We had tried to go last Wednesday, but Luke fell asleep on the way. On Thursday we tried again, even though Liam was sick and sleepy.

We didn’t get any good pictures of the two of them together, but some with Luke by himself aren’t bad. I’ve also included some "outtakes" showing what kind of mood Liam was in.

I apologize in advance for the corny titles and captions. Apparently corniness is a symptom of sleep deprivation.

By the way, my lawn looks much better now than it does in the photo. It’s amazing what a little fertilizer can do.

Family photo

When got to the Cannon Center, Liam had been cooped up in the car most of the day, and he decided that he was not going to be happy unless we let him crawl around. Luke was enjoying himself until he tripped and fell pretty hard. I think that threw him off the rest of the night.

Luke's Jimi Hendrix Impression

Neither of the boys were as enthusiastic as we had hoped. They never took their eyes off the stage, but the big smiles we were expecting just weren’t there. Cassie and I have speculated as to the problem, but we really have no idea. Luke was dancing and singing to one of his Wiggles DVDs before we got out of the parking garage. It’s just one of those things I suppose.

Murray playing his guitar

All that said, we’d go back in a heartbeat. In fact, Cassie has already been trying to talk me into catching another stop on this tour. It’s probably not going to happen, but we’ll definitely see them if they come back to the US in a year or two.

Anthony and Jeff

We were under the impression that they would do mostly songs from their newest DVD. That had me a bit concerned, because they boys haven’t seen that one yet. As it turns out, they did maybe one song from their new DVD. the rest were old favorites.

The Drum Line

The Finale

Cassie and Luke

Luke and Liam now have four or five Wiggles DVDs. We have around a dozen Wiggles TV shows “TiVoed.” Wiggles was all Luke watched for a long time. His interest has now branched out into Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Imagination Movers, all Disney shows. Until recently he only had Wiggles DVDs, we just recorded the other shows. Before our trip to the coast we bought him a DVD of each of the other shows. Liam loves the Wiggles too. It’s definitely his favorite, but he enjoys Mickey Mouse Clubhouse too.

Luke with his guitar, back in April.

Several months ago we got Luke a Wiggles guitar. For a long time he took it everywhere: the grocery store, restaurants, and one time, even church. Now he’s content to leave it in the car when we get out, but he still has to make sure it’s in the car before we leave. He plays along with the Wiggles, the Imagination Movers, or any other show with a guitar.

Several months ago we found out the Wiggles would be doing a tour in the US. We didn’t know when or where, but Cassie and I agreed that if it came anywhere close, we’d have to take the boys. Then, one day, after months of anxious waiting, the email announcing the tour came. Unfortunately, the closest concert wasn’t very close; Atlanta or somewhere if I recall.

Cassie ended up on the Ticketmaster web site somehow, and happened to notice that they had a Memphis date listed for the Wiggles tour. For whatever reason, the Memphis date wasn’t originally listed on the Wiggles site. Maybe the details were worked out at the last minute or something. In any case, because no one else knew about the Memphis concert, we managed to get front row seats.

The concert is tomorrow, and I think Cassie is more excited than anyone. :) We’ve been telling Luke about it for the past day or so, but I’m not sure he understands the “in person” concept. The Wiggles show up inside his TV at least once a day, after all. I think they’ll both get it when the concert starts though. It should be fun. I know video cameras aren’t allowed in the concert, but I’m hoping to be able to take pictures. We’ll see.

Liam loves to play “chase.” He loves for Luke, or for that matter, Cassie or I, to crawl after him. He thinks it’s great fun. He and Luke are getting to be pretty big buddies. Most of the time Luke remembers that he’s still quite a bit bigger than Liam, but occasionally he gets too rough for our liking. Sometimes you’d think he’s been watching wrestling. :)

Liam’s spitting up has gotten much better. Good enough, in fact, that we’ve tried mixing whole milk into his bottles. Unfortunately, it seems to make him spit up quite a bit more. We’ve stopped for the moment, but will probably try again soon. Hopefully it was a fluke. I’m anxious to get him off his ~$50/week formula habit.

