Finally ... a post about RILEY!

I'm well past-due for a posting about RILEY.  I've found myself so caught up in all of the newness of having our house listed, that I've let her blog suffer.  Bad mommy.

She is doing so much new stuff lately.  She'll start to do or say something new, try it out for a few days, then leave it behind.  She did this a couple months ago with the word "hello" (more like "Hewwo").  She said it clear as a bell for about 2-3 days, and then hasn't said it one single time since! 

She loves to spin in circles.  It's adorable.  She'll stick one arm out to her side for balance, then bend the other arm at her elbow and hold her fist towards her head.  It almost looks like she is holding a bow and arrow.  And she yells as she does it.  It's hilarious.

She has started saying "Bye" a lot.  She seems to really use it appropriately and will even accompany it with waving or blowing kisses.

She has said "Blue" several times, when looking at some blue colored carnations at Grandma and Grandpa Balaban's.  I am not sure if she is calling the flowers blue, or actually recognizing the color.  Regardless, we have time to work on that.

She has become a master of the stairs.  Kevin's parents have three sets of stairs in their house, so it is quite a feat to keep her on one level at any given time.  She taught herself to turn around and slide down on her belly, but she really picks up speed and shouts "Wheeeee!" as she goes down.

"Wow!  Wow!" is something she says a lot now as well.  I credit her favorite cartoon - "Wow Wow Wubbzy" for that one.

She has started to learn to march.  We call it her Riley dance.  She marches in place, picks up a decent amount of speed, and laughs so hard.  It makes me smile just thinking about it.

She is also trying a lot of new foods and really turning her nose up at any more 'baby' food.  Her taste buds must really be developing and she wants true flavor.  She ate a pepperoni roll the other night!  Her latest craze is diced pears, though.  She loves her fruit!

She is still taking two naps a day for the most part.  I've tried a couple of times to really stretch her and begin making the transition to one nap a day ... but I just don't think we're there yet.  It'll happen and I'm in no hurry.

Her 15-month well check was earlier this month.  She was nearly 31 inches tall and weighed in at 21lbs 2oz.  She is 75th percentile for height, and around 40th for weight.  Dr. Kannensohn said there was no reason at all to be concerned about the lower weight since she is so ridiculously active.  She is eating a lot and that's what matters

Lastly, I saw the tip of one of her bottom molars cutting through earlier this week. She's had some rough evenings and days in the past few weeks and I am almost certain that would be the culprit - poor little thing!

I have some new pictures to get on here - hope to do that tomorrow.

On Second Thought ...

... I don't want to hijack this blog to write about all the hijinx of selling and moving and building.  I want to preserve this for Riley-talk and Mommy stories. 

So please join me on my new blog - dedicated solely to our new adventure!

Sell.  Move.  Build.

(thanks, Carrie, for the great name suggestion!)

Hope to see everyone over there!

Busy Week with the House

This has been - and continues to be - a busy week with stuff in regards to the house.  And I keep telling myself this is just the beginning.

Last night we had Kevin's parents drive over to the Florence model with us.  It's only about 5 minutes from their house and at this point I'd say we're about 95% sure that this is the floorplan we'll be going with, however we wouldn't be building at that location.  They loved it.  It was very exciting to go room to room and floor to floor with them, watching for their reaction.  It was so much fun explaining where we think that we would place each piece of furniture, and talk about the upgrades that we've already decided on.  Riley even had fun doing her latest spin move on the Master bed.

After viewing the model again, it was go-time at our house.  Kevin continued to replace baseboard and trim (almost done!), I took the motherload of trash out to the end of the driveway for this morning's pick up.  Tomorrow morning the photographer from the realty office will come and take all the pictures for the online listing.  He is also going to do a virtual tour.  I can't wait to see it.  I am going to work from home in the morning so that I can be there as he snaps shots of our home.  So exciting!!

Tomorrow night we have a meeting with Ryan Homes, out at Heisley Park, which is the location we've decided on.  We drove through Monday night and picked out our two favorite lots.  We're going to discuss pricing specific to the Florence model - with all of our preferred upgrades - as well as those two lots.  I hope to come away from tomorrow night with a really solid idea of our final price.

Friday morning a stager is coming to the house.  We certainly don't need any furniture brought in for staging, but I am anxious to get her feedback in regards to the set up of the house.  She knows how a potential buyer wants to see a house, so I am excited to hear and make some changes so that we can be even more appealing.

I think my Sherwin Williams iPhone app is probably smoking at this point.  I have been all over that thing in the pasts 24 hours.  What a stressful decision!  I know that we have some time, as our house obviously hasn't even been looked at (only on the market 2 days, geesh!), but we really would like to have all of our ducks in a row so that when we do sell, Ryan Homes can get the green light from us immediately!

So tonight is a major cleaning night.  We've been keeping the house very well picked up since listing, just in case we did get someone wanting to see it out of curiosity (as I don't anticipate getting many viewers without pictures online first).  However, I am meticulous about these things and want everything spic and span for the photos tomorrow!

House for Sale!

It was inevitable.  The amount of 'stuff' that was being brought into our house was certainly outweighing the amount being taken out.  We knew that one day we would reach the point to which we'd personally out grow the house that we'd spent the last five years making our home.

Kevin and I have always talked about one day moving, and always daydreamed about building, our "long time" home together, but we never knew when that would become a reality.  Kevin owned our current home when he and I met, so I've never gone through the home buying (or selling) experience as a grown up on my own.  Until now.

This past Sunday we watched from the front window as our realtor hammered a 'For Sale' sign into our front yard.  It was a moment of mixed emotions - pure excitement for what our next chapter would be, then a rush of nostalgia, remembering what our house had started as and all of the (literal) blood, sweat and tears that had gone into making it a wonderful home for the three of us.  We had put in an amazing amount of work - and money - over the past 4 years - which allows us to be very proud of what it's become!

So that's it.  We're on the market.  So what are our next steps?  We're building.  Our dream is coming true and we're going to be able to build a home perfectly tailored to our needs and wants.  We can't wait.  We've been to the model homes and development quite a bit over the past seven days.  Decisions are being made in our minds and in conversations between Kevin and I.  While we will not be signing anything until our house officially sells, we have the luxury of Ryan Homes (our chosen builder) allowing us to work through the design process in the interim.

So I'll proobably be hijacking Riley's spotlight in this blog for a while, providing updates of this new journey.  How exciting!!

The Little Things

Children are such sweet, innocent reminders of how we need to be more excited about the little things in life ... like hot dog buns.