Saturday, October 25, 2008

More of Noah's Birthday Party.

Here are some more photos of Noah's Birthday Party. You can see he had great friends come to celebrate with him.

More Noah Birthday Party

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Noah's Birthday Party

So, we had a train party for Noah's Birthday this year. It was a blast. We rented a train for the kids to ride, I made 9 little train cakes and a good time was had by all. Well, most (wink, wink). One of the hardest things about kids and parties is picking the time. No two kids ever have the same nap time. So, some come a little more punchy than others, some a little more tired, some a little freaked out and some think it is the greatest ever. No matter, we love them all and hope to have some smaller play-dates based on better times. Overall, it was a very good party. Noah only got off the train to pick a different seat each time the train stopped. He rode it for an hour straight! I don't think he ever would have left the train. He went to bed that night saying Momma, tomorrow, more train, ride? Man, I love that kid. He fell asleep in my arms and when I went to lay him in his bed he said, train, whooooo.

As soon as I get permission, I'll put some more of the pictures up with the rest of the kids in them. Since my blog is public any yahoo can look at it, even though I only invite my friends and family to view it. I'll also try and get the second part of the Van Dusen trip up here too.

Things are quite busy with the house and we haven't even packed a box yet. Nope, not one. But, for an update - the roof is done, the mold is gone and the deck is repaired. My painter is amazing (ask me for a card if you need a painter) and the floors should go in next week. Then I think we'll be moving a little at a time, then a bigger move. Not sure, haven't thought that far ahead.

Hugs to all!

Noah's Birthday Party

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Van Dusen visit October 2008

We did so much while Grandma and Grandpa Van were out here, I had to break it up into a few parts.

Grandma and Grandpa joined us at My Gym. Noah goes here once or twice a week. His class is every Thursday morning at 9am, he loves it. If we get a chance to, we try to make it to open gym on Tuesday nights. It is about an hour long and we sing, learn a new gymnastic type technique, we play hard and then soft, sing again then head home. Noah loves it! I think Grandma and Grandpa did too!

My Gym


On Friday Grandpa went to Blizzcon with Daddy, so we all went to the Farmers Market and then the Pumpkin Patch. Noah and Lily were both very tired, they had an early morning, but Noah took it like a trooper and had fun. Lily? Well, see for yourself.

Pumpkin Patch


Noah's Birthday was on Saturday. I blew up a bunch of balloons the night before and put them in his room to wake up to. I also put streamers above his door so they covered the doorway. He had a blast and woke up yelling Momma, Balloons! It was really fun. Monte had to go to Blizzcon that day, but was not going to get there till late. We were waiting for the notary to come by for us to sign the papers for our NEW HOUSE. While we were waiting we had green eggs and (bacon). We went to Zoomars, the petting Zoo for another train ride. We did not get pictures this time. Strange, we all left without our cameras. Oh, well, we had fun.

WARNING: The photos you are about to see may gross you out. We are not to be held responsible for any reactions you may have (unless, of course, it is a laugh.)

Noah's Birthday


I am going to have to make another part of this here post. I still have a couple more albums to make and, well, I am tired. It was a big day today. We closed on the house.

Stay tuned for Part II of the Van Dusen visit.

Goodnight.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Ohh, I forgot.

We also stopped by the San Diego Zoo for about an hour. We are members and it was right there, so we decided to let Noah see his favorite animals. The Elephant and he has taken a liking to Giraffes too. Elephants are his number one, followed by Hippos, followed by bunnies. Bunnies? Go figure. Anyways, here are a couple pictures from Monte's camera.

More 10/4 and 10/5

Our weekend.

So, we had been talking about going to Balboa Park for a few weeks now and planned to go over Labor Day weekend. Something happened that had us cancel our plans, so we decided to go this weekend. We also thought we'd stay in San Diego, but chose not to. Instead be had a nice dinner and got a couple of cool trinkets for Noah.

Balboa Park is beautiful and has all of these Museums and gardens. We only hit the Museums, but we sure did hit them. We started off at the Model Train Museum - this was Noah's favorite of the weekend. We could barely pull him away from this button that he can push to make this toy train run around and around. We then grabbed lunch, we sat on the grass and had lunch while looking at a nice fountain and all sorts of dogs and kids walking by. We then went to the Natural History Museum. It was pretty neat. There were Dinosaurs and Sharks and just cool stuff. Noah liked the Dinasaurioio (He got the oioio from saying Cheerioioio's and he tacks it on to certain words - pretty cute.) and the Whale and the fish and the water.

Then we headed over to a Discovery type center. This was cool, at first. He was able to play with some neat sciency type stuff, but then he got his finger squished in this sentence tumbler type thing. He split the side of this thumb, right near the nail bed as well as bruised his thumb nail About 3/4 of his left thumb nail is a bruise. We are pretty sure he will lose it and it will be uncomfortable for a long while. Every time he rolled over Saturday night he woke up crying. So, we have this thumb all gauzed so if it hits anything he has some padding. It was horrible and looks pretty painful. (Though tonight while giving him a bath it bled a bit and I think that took some of the pressure off.) We then got some dinner on the way home. Oh, Noah did get a taste of an Astronaut Ice Cream Sandwich at the Science Museum.

