Cameron's 2nd Birthday

Even though I am a few days late, Happy Birthday to Cameron. I cannot believe that she is two years old already. It seems like just yesterday she was born. The last 2 years have flown by. She is such a special girl. She is very independent, funny, caring, and super duper lovable. We didn't really do much to celebrate but I think she had a good birthday anyway.

Happy Birthday Cameron, we love more than you will ever know.

Follow Up to Thanksgiving....

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know a lot of the time I seem to be negative Nancy and for the most part I am. I am still adjusting to being in Texas all alone and have it hard to really made any genuine friends down here, so I am so incredibly lonely.

So instead of my tale of woe, I want to take a few minutes and say what I am thankful for and I have many, many things to be truly thankful for.

1. I am thankful for the best husband, who is incredibly loving and hardworking.
2. I am thankful that my girls have such an amazing daddy.
3. I am thankful that God found me worthy of such truly incredible kiddos.
4. I am thankful for my awesome family.
5. I am thankful for better friends than I deserve.
6. I am thankful for a warm(or cool) house to live in.
7. I am thankful that we have enough.
8. I am thankful that I have transportation to get where I need to go.
9. I am thankful for Olivia's preschool and fostering her love of learning.
10. I am thankful for Texas.

I could go on and on, but I just wanted everyone to know that I am not as bitter of a person as I might seem to be. I know that this time of year is hard because as many people are giving thanks, a lot more people are struggling. Struggling to be able to provide necessities for their families, much less indulge them in frivolous gifts. I find it hard for me to draw the line as far as presents are concerned. I want my kids to have everything they want(doesn't every parent) but I also don't want them to feel entitled. They have way more than a lot of kids and I want them to know that. I started this year making Olivia donate toys before her birthday and Christmas in order to make room for new toys and hopefully to teach her that donating to the less fortunate is a good thing.

Ok, enough of my rambling. Our Thanksgiving dinner turned out really good. The food was very delicious. The only thing that went wrong was I forgot to put out the cranberry sauce and no one even missed it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Wow, I have been slacking...

Wow, it has been a while since I updated. I guess that is because not much has been going on around here. I cannot believe that tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Where does time go? Next week is Cameron's birthday, again where does time go? Let's see, what has been going on? Not much, Daniel working too much, Olivia is still loving school, Cameron is learning new things everyday and I am trying my best to keep everything running smoothly.

Tomorrow is a going to be a hard day for me I think. Even though we have been never been much of a big family gathering for Thanksgiving type of family, it is still going to be very hard for me to be so far away from family and friends. And to put the icing on the cake, Daniel has to work. Daniel's aunt and uncle recently moved to Cypress, TX(which is about 30 minutes from us) and we are having them over for dinner. That's right, I said we are having them over. I have never attempted to cook anything that resembles a Thanksgiving dinner, so this should be interesting, to say the least. And like I mentioned before, Daniel has to work so it's all on me. I will let you know how it all turns out....

I had some pictures I was going to upload but it Blogger doesn't seem to want to cooperate. I will try and get some uploaded later.

Happy Halloween

Last Thursday Olivia had her party at school. Needless to say she was EXCITED. She constantly talked about it for the few days leading up to the big day and woke up extra early on the day of to make sure we weren't late getting to school. She got lots of goodies to bring home and had a good day.

Then yesterday was offically Halloween. Again, Olivia was very excited to go trick or treating. We put a bowl of candy on our porch for any trick or treaters that we may encounter. Not sure how many came to the door but I know that we got a lot of candy and it was all gone when we got back. Our kiddos made out like bandits in the candy department. We will probably still be eating candy at Christmas.

Pumpkin Patch here we come...

Daniel and I had talked about taking the girls to a pumpkin patch before Halloween arrived. Of course, I had these grand ideas of an Eckert'sish type of farm. Well, I was sadly disappointed. We found a cute little patch at a local church here in Humble. It was cute but only occupied 10 minutes of our time. But either way, we made the most of it and had a fun time.

A Reader in the Making

Olivia loves, loves, loves books. We read to her all the time and she just soaks it up. She has a few of the beginning reading books(#1) that we read. Lately though, she has been "reading" them to herself. She is very good at it. I know most of it is memorization as she doesn't get every word right, but she is definitely on the right track

Footloos, Footloose, Kick off your Sunday shoes...

