A Few Things Accomplished

Today was a productive day in some ways and not in others! Mike got to Home Depot and bought a lawn mower, edger, hose and rake among other needed items. He also cleaned out the garage and mowed the lawn, which was beginning to desperately need it. 

We heard from the driver who is on his way from MA with our stuff, finally! He claims he'll be there between 8 and 9 on Saturday morning, yippee!

We did, however, have a disappointing day on the new furniture front -- the delivery window for our furniture was 2:30 to 5:30 and not only did they not show up until 7 but they only came with about a quarter of our stuff! I have to call tomorrow and yell at someone, definitely. They came with the sofa but no love seat, the ottoman but no chair, the carpet pad but no carpet?? I mean honestly!! They brought the bed but no dresser, nighttable or sleeper sofa. And this was all stuff that was bought and paid for a month ago and none of it was supposed to be on back order except the sleeper sofa, so I'm definitely frustrated! Someone will be getting an ear full tomorrow and refunding me my delivery charge at the least!

Painted And Carpeted!

Here are some pictures! Charlie 's bedroom has one wall painted green because he wanted a "rainforest" on one wall. Amelia 's is TOO PINK but that is actually a lighter shade of pink than she wanted (OMG). The guest room is going to be Red Sox themed hence the color scheme. And our bedroom is, well, the other one :-P Also I couldn't get much in the way of pics of the back deck because it was still kind of tacky so I couldn't actually go out on it. 

Playing Checkers On Our New Front Porch

The painters finished today, carpet is tomorrow, new living room & guest room furniture comes Thursday and all our stuff from MA comes Friday or Saturday! I'll attempt to take pics of new paint and carpet tomorrow!

Kids In The Cul De Sac

My Birthday Present...

...Was hordes of painters at the house all day long with more of the same in store for tomorrow!

Keys!

Mandy's renters moved out this afternoon; after Mandy and Joel did a final walk through (they left the house immaculate, even shampooing the carpet) we got the keys and took the kids over to see it. Charlie hadn't been in the house since the summer he turned 5 and did not remember the house at all, and to Amelia of course it was brand new. They both pronounced it "awesome!!" I meant to get some pics of them but they basically spent the whole time racing around, doing cartwheels in the empty rooms, etc, so the best I could do was a picture of Amelia sitting on the front steps. 

The painter comes tomorrow at 8am and I am so excited!! 

Sailboat Races And Bingo

Early Birthday Celebration

Mike and Joel treated Mandy and I to an early birthday celebration at Basil Thai, a delicious Thai restaurant uptown. Joel even baked a gluten free birthday cake this morning, entirely from scratch (this means that it required obscure ingredients like xanthum gum and tapioca flour). Since babysitters were in short supply we had to take the kids with us, but they were all remarkably well behaved. 

Here are some pictures from the evening, including a collage of drunk selfies I took with Amelia... :-P

Pot Luck Southern Style

We had a pot luck lunch at my new job today, for the rehab tech who's last day is Friday. Now I have been to a lot of pot luck lunches but the amount of food at this one was absolutely insane! They literally brought 3 banquet tables into the gym to hold all the food, as well as using all the available counter space. I was also surprised by the amazing lack of leftovers...

Getting Busy Again...

With Mandy and Joel's tenants set to move out on Saturday, things have gotten busy again! 

On the agenda this week: emailing paint colors to the painter, hopefully hearing the actual date that our stuff will arrive from MA, beginning the address change rigmarole again, putting a new forwarding address in at the post office, signing a lease to rent the house before we eventually buy it, enrolling Amelia in pre-K, starting the school enrollment processes for Charlie, having the utilities transferred into our name as of Monday, getting to the bank at some point to withdraw the money for the painter (cold hard cash = discount) and maybe possibly getting to the DMV to get a new drivers license for Mike and state ID for me. 

The good news is that it's only Tuesday and I've managed to complete about half of the tasks on the above list already...

Balloon Soldier

Amelia spent the afternoon running around the neighborhood in this get-up with the girl next door -- apparently they were soldiers with a whole host of balloon weapons... 

