Part 2

Jared's room got painted a nice bright blue, and our living room got painted a butter yellow. It was great - the grandparents handled the painting while Steve and I got to do fun things like curtain shopping. I think I would rather poke myself in the eye with a fork than go curtain shopping again!

The movers came to the apartment to move our big furniture, and they were really impressive! Everyone was good and super fast. I didn't hear any complaints about moving the furniture down 2 flights of steps, and everything arrived at the new house in good shape.

Unfortunately for the sellers, the washing machine died 4 days before closing, so they gave us some money to buy ourselves a new one. That way we could buy the one that we wanted. Luckily, we hit the Labor Day sales, and a got neat high-efficiency top loader at a good price. We also got a patio set, a big screen TV (which Steve and I promised ourselves as soon as we moved out of the apartment), a gas grill, and a charcoal grill.

Steve did a great job cleaning out the apartment, and I did tear up a bit during my final walkthrough. The apartment had served us well for over 9 years, although now that I am in the new house, I don't miss it at all.

Jared had some great quality time with the grandparents when they were here. He was always going for walks and meeting the neighbors. Steve and I were stuck inside unpacking, so we were a little late meeting people. Although a family down the street has a 4 year old girl and a 2 year old boy. We've met up with them a bit, and they are so nice. I came home one day to a trash bag full of little boy clothes on my front porch from the mom down the street. She said her son had grown out of them, so we could use the clothes for Jared - how sweet! :)

Our neighborhood is near the Severn River, and we have 2 community beaches and a pier. The first time that Steve, Jared, and I walked down to the beach, we did fine. One the way home, we got some streets confused, and it took us 30 minutes to find our way home, when it only took us 10 minutes to get there! :) After we moved in, the neighborhood also had a big picnic at one of the beaches, so it was nice to meet some more neighbors.

Chris and Kristy came over to check out the new place, and to watch Penn State get beat by Alabama. At least we had some good company to watch the beating. :P
Karin and Ella also stopped by for a visit. We love showing off our new place, and we'll have to have a housewarming party soon!

Steve has been Super-Dad! He installed magnetic locks on the inside of our kitchen cabinets, which was a pain, but they work well in preventing our pots and pans from getting taken all over the house. (We did leave one cabinet unlocked for Jared to play in.) He also installed baby gates at the top and bottom of the main stairs. This proved problematic due to our banisters, but we came up with a good solution.

After more than 14 straight months of being with Jared every night, Steve had to go on travel for work. He left on Sunday evening, and came back on Wednesday evening. I decided that there was no reason to stay home with Jared myself, so I packed us up and we went to my parents' cabin in the woods. Jared had a great time playing with all of the acorns that Pappy collected for him. He also liked swinging in the hammock swing. Afterwards, he took off and ran across the in-ground pool, which luckily had a tight cover on it. Jared got a little wet, but no damage was done to Jared or the pool. Jared also liked that the cabin had a swinging screen door, so he could go inside or outside as he pleased. Jared also got wheel-barrow rides. The drives to and from the cabin were not exactly what I would call fun, but they were tolerable. Most of our CDs are still packed, and Steve had the iPod, so I had to listen to the same Kiddie CD over and over and over again.

Jared has been developing during all of this time too. A month is a long time in baby-time. He now babbles constantly. He is also pretty good at waving, although it takes him a while to get started, so the person has usually left by the time he starts waving. He makes an "o" with his mouth, which is so cute. He is quite the imitator: when I was done making the bed, I was pushing the mattress back even with the box spring. When I was done, Jared came over a gave the mattress a shove to help me. :)

Jared LOVES to be outside, which is great at the new house, except for the large number of mosquitoes. I guess that what happens when you are so close to water. He loves to sit in the gravel part of our driveway and make piles of rocks and move the piles around. I really think he could do this for hours! He also loves playing on the deck. He cleans off the deck by picking up each leaf and dropping it over the side of the deck. This is actually pretty helpful.
We have so many trees in our yard that we don't really have to mow any grass, but the previous owner said that he usually gets about 100 bags of leaves when they drop. The front yard already needs raking. Steve and I are looking into buying a leaf blower.

That's all that I can think of right now.

Part 1

I know that so much has happened in the past month, so I'm labeling this Part 1, and I'll add to it as I remember things.

It was great to have the help from all of our parents with the move. It was a really stressful time, but it made things easier to know that Jared was happy playing with a grandparent, while Steve and I worried about the moving stuff.
Everyone was anxious to move over to the new house, even though the movers weren't coming for a few days, so we brought over our air mattresses, card table, and camp chairs over to the new house. Jared was lucky, since his crib and dresser were easy to transport, so he got set up in the new house quickly.

Jared just woke up. More to come...

New pictures are up!

I'll try to get some words up soon too.

Walking maniac!

Jared loves to go on walks. We usually go in the morning and in the afternoon. We see the maintenance guys arrive and zip around the apartment complex in their golf carts setting up the sprinklers. We see people walking their dogs. We watch the cars drive by. This morning, we watched the parents walking their kids to the first day of school. I teared up a little, realizing that Jared will be going to his first day of school before I know it.

Jared sometime has "aerodynamic arms" when he walks, which means that he walks with his arms straight out behind him. I worry that he will fall when he is like this. He has taken a few good tumbles during the walks, but he never seems upset for more than about 5 seconds.

Jared has started marching and stomping. The marching started in the tub, and he seems to do it when he isn't sure where he wants to go. The stomping is just random and funny. He also makes what we affectionately call his monster noise a lot, so that seems to go along with the stomping.

Jared has also tried to circle around you on the sidewalk if he wants to get behind you. This is usually when I am trying to prod him along in a certain direction. He gets mad when I just sidestep in front of him again.