Julianne Hough doesn't have anything on this girl.

*She better outgrow the tabletop dancing real quick :-).

Playing Catch Up...

Sorry for the delay in posts. We haven't been super busy but the days definitely seem to get away from me. Let's see, what has been going on. Daniel's grandpa Bill passed away last week, so we were home for a week for that. It was nice to go home but not for the circumstances for which we were there. Since Cooper has seizures, I don't feel comfortable leaving him at home for someone to come and let out 2x a day. So, not only did we have all of our stuff to take home, but we had both dogs as well. It took some adjusting but the dogs traveled VERY well and our girls traveled better than either of us could have expected. We definitely hit the kiddo jackpot with our little ladies. Their exceptional travels earned both of them new toys :-). While we were home, we got to do some of the things that we so desperately miss about St. Louis. We got to spend time with family, go to the zoo, and spend time with our best friends. Being home makes me miss our "old" life, but I know that we are in the place we are meant to be in. This trip home was a trial run for our trip home over Christmas, which gasp, is in two months.

Let's see what else. Olivia is still LOVING school. I am so very happy that we found a placement for her that she is thriving in. Daniel has been working a new schedule for the past month or so that has gotten both of us spoiled. He was 4 10's. We got used to the 3 day weekends. But this week he goes back to a M-F gig with every third Friday off. I am very anxious to see how it goes and see many late nights this new schedule creates.

I am getting excited for the upcoming holiday season. Anyone who knows me knows I look forward to Christmas every year. It takes every ounce of self control I have to hold off until the Friday after Thanksgiving to start decorating for Christmas. I have zero interior decorating abilities so I am hoping I can make our decorations look nice instead of gaudy. I have been trying to plan a little something for Cameron's birthday. That is probably one of the biggest disadvantages to being so far away from family, no one to come to birthday parties. Oh well, we will make the best of the situation and her birthday will be great.

Alrighty, enough of my rambling. Hopefully I will have some blog worthy stuff to blog about soon.

Just a little picture to get you through until next post :-)

First Day of Preschool

Well, another year of preschool is upon us. Olivia has been talking about going back to school since the last day of school last year. I hope her love of learning continues throughout her eduactional life. She was so excited to go on Tuesday that she was up bright and early at 7:00, ready to eat breakfast, get dressed and leave. There are 16 kids in her class, 14 of which are new to her. A couple kids that were in her class last year are also in her class this year so that is nice. She goes from 9-12 M, T and Th. They have the option stay until 2:30 but she doesn't stay very often. Last year, she would stay 2 days a month when they had special lunch for the kids. Well, this year I was going to follow that same routine. Except today when I went to pick her up and she realized she wasn't staying for lunch, she started crying hysterically. I am sure all of you are asking, if she wants to stay why can't she. It is relatively costly for her to stay in extended care 3 days a week all month, so last year Daniel and I made the decision that she can stay for special lunch days which occur 2 days a month. But after today, I realized how important it is to her for her to stay and eat with her friends. So after talking to the director, I think I am going to start letting her stay 1 day a week, which is still costly but I think we can swing it, especially since I know how important it is to her. I took her after school today to buy a lunchbox because if she is going to stay 1 day a week she has to take her lunch those days. Luckily, Target has all their school stuff  50% off so she got a super cute Hello Kitty lunchbox on the cheap. And on a side note, CJ got a lunchbox too because she feel in love with a pink monkey one, although she doesn't know what she is supposed to use it for, she just likes to put it around her neck.

When we went to meet Olivia's teachers last week, I didn't get that warm and fuzzy feeling I was hoping for but I am hopeful that as the progresses I will warm up to her teachers. I am encouraged about the school year and I hope that Olivia's continues to be excited to go.

Baby It's Hot Outside

I thought living in St. Louis area my whole life, I thought I understood what hot was. Midwestern humidity is nothing to joke about. But I didn't have to slightest clue what heat was until I have experienced the last month plus in Texas. The heat here is oppressive. Today marked the 35th day in a row of 100+ temps. and the 275th day of no measurable rainfall. This past weekend, Houston set a new record heat-109. It has never been that hot in Houston, EVER.  I have talked to several people who when I tell them we are from St. Louis, the first thing they say is "I'm sorry about this heat, it is not usually like this." I hope they are right and this summer is just a fluke. We could really use some rain and some heat relief.