Clean Cousins

Mid Week Update

Yesterday was Mike's last day of work at ActioNet, the company he worked for up in Massachusetts. This afternoon he had an interview at Wells Fargo, which he says went really well, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that he'll have another job super soon!

Otherwise the week has been uneventful; Caroline has been easy to watch and has been sleeping/going to bed fine. Amelia, on the other hand has been juuuuust a little bit jealous because a large part of her snuggle time with Mommy has been usurped this week! 

Work has been going well and is busy -- I was hired for 20 hours a week but have steadily been doing more, with this week looking like it will be over 25 hours. 

Mandy and Joel's renters move out a week from Saturday, we are so excited to soon be getting into our house! The house should be empty by the 27th and we have a painter scheduled for the 28th and 29th. New carpet is scheduled for the 30th and all our stuff from MA is coming sometime between the 31st and 6th. Very exciting!!

Grilling In The Rain

(In our defense the rain storm started AFTER we put the food on the grille!)

Honorary Robinson

With the older two Kaplan cousins both at sleep away camp this week and Mandy & Joel on a much deserved vacation in Kiawah, we have the littlest Kaplan with us for the week!

Here she is playing with Charlie & Amelia's talking toucan, "Uncle Feather":

Rocking Chairs

For our soon to be front porch! (And currently located on Mandy's front porch.)

Duct Tape Week

Here are the kids with their first duct tape creation of the week : these cute bags! Which are apparently made entirely out of duct tape and a kitchen trash bag, and seem surprisingly durable. Who knew !

Furniture Shopping & Dinner

Yesterday Mike and I spent a productive afternoon furniture shopping in preparation for moving into the new house, thanks to Mandy and Joel babysitting the kids. After three hours of furniture shopping we both agreed it would have been completely impossible with the kids!! 

We bought a living room set which included a leather sofa, love seat , chair & ottoman as well as a coordinating area rug. (Our old living room set had been so worn that we sold it at our moving yard sale before leaving. ) We also got a guest bedroom set which included a king sized sleigh bed, box spring & mattress as well as a dresser and a nighttable. We also bought a sleeper sofa for the guestroom as well since the room is HUGE; it will easily fit the sofa and tv as a sitting/tv watching area and the king bedroom set. 

The only thing on our list for yesterday that we didn't get were bar stools for the breakfast bar but I found two at target that I liked which we will pick up at some point. We also got a good recommendation from the furniture sales guy, to pick up the rocking chairs for the front porch at Cracker Barrel, which there are tons of down here. 

After furniture shopping we came home and got changed just in time for the babysitter to show up to watch all five children while the four of us adults went to dinner. 

Today we are having a low key day which will involve laundry, a trip to the pool and getting the kids in gear to start back at summer camp tomorrow after having last week off. 

4th of July Festivities

The Independence Day celebrations began at 9am today with a neighborhood parade from the end of our street down to the clubhouse, where there was music, ice Popsicles and a fire truck, after which the kids went swimming in the pool. 

I did have to work today but the good thing about only working 4 hours a day is that you can do it whenever, so I went in from 11:45 to 3:45 so I got to do the parade and hang out at the pool for a little but, then be home in time for the 4th of July BBQ, which Mort and Mary also came to. 

Once it got dark we had a little fireworks show in the driveway -- all the legal stuff that never leaves the ground -- but from the sounds of it plenty of people in the neighborhood are now lighting off the illegal kind!

Here are tons of pics!

4th of July Prep

Getting ready for tomorrow's parade!

Mother's Hours

Finally! I can get to work at 8:30am and be home in time to take the kids to the pool in the afternoon!

My "New" Ride

I took Mandy's old bike to a bike shop and had it serviced -- for 12 years in a garage it was in pretty good shape; really just needed the front wheel aligned but otherwise just a general tune up --and I rode it to work today. It took 20 minutes and was an easy ride. I stay on the sidewalk and the cross streets are not busy, thankfully.