Nicole and her great-Grandpa after Christmas Dinner reading a book
Greg & Grandma T approve of dinner.
Mom and Dad are happy to not host 2 days in a row!
Our house.... what a white Christmas!
Nicole's first attempt at solids- a success!
Nic wearing her first pair of blue jeans! 
Another long weekend. Here are the [what turned out to be extended] notes!
Watched Déjà Vu this weekend (Denzel Washington) – it was by the director of the Minority Report and had the same type of feel. Good flick – A.
Jim turned 31 on Saturday! I’ve only seen a few (ie 5) gray hairs on his head and I suspect that even when they start coming in more (ie when Nicole is a teenager- ha!) he’ll make a good-looking salt and pepper guy. He got a miter saw from my parents, Mike, Lindsay and RyRy as well as a deck building how-to book. He’s going to be picking out new bowling shoes from Nicole and I some time soon.
Saturday was also my last day of teaching – went really well and the students all bid their farewells. I had one actually use the words “this class empowered me at my job”. Guess where she works? The only place where people sincerely use phrases like that in “real” conversation – Procter & Gamble. J Still, it was quite a compliment.
We’re making house progress – the mattress was delivered for the new bed, we’ll sleep there for the first time on Thursday when Sarah F comes to take over the guest room we’re currently residing in (the comforter is at the drycleaners). We also moved in the dining room table into the dining room and loaded up the china cabinet with china. The entertainment center was delivered and is MASSIVE but beautiful.
On Sunday we went to a cookie exchange for the neighborhood over at the model house. We got to meet the neighbors who will be moving in next door to us – an AA couple who’re retired and empty-nesters. He told Nicole she could play in his grass which I thought was a good sign. I raised an eyebrow though when he later stated that he didn’t want “any of those Springbrooks moving in next door”. A Springbrook is the ranch-style house and his reasoning is that he doesn’t want a little house next to his big Courtland. Yeahhhh…. Anyway, Nicole pooped through her outfit so we had to head home early but Jim stuck around for some more partying and found out the following:
* There are 10 houses sold in our neighborhood including 3 yet to be built
* 3 more lots are “on hold”
* There are 3 more hot prospects looking that will probably make a decision in the Spring leading our new sales rep to state that she’s “running out of lots”
* There was a meeting to officially discuss the lot behind us (the one we just want to take over) and the developer is looking for an offer that he can counter-offer to buy it. We have to discuss this more thoroughly as the value we’d place on it is certain to be MUCH less than what he wants…
* Lots of conversation on the options that people got in their houses. For reference, one couple started with a Courtland model (base price $210,000) and upgraded it to the final price of $480,000+. Once conversation started we found out about more options (ie a fireplace blower) that we didn’t even know existed!
* OK, a little bragging… What was surprising to me was that it was OUR house that dominated the conversation- people liked how far back it was set from the street, how large it was, the fact that it’s an Avalon model and we drive an Avalon car, our retaining wall, etc. I had no idea that people were actually sincere about how great our house was- I thought that it was mostly politeness of “oh you have a nice house” but these people were really impressed. Now when our house finally lists on the auditor page they’ll go “oh, they must not have gotten many upgrades” (which we did- 3 pages of them)– we have the second largest house in the neighborhood and according to the online records paid the second least amount of money for the house. The lack of a finished basement, granite countertops and deck lead to that lower cost. In the end our final money spent total will get jacked up when we add those items on ourselves, but the cost isn’t reflected in our buying price.
* I got a little chiding about looking a little unwelcoming (my words, not theirs) as we don’t leave our outside lights on and are rarely seen. The sales agent explained to them that we work a lot which isn’t true but apparently worked as far as an excuse. Really it’s that we forget to turn on the lights and our living rooms are in the back of the house so you can’t see that the interior lights are on and we’re home by looking at the front. I’ll have to work on that as that reputation is the antithesis of the image I want to portray to my neighbors.
We wrapped up the night with attending Ronny’s wake (babysitter’s husband) which was a LONG line (1 hour +). Nicole lit up like a light when Andrea picked her up. She was all smiles and coo’s, as was Andrea. Further evidence that we have loving daycare. I understood why the line was so long – Andrea didn’t want to let Nicky go and we delayed things They’re going to start taking kids back tomorrow which I thought was quick but Jim agreed with.
Lastly, we caught Dave and Carole’s Christmas concert at their church which we attend every year. Beautiful music and my mother-in-law loved the whole thing. Job well-done!! Nicole was exhausted from a full day of people-seeing so we had to leave quickly afterwards to get her to bed.
I CAN NOT WAIT until I'm off for a full week at Christmas!!!!! I have so much to do!!!
marriage bed, a counterfeit bride to sate the lust of her twin's new husband. Come morning, her sister, carrying another man's child, resumes her place and Regan is spirited away to a nunnery.
Nicole met Santa on Saturday morning at the local grade school. She looks a bit skeptical of his brown mustache though! To prove her suspicions she left with a big handful of white beard. 
stayed until 4 when we left to continue our quest for the perfect mattress and bowl-out. Why are we bowling out? Because David Polley & crew have a Christmas concert that we attend every year when we’d normally bowl. If you would like to join us for some Christmas music next Sunday, 12/16/07, the concert is at 7:00 (see flyer for more details).Last night after dinner Nicole and I played with her toys. She's much more interactive now, even more so since she can sit and more easily reach them compared to when she was laying on her back. This unit is one she borrowed from her friend Ryan Childers who was generous enough to share with her! :)
After Nic went to bed I cooked for an hour and a half for my day of the office "Food Bonanza". We're having make your own tacos/nachos and enchiladas (chicken and cheese). All was going well until Jim asked me to lay down with him while the final cooking was wrapping up. Yeah, fell asleep. I woke up at 11:45 and flew out of bed. I'm praying that the enchiladas taste good and they aren't too dry from 25 minutes of overcooking. They look okay but you never can tell.... I'll be ticked off if all that effort was for naught.
This morning there was 2" of snow and these idiots in Cincinnati mistaked it for 2 feet apparently. I had to take Nicole to daycare this morning as Jim's getting the oil changed in the Avalon. After a 30 minute trip when i wasn't' even half way there (normally 16 total minutes) it dawned on me that Jim loaded the crock pot shell, but not the bowl that the taco meat was in. He's nice enough to bring it to me here at work on his way into the office. Otherwise the tacos would be missing a very key component which I'm not willing to have in light of my enchilada concern.
And the day started well, I fit into my skinny jeans!
Nicole was really fidgety when I tried to feed her last night so rather than frustrate both of us Jim made her a bottle. I'm so glad he did- we got to experience another first!
That makes 5 firsts in the last week and a half- first snowfall, finding her feet, sleeping 11 straight hours, sitting up, now holding her own bottle! awwwww! She's getting more and more independant- I'm mixed between excited and wanting to help her keep learning and being sad and wanting her needing me to last longer. :( Don't get much of a choice though!
Yeah, Laura's daughter Ella is sporting a bathing suit for her new pool adventures. Nicole is dawning her new snow suit from Aunt Mary Ann. It's in the 40's here!
She's sitting up BY HERSELF! Officially recorded for the first time on 12/1/07 at 4 1/2 months!