*According to the local weatherman, starting Thursday we will rain and cooler temps through the holiday. Please cross all your crossables that this actually happens.

A little of this and a little of that...

Whew, it is has been a busy last couple of weeks.  Nothing has really been going on but is seems that we have been super busy. Daniel's mom and sister were here at the end of July-beginning of August. We had fun when they were here. We went to the Museum of Natural Science, or the Dinosaur Museum as Olivia calls it and we also went to Moody Gardens in Galveston. It was a lot of fun. Then my mom, dad, sister and nieces came for a few days after Daniel's mom and sister left. We didn't do much while they were here except for veg out in the house, partly because it was hot and partly because Cameron had 2 days of diarrhea and my nieces weren't quite feeling up to par either. Even though we didn't do much of anything, it was still really nice to see everyone. It made our house feel more like a home.

Since we have been company free we have been working at unpacking, finding a home for and throwing away stuff, lots of stuff. Today we cleaned out our garage and we have so much trash, I am afraid that the trash men are going to leave a nasty note. But we got the garage cleaned out enough to be able to put our cars in there, so HOORAY for that!!!  Our next project to tackle is the dining room and study and finding some sort of workable toy storage for all the kids toys. But all in all, we have been making good progress.

We have our dogs back now as well. I forgot what it was like to take care of a dog and it is taking some remembering. I love them and they have fallen right in sync but the amount of hair Cooper produces is unreal. We have to keep our furniture covered because otherwise, I would have to take a lint brush to it several times a day to stay on top of this shedding. Daniel went out yesterday and purchased the Furminator from Petco. It was like $60 bucks, but it may well be some of the best $60 bucks we have spent lately. It gets the real fine downy fur of Cooper's and not only helps keep him cool I am sure, keeps him looking svelte but it seems to maybe, just maybe cut down on the shedding.

Let's see, what else. After much debate, we have decided that we need to find a babysitter for rare occasions that we would need one. My friend Misty is more than willing to help out and watch the girls, but I don't want to take advantage of her kindness. So, we found a girl in our neighborhood and "interviewed" her yesterday. She seems like a good girl and I am excited, if not a little afraid, to have a babysitter watch our girls. I say afraid only because we have only ever let family or friends that we consider family as babysitters, so this hiring a sitter thing is new to both of us.

A few weeks ago one of the neighbors from up the street stopped by to invite us to a happy hour at their home. Daniel didn't really want to go, but I convinced him that it would be a good time. So, we went and it was a good time. There were kids for our girls to play with, everyone there was very welcoming and we all got along really well. That is until CJ was sitting on one of the fabric kitchen stools and decided it would be a perfect time to puke all over the place. I guess that was a make it or break it in the introductions department. We have been invited back to their house, so I guess they were telling the truth when they said it was no big deal.

I think that is really all that has been going on with us, like I said nothing to really speak of but we have been keeping ourselves busy.

Finally!!!

Sorry for the delay in posts. We have had a busy couple of weeks. We closed on and moved into our house. We hired movers to move our stuff and all in all, they were good. I have a suspicion that they might have helped themselves to a few unopened toys that were in our garage but I don't have anyway to prove it so I just hope that I find them when we are cleaning out the garage in the next few weeks. I believe that while they were moving our stuff in the house, they had the doors open and a lizard wanted to make a home within ours. Luckily I found it on the wall late last week and caught it in a butterfly net and put it back into it's natural habitat.

We are slowly but surely getting through the mountain of boxes. Our office is full of them as is our garage. Our next project to tackle is the garage so we can get our cars in there and get them out of the heat.

We have family coming this Friday and will be here until next Saturday. We are so excited to have family down and even more excited that we have a place for everyone to stay. A little icing on the family visit cake is that we get our dogs back. I can't lie, I have kinda liked not having the responsibility of taking care of the dogs only in the respect that we can leave and be gone for hours and not have to worry about coming home to let the dogs out, cleaning up the endless amounts of hair that Cooper sheds and Lucy's fickle ways. But I do miss them, I really do. Especially after meeting our neighbor last night and his yellow lab Foster. Olivia misses the dogs so bad it hurts I think. My mom has been more than gracious to keep them and take such loving care of them as long as she has.

Here are a few pics of our house-the walls are sparse and the floor is littered with toys but you get the idea.