Luke’s learning new words at a pretty rapid pace. He’s still not saying a lot of phrases, but that seems to have improved in the past week or so. At least to me, it’s obvious he’s a pretty smart little kid, we just need his verbal skills to catch up to what’s going on in his head. I have no doubt that’ll happen in time.

Obviously, Liam being sick distracted from Luke’s potty training. I still think it was a worthwhile venture though. By Saturday afternoon he was having very few accidents. Of course, we had his potty in the living room and Cassie was asking him if he needed to go every five minutes. The biggest “problem” is that he doesn’t realize on his own that he needs to go. I guess that will come with time. For now, at least until Liam gets better, it’s back to pullups and diapers.

Liam and I have been given the task of making ourselves scarce all day as to not interfere with the process. Anyone interested in having lunch with the two of us tomorrow?

Unfortunately we can’t hide out in my office. It’s a construction zone. I’m in the middle of adding several shelves to the closet. I could finish it in an hour or so, but that wouldn’t exactly be a Liam-friendly activity. Maybe I can finish it during one of his naps tomorrow, if Luke doesn’t find the drilling distracting.

Friday afternoon Liam started showing signs of being sick, including a fever. We assume there was some teething involved, as he was drooling massive amounts of saliva. Saturday he was as miserable as I’ve ever seen him. Several times he would just cry and cry. Saturday night he woke up every couple of hours or so. Around 3am he decided he wanted to cry for a while. We finally distracted him with one of his toys. After an episode of the Wiggles we were back to sleep again.

Sunday he felt a lot better, but was still under the weather. He had a couple of crying spells, but nothing like Saturday. To our relief he only woke up once Sunday night, and it was before I went to bed, which is much easier to deal with. Other than being clingy and maybe a little whiny, Liam was almost completely better today.

Luke, on the other hand, just wouldn’t go to sleep last night, which is really strange because he’s a really good sleeper. He normally goes to sleep around 9:30pm. He and Cassie started out on the couch, then moved to the bed, then back to the couch, and back to the bed. Around 12:30am Cassie asked me to drive him around. I did. He fell asleep in about ten minutes. As I was getting him out of the car, he woke up. He laid in bed awake with Cassie for at least another hour before finally drifting off.

This morning he woke up around his usual time, ready to face the world. (Cassie, not so much.) No sign that anything was wrong. He was good all day. Tonight, just before bedtime, we discovered he was running a temperature. He seems to be feeling fine other than that though. Hopefully it’ll pass.

The last time we had it this bad was when we all got a stomach virus before Liam was born. We had to call in reinforcements that time. It’s never fun to see your child miserably sick. It’s even less fun when they keep you awake. :) I hope it’s awhile before we have another episode like this again.

Yesterday we all went to Memphis for a little shopping. Shortly after 7pm we had secured a table at the Outback Steakhouse in Cordova. Liam was sitting in his high chair, quietly munching on sweet potato puffs, his favorite. Luke had ants in his pants. He couldn’t be still. He would periodically disappear under the table and reappear on the other side or with one of the many toys Liam had dropped. Cassie and I were getting a bit frustrated with him.

Shortly, a little old lady walked by our table on her way out of the restaurant. Her table had been situated such that she couldn’t see Luke, just Liam. She stopped and said, “It’s such a pleasure to see a well-behaved child.” Luke had recently departed on one of his trips under the table. I smiled and said, “Thank you.” That could have been the end of the conservation, but Cassie just couldn’t help herself. She smiled and said, “We have a two year-old under the table.” Luckily the little old lady had a good sense of humor and found the situation hilarious.

Unfortunately for us, things went downhill from there. Liam was well past due for a nap. Luke had only managed a thirty minute nap, well short of his standard hour and a half. I’m glad the little old lady wasn’t there to see it.