Today we started a little late. Noah slept long, I am thinking from Saturday's two short naps and just the long day we got to sleep in a bit. We were all in great modds as we headed back down to San Diego for another full day of fun. We started off this time at the Automotinve Museum. You can see it in about ten minutes with an almost two year old, but we dragged it out a bit. It was pretty neat. I loved looking at all of the old cars and motorcycles. I saw a Cuntash - something I haven't seen in years, loved it! We then went to 1/2 of the Air and Space Museum. There was a Star Trek Exhibit. We decided to do that first then the rest of the Museum after lunch. Monte geeked out and we couldn't get any pictures. They took some for us, but we were not about to pay out the nose for some cute but silly pictures of us. We then headed towards the Sports Museum for lunch. We took a brief (very brief) look around. It was pretty boring for us. We like Sports and all, but it was a San Diego Sports Museum and well, we are from Chicago. GO SOX, BULLS, BEARS and BLACKHAWKS. We grabbed lunch and walked over to a grassy area with some shade.

We then had the best lunch ever. Lily got to roll all over two blankets. A bunch of leaf bugs decided to dine with us. It was a beautiful day. Oh and yeah, the San Diego Airport is right across the street basically and we got to watch a ton of planes come in for a landing. How cool is that? (Noah and Lily and I actually drove up to John Wayne on Thursday night for dinner. We grabbed some fast food (blech) and sat in a parking lot to watch the planes all come in for a landing. Best free show ever! Thank you Mandi for the idea. We'll be doing that a lot once we buy this house and have a more limited budget.) Noah really really loved watching the airplanes. After we had our lunch, Noah and Daddy ran around the grassy area while Lily had her lunch.

Then we headed back for the air and Space Museum to see the rest of the place. It was cool, all of these Museums are pretty small, nothing like the ones back home, but neat nonetheless. There were a few places where Noah could sit in some airplanes and check all sorts of things out. He did a pretty good job getting in and out of things with his limited mobility. He really is favoring his left thumb. He holds it out and is learning to get in and out of things while putting the back of his hand on things for balance. That is if he isn't coming up to me and saying 'Momma, hand?' and dragging me wherever it is he wants to go. Anyways, it was a fun weekend. We headed home early, ran a couple errands on the way home, gave the kids an early dinner and bath and then bed which leads me here. Up later than I want to be, but I am compelled to get these pictures out tonight. It may be the last post for awhile. We find out Monday (tomorrow) if this is happening or not by Wednesday. Then, well 6 contractors, two parties and about 5 weeks later we could be moving into a new house.

Enjoy the photos. Hopefully they'll be in a better order this time. We didn't get a lot of Lily this time. She was mostly just along for the ride/walk, but she did have fun. She loves watching her brother do anything.

October 4th and 5th.

Friday, October 3, 2008

The House.

Well, I got a chance to head over to the house and get a bunch of pictures. I also looked for water damage and found none. The rain on Monday was short, but it still was rain. We are expecting rain again tomorrow (Saturday) and I will hopefully get a chance to do a final walk-through before we sign the paperwork. We are expecting Wednesday to actually work. We got all of the paperwork on our end complete. We are just waiting for the sellers to sign off and the lenders to sign off and we are good to go.

I have a bunch of photos to give you the gist of what the place looks like. It is a 4 bedroom, has a bonus room, a den, a three car garage, a formal dining room and inside laundry room. You can see the house has not been updated since it was built in 1981. The carpet and tile in the foyer will be replaced and then of course paint everywhere. The rest will be remodeled one room at a time. Just like we did here. Have a nice cringe/laugh at the tile. Woooh Nelly!


25062 Paseo Arboleda

Thursday, October 2, 2008

More kickin' back at Casa de Krol and some news!

So, I took a couple of shots today of Noah and Lily and found some older ones from September. I hope to make and put up some older albums, but life will be getting a bit busy around here. So, if I get them up - woohoo, if not, well it may be a month or so before I get a chance to do much.

The NEWS is we bought a house! We are praying to close on the 8th but the latest will be the 13th. We have been apprehensive about sharing the news because we are buying a foreclosed home and the banks are cautious and SLOW. We pray for the rain to hold up until after we put on the new roof and get the deck sealed. There is a lot of work to be done. We are really praying that this will all happen and happen well and according to God's plan. There will be a final walk through and I don't know when that is. If it rains and we walk in and are standing in water, well this may not be the house for us. It is a little scary to not know about the weather. I haven't taken many pictures because I have been getting measurements and dealing with six different contractors. If we don't close by the 8th we have to fork over more cash to keep our lower interest rate and I have to get on the phone and reschedule the six different contractors. It also puts us back as to when we'll move. When we go through the walk through I'll take some pictures and try to get some of the before shots up here. Overall, the house is wonderful, it is huge, has a big yard and we are really excited. We'll be doing updates on pretty much everything (I'll try to get a picture of the fabulous tile in the foyer and the showers. Hahaha)

We are planning on renting our home and we 'think' we have a renter lined up. We'll keep you posted on how that comes along.

For now, here are my cute kids and hubby!

More kickin' back