Offer Accepted

After 14 long and painful months on the market, we finally got an offer today and accepted! Our second realtor, who was been wonderful, called yesterday for his usual Monday update. This week we had two showings but Monday night the house was to be shown two more times, one of which was a second visit. We were just happy someone was willing to come back and take a look. I was at work on the wards today when I thought I felt my phone ringing and I saw it was from Kerry, the realtor. For the past 8 months Kerry has only called on Mondays with updates except when we got the crappy offer a couple of months ago so I was hoping he had good news. He did, he had received an offer on the house. Now as you may know, we recently lowered the price to our rock bottom listing price which was set dangerously close to our break even point. I was wholly expecting the offer to be something like 20Gs below the list price but I was pleasantly surprised at the number and thought we had a good chance at accepting an offer. After talking with Kerry and Keira, we made a counteroffer that was fair. They responded with their own counter which we gladly accpeted tonight. Just a few more hurdles to jump and we will finally be down to one mortgage :)

extreme porch makeover!

sadly i did not take any "before" pics, but you can probably imagine what our screened porch looked like prior to this weekend. it had been woefully ignored since we moved in, used as storage for various pieces of furniture that don't fit in the house (yet somehow never made it to the cellar like the rest of our crap) and for trash/recycling storage until jeremy can bring everything to the dump every week or so. it was also home to a dying christmas tree and a deep fryer. pretty classy establishment. jeremy actually had saturday and sunday off so we finally decided it was time to tackle the white trash porch. even though you can't really see it from the road, i'm sure our neighbors appreciate the effort! here guinness the cat models the exciting new recycling center designed by me and built by jeremy. it turned out pretty darn well i think considering that i only took shop in 8th grade, and jeremy never did! it's pretty basic - plywood top, bottom, and sides and 4 boards as vertical posts. home depot cuts the wood for you, but they won't make all the necessary cuts, and they don't guarantee accurate measurements. we have a table saw so jeremy did the rest, and managed to keep all ten fingers attached! none of the boards were the same size, but they were all close enough! and the plywood wasn't entirely flat. once we nailed, screwed, and braced it together you could hardly even tell. slap on a coat of white paint, and it doesn't look so ghetto! you can't see but there's a curtain across the back (and will be one across the front too as soon as i get out there and do it) - it's just a vinyl table cloth i cut in half and stapled along the top to hide the various recycling bins. i'll take a picture of the completed piece once i actually get out there and do it!

our old patio furniture is too big for the porch so it's in the backyard instead. so we splurged and bought some new porch furniture. (thanks tax stimulus check!) we bought a glider, 4 chairs, and a dining table. the side tables are from ikea and used to be black and in our living room in richmond - some blue and white spray paint and voila! perfect side tables!

here is the lovely dining set. i love it however i do need to get on the phone tomorrow - the frame of one of the chairs came bent so the whole chair tilts to the side. hopefully the whole return/exchange process won't be a giant pain in the rear. but even if it is - the company sent me two dining tables, even though i only ordered (and paid for) one! bonus!

this plant shelf used to be in our backyard in richmond, however it was just a plain brown metal finish. it had gotten a bit rusty and nasty, so a coat of blue spray paint and we're back in business. the plants are all various herbs. if you're in need of a fresh herb, chances are we have it! and because they're on the porch and i'll walk past them 5-6 times a day, i may actually remember to water them unlike herb gardens past!

a cat-less shot of the recycling center, which also serves as an additional plant ledge for more herbs and assorted plants. if you look closely in the background, you will see our little red birdhouse hanging from the tree. a mama wren has taken up residence in there! probably a better home than the wren that settled in one of our potted geraniums last year and would get watered by the hose on a daily basis.

cat loves the porch and especially likes his new cat ledge.

he really likes his cat ledge!

the best part - other than the plants, the porch furniture and the wood to make the recycling center, everything was already here and in need of a purpose.

oh yeah. i bought the lobsters too. $2.99 each at christmas tree shops. don't you just love a bargain? and the vinyl table cloth set me back another $3.

ok so i guess that doesn't leave much else - just the plant shelf, the side tables, and the flower pots.

but it looks awesome, so that's all that matters, right?

this is a wee bit disturbing

we've got a climber on our hands. he wedges his toes into the holes on the gate. i've seen him get both feet up there, but thankfully he doesn't go any further... yet.

hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog

quentin has been eating all kinds of solid foods lately. basically almost anything we eat, we let him try (except all the stuff they're not allowed to have until they're one like peanuts, fish, eggs, etc.)

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yesterday he had a hot dog and we tried cheese again. the first time we tried cheese was hysterical. he did not like it and would go to great lengths to spit it out. this time he tolerated the cheese much better (good boy! who doesn't like cheese??!?!) so we'll keep trying it.

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he did like the hot dog. a whole lot.

