new house

two weeks without a post! i'm surprised i haven't been getting hate mail!!! things have been super crazy here. between career work, house work, and trying to get some sleep, we have been so busy!! but the house is finally starting to look fantastic...so i thought i would share a few pictures with you.
this is the upstairs guest/thalia bathroom. thanks to papou for painting!
chris working hard in our new office. after i took this picture, he set up a drum set in here...its a bit more crowded

this is the master bath...thanks to gampa for painting the vaulted ceilings!

this is the "little" bathroom on the first floor
here is our living room...probably my favorite room in the house - mostly due to the fact that our sweet bar gets to be on display!
this is our kitchen. yes, it is yellow...we haven't repainted it yet. the previous owners updated it...we have hardwoods throughout the first floor.

this is our dining room. pretty close to the old one. but the chandelier is black...not sure why it looks gold in this pic.
and this is the front! now that most of the stress is done, we are really happy with it. more pics to come as more rooms get finished (or have enough lighting for a good picture)

off to dinner with uncle frank and aunt laura and baby greyson! more thalia pics to come this weekend...new year's resolution ;o)

much love and some sleep,

c, c, and t

fun with yiayia and papou

my how time flies! i will say from the get that this has been a much better week. i was getting really tired of feeling junky and stressed and blah. but this week has been slightly calmer and chris has been doing a fantastic job putting things away...and over the past few days he has hung most of our pictures, which is really helping this place feel more like our own.

last weekend, yiayia and papou came to help us. what a joy! we moved the wall bar and got almost all the painting done! (i say "we" but mostly what i did was leave and go to work) i'm really starting to feel very good about living here. so many funny things happened while yiayia and papou were here...i'll have to try to remember all of them.
this is us having lunch at sam's club...fancy, i know! thalia is wearing a new outfit from her favorite gigi...with her ugg boots from yiayia. i think its adorable! while we were here, thalia showed yiayia her soda game. basically if i ask thalia if she would like some soda, she says "no! pop!" but if chris asks her is she would like some pop, she'll say "no! soda!" it's hi-larious!!
thalia also got to open an early christmas present from yiayia - real john deere boots! they are the cutest things. so this is thalia showing them off. how awesome are they?! i guess this is our second official house picture. this is our new playset. the weather was somewhat warm so yiayia took thalia out and they swung on the swing. thalia is getting much better about swinging. she likes the bumpy slide too. i think we need to replace the roof...but we can wait til spring.

i just realized i don't have many pictures of papou and thalia! we'll have to work on that in january when everyone comes back down here.

after quite the rough week last week with thalia's fevers and sleeping with us almost every night, we are heading into day 3 of sleeping through the night without even a peep! actually, we are still working on a better night routine. right now she still wants to stay up and play with daddy. but the nice thing is that i have been able to get ready for work and leave without having to worry about waking thalia up and getting her ready. i think chris has taken her to school every day this week. what a huge difference that has made! mornings are so much easier with chris here. thanks babe! love you!

alright, its already late and i need to go get my car inspected tomorrow. totally lame...but we are saving over $1000 a year in car insurance! so i guess it evens out.

much much love and much much sleep,

c, c, and t

our trip to the doctor

i'm not sure if i mentioned this the other day, but thalia had been having some really high fevers. so after being sent home from school for the second time, we decided to take her to the doc. chris was painting so i went...and of course her temp was normal and after we got home she was running around. so apparently, all you need to do when your kid can't break a fever is mention going to the doctor, and everything goes away!

anyway, the doctor (well, nurse practitioner) decided to run a flu test - just to be sure since she couldn't find anything else wrong. while we waited for the results (15 min) i was trying to keep thalia entertained. then the madness began!

everything started out fine...

papou showed her how to trace his hand once...now she just touches the pen in between fingers and says "all done"

mommy mistakenly turned her back to text everyone that the NP couldn't find anything. while my back was turned, thalia knocked the picture off the wall. you may be thinking, 'no big deal!' except all the paintings in this office are hand-painted on unfinished canvases. so when it dropped...

the wood frame bent. this is the best i could do...pretty obvious considering the mat is painted on the wall. although, probably the funniest part of this picture is little's face! totally on her own!

sigh...such was our trip to doc. she still isn't quite herself but her fevers are gone. we think she is working on at least her two top eye teeth, so i think that's part of it. she also missed her nap yesterday, went to bed late, was up at 630 this morning, cried until 830 when i dropped her off at school - late just because that is my life these days, she technically missed breakfast but her teacher saved her a bowl. what an angel!