Pity Party for One

Disclaimer-this post is not going to be cheery and upbeat. So if you don't want or don't care about my momentary complaining, don't read.

I try and not put a lot of complaints into my entries as this blog is meant as a way to keep up with what is going on with our entire family and who really cares anyway, but today that is exactly what I am doing. I have a lot on my mind and don't really have another outlet to vent.

Today is a really hard day for me. My best friend is having her baby today and as over the moon happy for them that I am, I am so very sad that I can't be there to celebrate with them. This is just another celebration or milestone that I am missing out on. I missed both my niece's birthday parties this year and I am sure that there will other things that I am unable to attend due to the miles between us. It sucks, it totally sucks.

Another sore spot is how much Daniel works. When we made the decision to come down here we were under the impression that there would be a few months(March-April) that he would have a few long days due to the shut down that was taking place at the plant. Well, that doesn't seem to be the case. It is the middle of July and just since last Friday he has worked 24 hours of OT. Monday and Tuesday night he didn't leave work until 9 pm.And this is every week, he works late at least 3 nights a week. So not only am I left with no friends and no adult contact all day but then I am left as the solo parent to do all the dinner/bath and bedtime routines as well. That gets old real fast. I keep hearing that this situation(the long hours) is temporary but I have been hearing that for the last 7 months. I usually end up eating dinner by myself and I am sick and tired of it. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful that he has a good, secure job that allows me to stay at home but I honestly don't know how much longer I can deal with it.

Living here is another unfixable situation I think. We made the decision as a family to do what we viewed was best for our family in terms of allowing Daniel to advance at AB. I never in a million years would imagined how much of a test it would be. I am SO lonely here. The walls of this craptastic apartment seem to close in a little bit more everyday, I have no friends, well 1 friend but I think we are only friends because of default, I have no way to doing anything for myself because Daniel works so much and if he is off, he is so tired that he can't keep his eyes open. We close on our new house on Friday but that is a whole other source of stress. I haven't been sleeping at night because I lye awake worrying about how we will make all our bills due to the increase in everything, mortgage pymt., water, power, property taxes, the list goes on. Now the rational part of me knows that we will be just fine, we may just have to cut back on luxury things(which we need to do anyway). People keep telling me that once we move I will make friends and blah, blah, blah. I am not so confident. Like I said earlier, I have 1 friend, who actually lives right around the corner from where we are moving, but it is not her job to make sure I get out and make friends and with Daniel working all the time I don't see us standing out in our yard socializing with our neighbors like we used to back in Illinois.

I just don't know where to turn anymore. I can't talk to Daniel because as hard as he tries to understand, or even say he does, there is no way he can. He has adult contact with people his own age, he gets to go out and eat lunch everyday with people whom he doesn't have to cut their food up or make sure it's not too hot and he has a list a mile long of things to keep his mind distracted from what is going on at home. I feel as though he is under so much stress at work that he doesn't have time to listen to me, so where does that leave me? I will tell you, it leaves me being bitter, resentful and angry most of the time.

I could go on and on with my random ramblings but if you have read this far, I am sure you are sick and tired of the complaining and have probably tuned out. And honestly, I wouldn't blame you. As most people have politely told us, we decided to come here so we have to deal with the consequences.

A Whirlwind of a Week

Sorry for the delay in posting. We have been busy little bees. This past week our very good friends John and Kendra and their boys Logan and Sam came to Houston for their summer vacation. We were so looking forward to seeing them all and Olivia was more than excited to see some old friends. They arrived on Tuesday and stayed until Sunday morning. They arrived late Tuesday afternoon, so all we had on tap was to go grab dinner and then hang out and catch up. On Wednesday we planned on going to Space Center Houston and then to the beach. The Space Center was fun but not very kid friendly for kids below the age of 10. Logan and Olivia had a really good time though, so that it was worth it. After that we headed to Galveston to go the beach. Thanks to Kendra doing some research on the best beaches in Galveston, we found the perfect beach. Not crowded and a little off the beaten path. There was a tropical storm out in the gulf that made for some really good waves. Everyone fully enjoyed the beach. Cameron was fearless and would have spent all day in the water had we let her.

On Thursday we went to the Children's Museum and the Downtown Aquarium. Both of these attractions were nice except the Museum was overran with Kid's Camps. That night we went out for John's Birthday. I won't tell how old he is, but for any of you who know John and Kendra, be sure to ask next time you see either of them ;-). 