Occasionally I’ll take Luke out and show him some constellations, planets, or the Moon. He has developed a special fondness for the moon. Anytime we’re outside (not just when we’re skygazing) he’ll look up and try to find the Moon. If he finds it, he’ll point and say “Mooooon.” It does a dad’s heart good.

This morning while I was getting ready for work he found one of my astronomy books. Seizing the opportunity, I found a nice picture of the moon and asked him what it was. He said “Mooooon.” There was another picture just below it, a closeup of the Moon’s surface. He pointed and said “cheeeeese.” I was thoroughly amused.

In other astronomy-related cleverness, a few months ago Luke pointed out Venus to me as we were walking down the driveway at our old house. Granted, it was the brightest object in the sky. I was impressed nonetheless.

It was a Wiggles-themed party. (More on them later.) We had pizza, cake, and ice cream. (All the major food groups.) I think everyone had a good time.

The pictures I took at the party can be found here. I think I got some good ones. I hope you’ll take a minute to look at them. I wish I had thought to use my flash. It would have taken care of some of those dark shadows. You’ll notice a new playset in the pictures. I’ll do a separate post about it soon.

Liam will turn one on August 19th. We have absolutely no idea what kind of party we’ll have for him. He loves the Wiggles too, but we don’t want to be redundant.

Luke turned two years old on June 1st, and Liam will be 10 months old on the 19th. They are definitely big buddies. Yesterday afternoon Luke drove Liam around in his jeep for at least twenty minutes. Luke can get a little rough with Liam sometimes. The problem is that Liam thinks it’s funny, which means Luke doesn’t listen very well when we tell him to stop. He occasionally makes Liam cry, but it’s pretty rare. Liam favorite thing is to steal Luke’s pacifier. He thinks that’s hilarious, and so does Luke.

Luke is still tall for his age. He loves to run around and is getting skinny and muscular. He gets into everything like any two year-old. While his motor skills are ahead of schedule, his verbal skills are a little behind. We’re not too concerned, but we’re definitely keeping an eye on it. He picks up new words virtually every day, and can say a few short phrases. We’re hoping for more phrases soon. Some of his favorite words are: mommy, daddy, eat, yum, TV, DVDs, candy, “tar” (guitar), dog, and book. He can say a lot more, those are just the words he uses very regularly.

Liam just recently started crawling. It’s still the “army-style” crawl, where he’s mostly on his stomach, not up on his hands and knees. He pulls up on things occasionally, but it’s not a regular occurrence. He started saying “momma” a couple of weeks ago. He’s a very good little baby. The only time he seems to get upset is when he’s teething. He has four teeth and is working on a few more.

Luke still has a pacifier, though he uses it less than he used to. Our plan is to get them both off their pacifiers as soon as we get Liam off the bottle. There’s no use trying to take Luke’s pacifier away if Liam still has his.

Luke is definitely a “momma’s boy.” Under normal circumstances Cassie is the only person that can get him to sleep. If Cassie isn’t there when he wakes up, bad things happen. When Liam was born, Luke was already well-attached to Cassie, so I often got to deal with Liam. As a result, he is definitely a daddy’s boy. When I come home for lunch or after work I get a big grin (complete with dimples) and lots of arm flailing. Luckily, since he’s at home with Cassie all day, he isn’t quite as exclusive as Luke.

Naps are getting to be interesting. Luke is down to one a day, usually an hour and a half starting around 2:30pm. Yesterday, probably because our traveling has thrown his schedule off, he completely skipped his nap and went to bed early. Liam still takes three to four naps a day. He is getting to where it’s much harder to get him to sleep. Often, Luke will keep Liam awake or vice-versa. Lately, Cassie resorts to driving the boys around to get Liam and/or Luke to sleep at least once a day, usually more.