needless to say, it has still been a rough week. but we are making progress...thanks for your prayers and support!

much love and a bit more sleep (after 4 nights in bed with us, thalia spent the whole night in her own bed!)

c, c, and t

Pictures Galore!

helping daddy make pudding for our trifle

new sassy leopard print pants

two ponies, and she loves vernors (that's my girl!)

on our way to the hockey game!!

people mover heading to the bakery

thalia found her crown in her toy box at the new house. she hasn't been into having her picture taken as you can see.

i also finally got around to taking and adding thalia's 21 month hippo picture. as you can see we converted her crib to a big girl toddler bed! she was doing pretty well in it, but the fast few days she has had a high fever (103.5) and has slept in our bed. good thing chris convinced me to get a king bed! she felt much cooler today, so hopefully she has fought off whatever bug she had.

gamma and grampa headed back to michigan on sunday. we were very sad to see them go. they did so much help on the house, and we really truly appreciate and love them. as soon as we can get stuff put away, i'll start posting pictures of the new place. its finally starting to come along and i think its going to be really great.

off to another day of listening to phone interviews. wish me luck tomorrow...i'm talking to some folks about a full-time job. and even though i am guaranteed my current role for 2 years, it would be nice to have something firm.

much love and not a lot of sleep (thalia is starting to talk in her sleep...AND she kicks)

c, c, and t

Still going...

This will (maybe) be a short post...just wanted to give everyone a quick update on how we're doing. We closed on our new house last Monday at 11am, and met the carpet installers at the house at noon. The movers came on Tuesday morning, we realized they had ruined a bunch of our stuff (there was a HOLE in the roof of the truck - I couldn't make this up...so there was water damage to a number of wood pieces). After they were done, we drove through the night to Michigan. On the way, we witnessed a roll-over accident and Chris pulled 5 people from the car, 3 of which were children, NONE of which had their seatbelts on. Thank God the injuries were only to one person. We pulled into Gamma's at 8am, Chris and Thalia went back to bed, I was swamped with work. At 3pm we left to take the baby to Gamma so Chris and I could go to our friends' wedding (Congrats to the new Mr and Mrs Lee!). By the time we got to the reception, we had hit our wall. I only made it halfway home before I had to pullover and let Chris drive. Luckily we didnt' have to go anywhere for Thanksgiving - everyone came to us! It was really wonderful to spend time with Chris' family. I missed mine, but Chris' family has really taken me in as one of their own and they are fabulous people. We tried to play "Christmas Story" the game - what a joke. I swear a bunch of drunk college kids came up with it while watching the all day marathon! Friday morning Chris and I went shopping - we actually were given a hard time by a friend of ours who works at Kohl's because we showed up at 11! We got a lot of great deals on stuff we needed for our bedroom and the bathrooms...plus a new pair of boots for me! :o) That night we went to GiGi's for pizza with Aunt Lori and then took Thalia to her first Red Wings game! The game stunk, but we had a great time riding the people mover and cheering. Thalia was a bit freaked at first but then started clapping and dancing. It was great - a perfect night (except the Wings lost) topped off with a trip to Astoria!! Saturday Chris and I were lazy bums and literally sat on the couch most of the day. We were supposed to go to my 10 year reunion but I couldn't get the energy to drive 90 minutes just for a drink. So Aunt Steffi and Uncle Barrett came down for dinner and we had a lovely time. Sunday, we packed up and hit the road at 730 am. We made it home at 1030pm...I have never seen such traffic! Needless to say, I am tired and distracted today. Gampa came down with us to help paint and unpack. Yes, I actually left Chris and his dad with the task of picking paint colors. I'm sure they'll do fine. Sigh...so here I am at work, exhausted and wishing I were on a beach somwhere. I keep telling myself it will all be over soon...although i've been telling myself that for quite some time now ;o)

much love and very little sleep,
c, c, and t

ps...pics of our weekend to come soon

my own baby einstein

today thalia counted to 10


maybe that's not spectacular to some of you folks...but to me, that is wicked awesome! i mean, she's not even two! maybe lots of kids can count to ten before they are two...but i'm still impressed! we were putting her crayons away and i got the brilliant "teachable moment" idea to count the crayons as we put them in their bag. i started saying "one, two, three..." and thalia would repeat the number i said. then after four, she started counting and i repeated. all the way to 10!! then of course we had to show off to martha momma...and she's been counting to 10 the rest of the day!
earlier this week, thalia and i got to stay home from school and work because she had a fever. while i was on my computer, thalia pulled all her books from the table onto her lap:
(i love her ponytail in this pic!)