Friday we went to the Houston Zoo. Daniel was unable to join us on the adventure because he had to work. We were only able to last a couple of hours due to the excessive heat.

Saturday we went to the Museum of Natural Science. We all really enjoyed it, lots of stuff to interest the kids as well as the adults.

We had a whirlwind week but it was wonderful to see "family."  In my infinite forgetful self, I took zero pictures of all our adventures. I got some video of the girls playing in the splashpad at the Aquarium. So as I wait on Kendra to send me pics, I will leave you with some video(s) of the girl at the Splashpad.

Houston We Have a Contract....

It seems like it has taken forever,but we finally have a contract on a house!!! We have already had inspections, negotiated the tre problems that needed addressed and had our appraisal today. So barring something unexpected, we are set to close July 15. I cannot tell you how good it feels it know that there is an end in sight and a new beginning right around the corner. We already have company planned to come down and we couldn't be happier.

Here are a few pics of Chateau De Regenhardt-

front of the house, has cute curb appeal.

living room

beautiful kitchen. too bad I am not much of a cook

cute backyard. not what we are used to, but will be big enough for the kids, both K-9 and human.

Sisterly Love

Having a sister myself, I know first hand that sisterly love is very hard to come by until later in life. That holds true in our house as well. Usually Olivia can be found yelling at Cameron, taking toys away from her or trying to pull her around like a ragdoll. On the same token, Cameron can usually be found stealing Olivia's toys, pulling her hair or just annoying her anyway she can. Lately though, they have been playing more together. It is usually short lived and in ends as soon as Cameron takes the toy away from Olivia. The other night they were playing Ring Around The Rosie. It was so cute and that is one game that doesn't seem to start a fight.

*As I type this I can hear Daniel telling Olivia "no, don't pick her up, let go of her arm."

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

We have had an interesting couple of days. First and foremost, thanks to my extremely gracious dad and watching our K-9 children, my mom was able to come down for a couple days and spend some time with us. It was nice to see her. So while she was her, we had scheduled an appointment to go to the Design Center and pick out all the pretties for our house.

That appointment proved to be a real eye opener into why not to build a house. When we initially talked with and every time since when we have talked with the salesman at the model house, we were told that we were getting certain upgrades in our house that we were planning on building and they were already built into the price that we were given. We were trucking right along with picking out different things for the house, all of which we knew would add some money to our bottom line. When we got to the flooring section, we were left speechless. We were told that the standard tile would be 18" tile set on the diagonal. Um, that is not correct. The standard is 12'' laid straight. First of all, the 12" tile was very cheap, ugly color and very thin. So there was no way that was going into any house of ours. We picked out a nice 18" tile and found that it added about $8000 to the price of the house. And then adding the diagonal pattern was another $1500-$2000. Along with that, we were told that the standard tile was a Frieze carpet, again not correct. We have dealt with builder grade carpet before and if I never see it again, it will be too soon. So we decided to upgrade that as well. That upgrade added another $3000 to the price of house. I know what you must be thinking, aren't we a bunch of brats for thinking we can get upgraded flooring for nothing. Had we not been told that the upgrades were already included and there would be no extra cost we would have been happy to pay for them. Essentially we were lied to to get a contract on the house and then when they had us, they did a bait and switch. About the time we were trying to digest the flooring and knowing that this was not the end of the discussion, our realtor showed up. We quickly brought him up to speed and he was under the same impression we were about what we had going in. He too felt lied to. We talked with the sales manager and he was a jerk to the say the least. Gave us the customary run around about how he doesn't have any more money to give on the house, we are getting a base house with upgrades at our cost, blah, blah, blah. He left a really bad taste in our mouths. We quickly finished up the design appointment since we had already spent 4 hours there and at this point we were unsure if we would move forward with building but if we did, we didn't want to make another trip out there.

After the appointment we briefly talked with our realtor and he suggested maybe taking a step back and looking at some more resales one last time to see if anything tripped our trigger. So we ditched our plans for Tuesday of taking my mom out the Galleria and looked at houses yet again. It is a good thing we did. We found a house that we are in love with, that offers 95% of what we were planning on putting in the new build at a cheaper price.  After seeing this house and what it had to offer, we decided to cancel the contract for the new build. We have put an offer on this new house we found and are waiting to hear. I don't plan on posting any pics or info. about it until after inspections and I know 100% that we will close. After I have spilled the beans on the last two houses and they have fallen through, I have become a bit superstitious.