Yesterday Luke and Liam had a joint pediatrician’s appointment. He said both of them were doing great. He’s a little concerned about Liam’s continued spitting up, but said he’s growing well in spite of it. He’s on special (expensive) formula and Prevacid, but still spits up four or five times a day. Our pediatrician is going to speak to his partners and get back with us about a course of treatment. He wants us to hold off on moving him over to milk for now.

This post ended up being much longer than I meant for it to. I’ll try to post shorter, more frequent updates in the future, but it seems like I’ve said that before.

The painters finished refinishing our kitchen and bathroom cabinets. They look nice, and their price was very reasonable. Let me know if you need a recommendation for a good painter in Oxford. The week without cabinet doors was rough. Luke makes a sport of getting into things he’s not supposed to. While we had the doors off we took the opportunity to replace all the hardware with satin nickel. It looks quite nice. I’m about halfway done installing all the cabinet locks.

The garage is not quite as junky as it was, but it still has a long way to go too. We’re relatively close to being able to put a single car in our two car garage.

We bought the boys a playset yesterday, and my dad is coming Saturday to help me put it together. That should be interesting.

In a previous post I mentioned that DSL wouldn’t be available in our neighborhood until October and that I had to get cable Internet for the time being. Well…I was talking to my next-door neighbor the other day and he inquired as to when my coax was going to get buried. One thing led to another and he mentioned that he had DSL. The AT&T box for our cul-de-sac sits between our houses. Upon further questioning he tells me he’s had it for at least three years.

I called AT&T the next day and they said “Why yes, DSL is available in your neighborhood!” I asked, “Why was it not available two weeks ago and why did they tell me it wouldn’t be available until October?” “Well, Mr. Pharr, they must have finished installing it sooner than expected.” Riiiight. I didn’t pursue it any further. I’m just happy to be getting twice the speed for $20 less per month.

This morning before work I fertilized my lawn. The back yard looks okay, but the front and side yards look pretty rough. I’m hoping the fertilizer will help.

The near daily trips to Home Depot have yet to end. Actually, this evening we mixed it up and went to Lowe’s in Batesville.

We didn’t put the child locks on the cabinets and drawers right away because we knew our painter would be starting on them soon. Luke’s been making up for lost time by dragging everything out of the cabinets. Today things got worse because the painter actually started refinishing the cabinets and the cabinet doors are at his shop.

Cassie and the boys have been spending a lot of time in the new backyard this week. Right now all they have are a couple of riding toys, their play wheelbarrow, and their imagination. That works for the most part, but we do plan on getting them a playset soon. Swings, a slide, and that sort of thing.

The cable installer was supposed to come last Friday afternoon to get us setup for Internet. About 4pm they called to confirm my appointment for the following afternoon. Hmmm…someone got the date wrong, and I don’t think it was me. Then, instead of showing up in the afternoon (1-5pm), he showed up around 11am, just as we were trying to unload a trailer load of stuff. He left after telling me everything was working. I usually hover and chat with the technicians, but I was busy unloading.

A couple of hours later I got a break and came to check on the Internet. It wasn’t working. It was Tuesday before I could get them back out here. On Tuesday the tech (a different one) discovered I needed a new cable run from the box at the street. That’s right, they’re going to have to dig up my yard. Did I mention I was switching to DSL in October when it becomes available?

Earlier this week I called AT&T to setup the DSL install. They set it up all right, for October. South Oaks doesn’t have DSL yet. I’m going to have to deal with cable internet for a few more months. That’s not a big deal, but it’s $20 more expensive than DSL that’s twice as fast. Also, it occurred to me today that if the house hasn’t been on cable before, they’ll have to dig a trench through my lawn. Nice.

Cassie’s mentioned that she’ll be a little sad about leaving this place. Both the boys were born while we were living here.

Painting commenced Thursday morning. Nearly everything is now painted, thanks to lots of help from my parents. We still need to paint the small entryway from the garage and a little touching up here and there. We chose some bold colors. Cassie blames seven years of renting. I’ll try to post some pictures soon.

