Go, Go, Goers!

Sometimes I feel like a broken record, stating how busy we are.  But wow, the last two weeks fell into the uber-busy category.  Remember all of those highs and lows from early March?  They just keep coming...I would like if we could maintain an even ride around here, so we can catch our breath once in a while.  But, I have a feeling the next few months are going to be a wild time, no matter what we hope for! Luckily, we were able to squeeze in a fun play date with some new friends last weekend.  Ellie and Lydia (sisters) came over and boy, did those three girls have a blast playing dress up, princesses, shopping, etc. You name it, they did it!  Their mom, Amanda, and I even had a chance to chat for a few hours - it's always fun meeting new people in the area!  None of the girls wanted the play date to be over, but Amanda let them know that Ava could come over soon - maybe a pizza and wine night on an upcoming Friday! Always great to have something fu...

The kids at Ava's pre-school take turns bringing in items for Show & Tell.  Usually, there's some sort of direction that goes along with it...like bring in three items that starts with a certain letter of the alphabet.  The first time Ava got the bucket, she was assigned the letter "A".  Easy peasy!  This past week, she was assigned the letter "I".  One word...Impossible.  It seems that everything that begins with the letter "I" melts.  It took four adults 15 minutes to come up with three items, and some of those were stretching it a bit.  Thank goodness for fake food!  We were able to put in a fake "I"ce cream cone, a bucket of fake "I"ce cream, and an "I"nk pen.  The pen was stretching it a bit... It made me feel bad for anyone who gets the letter "Q" or "X".  Our luck...we'll get both! :) We had Ava's school conference on Monday night, and turns out, she's doing great!  One th...

Some weeks are dull, where nothing extraordinary happens.  And then there are some weeks like last week...most of the events were fun and exciting, so at least we had that going for us. The one sad thing?  Spanky's passing, of course.  The house still seems a bit empty without him - like the two remaining dogs just aren't enough.  (Don't get me wrong - they ARE enough...we won't be adding any additional four-legged friends to the house at this time!)  But there have been many tears shed this week over the loss of our sweet Spanky. Instead, let's focus on the positive!  We listed our house last Friday,  February 22.  We had our first showing on Sunday afternoon, and then it was a whirlwind few days of showings.  On Tuesday, we had four showings, where one was a repeat on the same day.  By Wednesday night, we had three offers, all above asking price!  After a few counters, we accepted an offer, and now are pending the sale, based ...

This is a post that I'm not very excited to write.  As you probably know, our oldest dog, Spanky, had struggled with health issues (ear infections, seizures) his whole life, and recently, his health had severely deteriorated.  He hadn't been eating, his ear infection was so severe his face was swollen, he had a hard time getting up the stairs, and he very rarely wanted to play.  Last week we got a few tail wags from him, and he ate a few bowls of food, but it was a 50-50 chance that he would actually keep the food down. On Thursday, we made the decision that if he wasn't any better by this weekend, we were going to put him down.  I know Scott didn't want to make that decision as Spanky was a very special dog to him - he truly was his little buddy, following him around everywhere, wanting to be wherever Scott was, and howling his sadness whenever Scott would leave him. Throughout Friday night, it became clear that Spanky wasn't going to have a miraculous recovery...

The good news: The house will be listed this Friday, 2/22 - hoping that the third time is a charm for this listing! The house projects leading up to the listing are winding down, and now it's just time for a good cleaning and some de-cluttering.  The fireplace renovation looks great - way to go, Scott! We survived a one-hour wait for dinner on Valentine's Day, even though we had reservations.  We made friends at the bar, so it wasn't all bad... Ava and I managed not to kill each other while signing her name to her Valentine's Day cards for pre-school.  You'd think that with a super short name like hers, it wouldn't be a big deal.  But, it was painful.  Another reminder that I would not make a good teacher...lack o'patience! At the same time we were signing her name to the cards, she was reading the list of classmates to me.  And I mean reading !  She read the names to me in order that they were on the sheet!  And we've been working on soundi...

I have to say...our new TV is pretty awesome.  Normally I wouldn't say that, as I don't want to encourage excessive TV watching, but this TV deserves those accolades. We hadn't bought a new TV for seven years or so (nothing was broken, so why would we?) but a few months ago, we decided to start looking for something bigger, brighter and shinier.  And we found it!  I love, love, love how easy it is to stream from Netflix, Skype with my parents, and watch movies in 3D.  I even found an app that helps teach reading!  I am constantly amazed at how technology evolves and changes our lives.  It'll be interesting to see what the differences will be in seven more years... Even with this fabulous new addition, I still cherish the rare silence that I sometimes find in our house.  Yesterday afternoon, Scott took Ava on some errands, all three dogs were sitting quietly, the TV was off, the washer wasn't running, and it was QUIET.  I sat in a patch of sun on...

I often feel that our lives (and our office) is overrun with paper.  It can become overwhelming, as things get misplaced, notifications go unread, etc.  This past week I took both Monday and Friday off of work, and got that paper monster under control!  The biggest pile to go through and determine what to discard was Ava's preschool craft projects.  She's brought home so many cute crafts over the last several months, and it breaks my heart to throw them away, but if I don't choose my favorites and discard the rest, we'd be up to our eyeballs in glitter, construction paper and paint.  For now, it's under control and the office is on its way to being neat and tidy again! In addition to the fun crafts that Ava is bringing home, we're also beginning to see some homework.  I am very grateful that we're not dealing with the super heavy-duty homework yet...I'm beginning to have flashbacks of the hours of calculus (not sure why I'm fixated on that - after ...