Stay tuned.....

FInally making progress.....

Today while I would out and about, I decided to drive by the location where our house is going to be built. Orginally we were told that at the middle of May when we signed all the papers that they had just begun pulling all the permits, and so at that point in time, it would be another 4 weeks before anything was done to the lot. But today when I drove by I was pleasantly susprised to see that all the trees had been cleared and it seemed as though there was a utility van there. So, maybe they are a few weeks early which means they will finish a few weeks early.

A New Member of the Family

To a follow up to my previous post about my car, we bought a new one on Saturday. We picked mine up from Midas and Daniel drove it home and said it was running good. He looked online on how to get the check engine light to go off, which he did and said that since it was running good it was time to get rid of it before it started acting up again. We went to a Mazda dealership as we had been doing research on various SUV's and the Mazda CX-9 got very good reviews. I had found a used one at this particular dealership but called only to find out it was sold. We went up there anyway in hopes of finding another used one that we liked. WIth the options we wanted, they didn't have any used CX-9's that fit all the criteria we had our hearts set on. So, we ended up getting a 2011 with 13 miles on it. Daniel made the sales guy drive it around the block to get the odometer to change from 13 to 14. We were at the dealer for 7 hours and even though the air was broken and it was every bit of 85-90 degrees inside, the girls were VERY well behaved and made me very proud. I am still a little freaked out to be taking on a car payment after about 12-18 months without one, but am so happy to have a bigger car and car that is under warranty.

Here is our new "baby"

Nothing is Ever Easy

A few weeks ago, my car started acting squirelly. Daniel thought he had isolated the problem and we got the part to fix it. Along with replacing this part, he put in 6 new spark plugs. Well, these two things did not fix the problem and my car is pretty much undriveable. I have been without a car for almost 2 weeks and I am so very much over it. We took my car to Midas to get a diagnostic test to see what was all wrong with it, get an estimate for repairs and to help us determine if we were going to pay to fix it or just trade it off. Midas got back to Daniel yesterday and repairs would total $900. So we said thank you but no thank you. We have decided to trade it off for something bigger which we have been toying with for several weeks. But this poses two problems-1.) We will loose money on trade in value because my car barely runs and 2.) the car I am interested in buying is in Clear Lake which is about a 30-45 mintue drive and we know my car won't make it that far. And the biggest problem of all, the title to the car is in a safe which is in the garage. And our garage is a sea of boxes which we will have to clean out to find the title. I need a car yesterday and I don't know if we will be able to find the title this weekend in order to purchase a new one on Monday.

So I guess the moral of this blog post is, we just get our house sold and then have to pick up a car payment which we were not wanting at all. I guess that is life and there are worse problems out there, but still not an ideal situation.

When we finally get around to purchasing a new car(believe you me, it will be Monday or sooner so I can hopefully save what little bit of sanity I have remaining) I will post pictures.

Hope everyone has a safe and joyous holiday weekend!!

Adios Maryville.....

Well, the day has finally arrived, we closed on our house in Maryville today. It is a little bittersweet. That is the house were we started our married life together, the house we brought our babies home to, and the house that we have so loved for 7 years. But all good things must come to an end I suppose. We are very happy to be done with the double bills though I can tell you that. I think the new owners are a young thirty something couple with a couple of dogs, so hopefully they treat the house with as much love as we did. I hope they are good, courteous neighbors.

Onward and upward!!

Survey says......

So as most of you know, we have been looking for a house to purchase down here for months, literally months. Ever since we found out we were moving here we have been scouring the Internet trying to find the "perfect" house. The last month or so we have been meeting with our realtor a lot and looking at homes. With stalking the Internet and seeing houses in person, we have looked at well over 100 homes. A few weeks ago we found what we thought was "the one". So we made an offer on it and long story short, we did not get it. I am a firm believer in things happen for a reason, so we just chalked it up to it wasn't meant to be.