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eating people food is also very fun- notice the airborne food in a couple of the pictures! the dogs love quentin now!!

look ma! no hands!

uh oh. report from day care today: quentin is standing on his own. not for very long and not steadily (as the bruises on his knees suggest) but he's doing it! his other scary new skill: the jumperoo-less jumperoo. he holds on to the railing of his crib and jumps like crazy. he's thinks it's terrific. and today he waved bye-bye for the first time. we've been really trying to get him to do it for a while now. we make a big production of it when i leave him at day care. linda usually waves his little arm for him but today he did it on his own. he's also babbling up a storm, making all kinds of silly noises, with raspberries being his absolute favorite noise to make! such a big little baby!

cousins, identical cousins

i'm so far behind. suck it up. you'll get over it.

last weekend, quentin's cousin calder and aunt leah flew in from chicago to surprise grandma on mother's day. i could type it up, but the more efficient thing to do is just give you a link to calder's blog since his mommy is more on top of things than me.

Q was not nearly as crabby as he was when his friend lilly was here since he didn't have a fever. he definitely enjoyed chewing on his cousin. in fact, the consumption of human relatives seems to be a new favorite hobby of quentin's - both jeremy and i have bruises all over our arms where the toothy little bugger got us. the molars are really kicking his butt i think. we've been up at 4 or 5 every morning this week because of the pain. poor kiddo!

i did not take as many pics as grandma, but these are a couple of the ones i got.

no time to post

too busy trying to keep up with this.

note to self: finish baby-proofing. soon.

a weather report in may should not contain the word "windchill"

that is all.

Safe at Home

Last Saturday I had a very rare day off. Seeing as Keira has been doing the bulk of the child rearing, I decided I would give her a break Saturday morning. After Quentin got up at 630AM and had his bottle I packed him up and took him to the mall to do some mall walking so mommy could sleep or at least enjoy some even rarer baby-free time. There is a kids play area at the mall that was open and since the mall wasn't open there were no kids there so I decided Quentin might like to crawl around. He really enjoyed it and I particularly liked the picture of him sliding into home. There is also a little football field, maybe next time he can be touchdown baby!

if a lemon gets rear-ended, does it make lemonade?

i was getting off at my exit on the mass pike this morning when i heard a terrible crunching noise and my car lurched a bit. for a second, i thought my car was blowing up. it's a lemon and prone to doing that at the most inconvenient times. but then i realized that i had been rear-ended. i pulled off to the side and so did the lady behind me. my heart was racing and she was very apologetic. fortunately we were in the "fastlane" (massachusetts EZ-pass) which ironically is always the slowest toll lane on the pike so she wasn't going more than 15-20 when she hit me. plus i think she was slowing down, and just underestimated the space between the two cars. the mexican jetta is surprisingly resilient and there's not a ding or dent on her. so they can't install wiring properly but they install a mean plastic bumper! scared me to death but we're all ok. this is this closest thing to an accident i've ever been in!

a dog may be man's best friend, but dog's best friend is baby

quentin had his 9-month check-up today. his stats:

• length = 29 inches, 75th percentile
• weight = 21 pounds, 13 ounces, 71st percentile
• head = 46 cm, 70th percentile

no shots today, which i am sure made him happy. we also got the go-ahead to really push "people food" to start the transition off of formula. he celebrated tonight with spaghetti and meatballs. delicious.

the dogs have finally realized the benefits of having a baby in the house, mainly a never ending supply of cheerios. jackson is the biggest fan. if Q is in the high chair, you can bet the jack is parked next to it. quentin of course loves it since he is obsessed with the doggies, and actually shares handfuls of o's willingly with jack

houston, we have molars

after weeks of gnawing, a molar on the top left side of quentin's mouth has cut through. at least i think it did. i am pretty sure i felt it, but he just refuses to let anyone look in his mouth. i'm sure others will be quick to follow. probably explains the delightful night we had last night. Q woke up screaming at 12:30 in the morning. nothing could console him - not tylenol, motrin, formula, pedialyte, or rocking. the meds eventually kicked in but then he decided it was play time. he went back down around 3:30. of course jeremy and i both have to get up in the 5 o'clock hour so needless to say we were a bit tired today. quentin of course was unfazed and had a delightful day at day care. quick monday real estate update... two more showings last week after the most recent and final price drop on the house. the dude is still planning on renting the place for part of may and june - the contract will hopefully be signed this week. now it's time for bed, because if history repeats itself, i will be back up in a couple of hours. jeremy is on call so i going it solo tonight.

big boy bath time

bath seats are for babies. big boys sit in the tub. and play with toys.

9 months old!

our little slugger at nine months. wow. time flies. you can see his four bottom teeth pretty well in one of the pics. you can't see the intense molar-pain though. poor kid. we all wish those suckers would just break through already!

an appetizer

i got the pics loaded on to the computer, but i haven't organized them yet. sorry. time for lost.