Jared does not like his shoes velcroed closed when he walks. Jared also takes it upon himself to un-velcro Steve's sandals. :)

Jared swam in the big pool at our apartment complex. I figured that we should try it out while we still live here. Grandma and Grandpa B. got him a swimsuit that has styrofoam in the chest to help him float. Jared seemed to think the pool was fine - just like a big bathtub where he could splash around. I think he had just as much fun exploring the lounge chairs and grills in the pool area.

Jared also loves closing doors now. He is pretty good at closing them with a flat hand, so his fingers don't get pinched. He closes the door to his bedroom, and then closes himself in the bathroom. He doesn't seem to mind that it is pitch black inside the bathroom with no lights on.

Jared can now locate his hair. This is cute, but we're surprised that hair was the first body part. We are always pointing to his nose and belly button, but for some reason, he knows where his hair is.

Settlement for our new house is coming up on August 31st! Things are getting even crazier around here, so I'll try to post again when I can.

New pictures are up!

Lots of things going on - I'll try to post soon.

Walking with Jared

I figured out that I don't have to run Jared up to the playground anymore. When he is there, all he does is play in and try to eat the mulch. What he really wants to do is just walk around, and that is easy enough to do right outside our apartment. So we've started going on morning and late afternoon walks when it isn't too hot or sunny. He walks pretty fast and goes surprisingly far when he isn't too distracted. (mostly by cars) He doesn't fall very often, so that's good. He has started running though, so I really have to watch him for that.

Jared spun around so much the other day that he fell down. That was pretty funny, but then he got back up and started to spin the other way. :)

Jared likes to stick out his tongue in the mirror and has also started clucking his tongue.

The house stuff has gone extremely well. The radon levels came back at an acceptable level, and the house passed a termite inspection. The chimney inspection showed that the crown will need to be resurfaced and the wood stove flue needs to be cleaned, but we think that the sellers will probably take care of that. We have also applied for a loan, and got a very low interest rate, so that's great! We just need to talk to some movers about quotes and get boxes to start packing! My Mom will be here for a couple days soon to distract Jared so I can start packing.

One of our craziest weeks yet!

We just survived a super crazy week!

Sunday, July 25th: happy with our nice gifts from the Christmas in July party the night before, we headed back to Maryland after spending the weekend with Steve's parents. No one checked the weather, and we were on the edge of a terrible thunderstorm all of the way home. It was really windy, and the clouds looked so menacing, I kept checking the sky for tornadoes. We were in some severe quick downpours, which Jared really didn't enjoy. We weren't even on our way home - we were on the way to look at 3 more houses in Severna Park. Luckily, the first house had a (tiny) garage, so we were able to get out of the downpour, but we weren't sure that we could open our car doors! The house looked nice, but the upstairs was very dark, since it was a vacant house, and they didn't leave any lamps in the bedrooms.
The second house was a throwaway.
The third house we had been to back in April, but it was out of our price range. It had since dropped into our price range, so we thought that we should look at it again. It was as nice, if not nicer than we remembered. (hint: this is going to be our house)
We finally got home only to find out that the power was off in our apartment. Luckily, it had only gotten up into the 80s that day, so the temperature in the apartment wasn't too terrible.

Monday: Went grocery shopping to buy Jared some food, since I couldn't make him any food without electricity. I bought him some jarred baby food, only to find out that he doesn't like jarred baby food. We hung out with Karin and Ella for a couple hours in the afternoon to play and cool down. Jared finally ate a little bit at dinner since he was getting pretty hungry at that point. After a very long day, we all went over to the Perry's for dinner and to enjoy their A/C (they had just gotten power back on at 4:30 PM Monday.) After dinner and playtime, we were about to put Jared to bed when Steve said that he would call the house one more time (if the answering machine picks up, we have power.) And lo and behold, we got our power back at 8:00, so we were able to go home, where Jared slept much better in his crib than he ever would in the pack and play.

Tuesday: We went to go see the first house that we had seen on Sunday again, this time in the daylight and in dry conditions. I still really liked the house, but the backyard was awful.

Wednesday: We put in a contract for the third house (627 Park Rd.). They countered, which was not a big surprise.

Thursday: We countered their counter offer, and we all agreed (yeah!)

Friday: Cleaned the apartment, since disaster zone does not even begin to describe the mess.

Saturday: Steve's parents woke up super early and drove down from Philly to spend the morning with Jared while we went to the home inspection. The inspection went well, with only a few minor fixes. (the house looks in good shape, so we weren't surprised.) Steve's parents went home, and we went over to my former boss's house for the annual NASA group picnic. It was so great to see everyone and tell them about the house. Against our better judgment, we even took Jared out on the boat ride. He liked walking around the boat and the breeze in his hair, but he HATED the life preserver. It was a little too tall for him, and it kept cutting into his neck and chin, and looked uncomfortable.

Sunday: a day of rest, and we started arranging house buying stuff. (financing, inspections, etc.)

There are new pictures up in Jared's 12-15 month folder, as well as a link to pictures that I took of the new house. There are actually 4 bedrooms upstairs, but I forgot to take a picture of one of them.

Now that the home inspection is over, I am starting to get really excited. However, I also woke up at 5:15 this morning in a cold sweat thinking about all the work that it's going to take to move all of our stuff to the new house. We are closing on August 31st, and will probably vacate the apartment in the middle of September. Since it's a local move, ideally we would like to move the small stuff ourselves and just hire movers for the big stuff.

In other Jared news, he zerburted (sp?) my leg repeatedly last night, which was just too funny. He would stop and laugh at himself, which made me laugh even more.
He also took his first bubble bath the other day. He liked when his hand was covered in bubbles, but then he tried to eat them. As I was rinsing out the tub, he tried to pull the bubbles back towards him so he could keep playing with them - too cute.