So fast forward to this past week. We looked again on Thursday and even though we found a couple resales we liked, none really tripped our trigger. While we were out we stumbled into a model home of one of the premier builders in Houston. We looked at the model, or should I say we fell in love with the model. We discussed it with our realtor and briefly talked to the sales guy. We weighed the pros and cons of a new build vs. a resale. After much deliberation, we have decided to build a house!! We may be crazy but it seems like the right thing to do. The price per square footage was much better in a new build vs.a resale.

On Saturday we went back to the sales office and spoke at length with the sales agent. Turns out they were getting ready to build a spec house in the exact floor plan we wanted on the lot we wanted. So perfect wouldn't ya say? Not only were they getting ready to build a spec home, they had already planned to add a lot of options that we would not necessarily have added(due to the cost) but will end up getting because of the spec house option. Today we went back and signed the sales contract and again confirmed the options. Since ground has not been broken yet, we get to pick everything from the brick color to the paint color and everything in between. Today we got to pick the brick color. You might think that picking brick for a house is no big deal, but when a dozen samples with four bricks on each sample, it gets kinda blurred. We picked what we think will be the perfect color, hopefully we are right.

They are supposed to break ground in about 4 weeks, so as we navigate this house building journey, hopefully you will travel with us to see how progress is coming along. I will post pictures and updates very frequently.

this is the first picture of our new house, per say. This is the lot on which our house will be built.

Parent's Tea

Today at Olivia's preschool they hosted a Parent's Tea. It consisted of eating cinnamon rolls and grapes with the children. It was quite cute and Olivia was very excited. This is just one more reason why we love her preschool.

the video is a little grainy and not the best I have ever taken, as the screaming kid you hear in the background is Cameron. The lady in the pink striped shirt is one of her teachers-Mrs. Marylee.

This and That

Wow, the end of April is a week away. Where does time go? April has been a busy month for us. Daniel has been working a lot like usual. Olivia is still LOVING school. Cameron is growing and learning new things everyday. And me, well I am just trying to keep my head above water trying to learn to navigate this new city. Daniel turned the big 3-0 a week ago and he had a great birthday. His mom was able to fly down and spend 5 days with us. It was so nice to see a friendly face and I know she enjoyed her time here. I hope the girls enjoy Easter even though we won't be around family. My birthday is Monday but not really planning anything special. And finally the big news around the Regenhardt house this month, drum roll please......Our house is under contract and we are scheduled to close on May 26!!!!!! There was some question earlier this week as to whether or not the buyers were going to be able to move forward but we found out on Good Friday that they are moving forward. So now we are on the hunt for our 'dream' house down here. We have 3 good contenders and are planning on looking again next week. Hopefully a contract will follow shortly.

We hope everyone has a joyous Easter!!!

Accidental Beauty

Last Sunday we decided to go out for a Sunday drive(are we old or what). We chose to drive up to Lake Conroe just to check it out. On the way up there, we went a little too far so we had to turn around and go back the way we came. On the way back to our orginal destination we found a beautiful Blue Bonnet farm. Apparently, Blue Bonnets are a big deal in Texas. They aren't as pretty as they usually are this time of year due to the absence of rainfall lately. But either way, they make for a great backdrop.

A Trip to the Zoo

Today we took the girls to the zoo. I discovered a month or so ago that the first full weekend of the month Bank of America cardholders can get into various museums and zoos in each state for free. Houston Zoo is one of those free admissions so sign us up for that. Needless to say it was BUSY. I think that is due to a lot of factors not just the free weekend. The zoo was really nice, Daniel says not as nice as STL zoo but I enjoyed it. It was well shaded, which is good since we are about the palest white people I have seen down here. I think Olivia and Cameron had a good time, even though Olivia wouldn't let us stay at one animal more than like 2 minutes.

This little peanut is 2 weeks old. H/She is sooo cute.

Cameron was dreamin of all the animals she got to see.

Children's Museum

Daniel has been working A LOT lately, he usually works late 3 out of 5 weeknights and has been working almost every weekend. So this past Thursday he took a half day off. He picked Olivia up from school, which she was estatic about. Cameron and I met them for lunch except we ended up having to leave because Cameron was being TERRIBLE. So Daniel and Olivia had a nice father/daughter lunch. After naptime(for everyone but me) we headed downtown to the Museum District to try out the Children's Museum. On Thursday nights it is Family Night which equals free admission. The museum was very hands on, remined us of The Magic House. As cute and fun as the museum was I am glad we didn't pay for admission.