - they had 5 hot tubs, a pool, and a kiddie pool. We got there around 8 pm, ordered a pizza, and then went and spent some time in the hot tub. It felt great!! I think that night I fell asleep before 10 - I was so exhausted!

More to come soon :)

*My computer is down temporarily so I haven't been blog hopping. Mike bought a new router so hopefully that will fix the problem.