No one said home ownership was cheap. We still have to get the kitchen cabinets refinished and buy a washer and dryer, a lawnmower, and a grass trimmer (a weedeater to most of you :). That doesn’t even begin to count all the small stuff.

For instance, Cassie insisted on a new faucet and light fixture in the kitchen. And by the way, while we’re getting the kitchen cabinets refinished we might as well replace all the hardware. We looked at tables for the breakfast nook Saturday in Tupelo. That will be our first new furniture purchase. New living room furniture and a dining room table aren’t too far behind.

For the past several years whenever Cassie wanted to replace something, I would say, “Just wait until we buy a house.” I can’t put her off anymore.

We’ll spend this week cleaning, making small repairs and upgrades, and packing. We move on Saturday.

Luke enjoyed it, but I have no doubt I enjoyed it more than him. I haven’t flown a kite in years, and it was a lot of fun. In fact, a lot of this kid stuff is fun. I look forward to Luke building something besides towers with his Legos. Is he too young for model rockets? :)

I’m way behind with my “Luke and Liam Updates.” In the future I plan on making more shorter posts. When I try to do a big post every week or so, they just don’t happen. I’ll try to do a little catching up soon.

As you’ll notice, there are a few things that need to be fixed or tidied up before we move in. This includes refinishing the kitchen cabinets, fixing or replacing the cracked tiles in the kitchen, and painting the front door. Cassie wants to do some painting too. Also, as soon as I we close I want to go ahead and get some more trees in the ground. We’re running out of prime tree planting season.

As for the home inspection, I haven’t gotten the report from the home inspector, but last time I spoke to him (about two hours into the inspection) he said he hadn’t found any major issues.

It occurred to me while I was organizing the pictures that Cassie and I haven’t shared a bathroom in about six years, since we moved out of our first apartment. Of course, given the size of the master bathroom, that shouldn’t be a problem.

I’m sure I’ll be posting much more about the house.

]]> http://www.movl.net/blog/2009/03/our-new-house/feed/ 3 http://www.movl.net/blog/2009/03/buying-a-house/ http://www.movl.net/blog/2009/03/buying-a-house/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:41:52 +0000 bnp http://www.movl.net/blog/?p=526 Cassie and I started house hunting last week, made an offer yesterday afternoon, and came to an agreement with the seller earlier this evening. We are quite excited about the prospect of being “homeowners.”

The house is in the South Oaks subdivision, which is about half a mile south of where we live now. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and is a little over 1900 square feet. It sits on a 0.96 acre lot on a cul-de-sac, at the edge of the subdivision. The fenced-in backyard is huge, and the lot extends well into the wooded area behind the fence.

There are currently over 1,500 properties on the market in the Oxford area. However, due to our requirements and budget, our options were relatively limited. Firstly, we wanted the house to be in the Oxford School District. We want the kids to go to Oxford city schools (more on that later).

Secondly, we wanted a relatively large yard with some trees. When we began our search we defined “relatively large” as half an acre. We did much better with the yard that I could have ever expected.

On the other hand, we were hoping to get a four bedroom house, or at least three bedrooms and a bonus room. There were a few of those in our price range, but there was always something else “wrong” with them. Three bedrooms is a little on the tight side for us, but it’ll be fine. We plan on moving up in house in five or six years anyway.

The house was originally put on the market in August. The seller dropped the price 7.2% in October, and the price we agreed on was 5.3% below the reduced price. The price we agreed on was a lot less than we initially planned on spending. As our house hunt moved along we decided we’d prefer to spend less on a house and have a little more surplus income. I’m very happy with that decision, and I’m not sure I would have been so relaxed through the whole process if we hadn’t come to that conclusion early on.

Our contract states that we’ll close on or before April 15th, and we plan on being moved in by the end of April. There’s a lot to do between now and then. The first step is a home inspection. I’m sure you’ll be hearing much more about the house.