the following day, thalia was running around uncle ronnie's chair and she tripped on her new shoes. she planted her face right into the corner of this same couch...not only into the corner, but this couch as rivets up and down the arms. if you look close, you can see a round bump on her eyebrow, a round bump on her left cheek, a cut on her nose, and if she didn't have her paci in a fat lip :o( she was fine...apparently the next day at school, she was a little chatterbox - despite a banged up face and hardly sleeping that night.
finally, last weekend we got to spend time with elizabeth and sophie. we went to a craft show where martha momma had her jewelry (marthamaryjewelry.etsy.com) and then we found a Steak n Shake for lunch! even better...the girls got to eat for free!! although i was a bit disappointed to see they no longer have triple berry ala mode. thalia wasn't in a super good mood, as you can see: but she put her steak n shake hat on and had mac and cheese and applesauce. applesauce is thalia's current favorite food AND word. she says it all the time. applesauce and orange. the other day i said "what can i do for you?" and her response was "applesauce?" unfortunately, chris and i have had to literally deposit every dollar and penny into our checking account for our closing on monday, so we are out of applesauce. i'm such a bad mother! ;o)
i hope you all are having a great weekend. this past week has been one of the hardest in my life...but God has brought us through, and i think everything is really finally going to work out. we found out at 445pm friday that we were cleared for closing on monday. nothing like the last minute! chris should be on his way down any minute. he stayed in michigan for his great-grandma's 100th birthday party. thalia and i were really sad we couldn't be there...hopefully chris gave our love to everyone. if you were there and you didn't get loved on, you let me know and i'll smack him :o) happy birthday grandma touse! what an amazing life you have lived! thank you for your love and your humor!
wish us luck as we finish out this month of craziness. thank you for your prayers and love and thoughts. you are ever so appreciated!

much love and hope for more sleep,
c, c, and t

happy tuesday

as promised, here is a picture of our soon-to-be house. i am working with the mortgage folks today...apparently there was some miscommunication and we didn't have all the papers in we needed. please pray that this will get straightened out and that we will be able to keep our closing for next monday!

i also had to share this picture with you. this is from thalia's and my road trip to grand rapids a couple weeks ago. check out this reading pro! my favorite part is her leg on her knee. how precious is that?! i am so blessed to have such a goofball for a daughter. i know i couldn't have made it through the past year without her and the smiles she brings!

off to figure out what else the lenders need...its going to be a long week. but hopefully things will start to calm down after we close.

much love and little sleep,

c, c, and t

bye bye kelsey

i don't think that i have spoken much thalia's friend kelsey...at least not lately. kelsey is essentially thalia's longest and best friend. she was at childtime when thalia and i first moved down here over a year ago. then when childtime closed, we decided to keep the girls together. they have seen each other almost every day for the past 19 months! they are too funny together, and they get into plenty of mischief! for a while, thalia would only share her toys with kelsey; and kelsey would only give thalia a hug good-bye when they left in the evening. when they were younger and still crawling, they would chase each other around the rooms and just giggle the entire time. it was precious!

well, last week, kelsey turned 2...and moved to a new daycare :o(. thalia and i were very sad, but we know that there are many playdates in the future. here are some pictures of the girls, and one of kelsey's mom amy. it has been great having amy and kelsey in our lives and we wish them the best! but it is not a good-bye...it is a see ya later!

here are some other pictures i just got from thalia's teachers, while we are talking about school :o)

what a fun summer the kids had...i can't believe how quickly time flies!

now to the elephant in the room - chris and i are officially homeless! we closed on our house in michigan about half an hour ago. the movers came on monday, and by wednesday afternoon, the truck was loaded and rumbling down the road!! it was a very emotional experience - and quite exhausting! but chris and i made it through...we got to see a ton of family and friends while we were home, and we are ready for our new adventure of being a family again in north carolina! i have been very hesitant to talk much about the houses...just nervous that something might fall through. and even now...saying that we have closed on our michigan house is so surreal! i can't believe we really don't have a house any more!! AND i literally JUST got word that our loan money came through for our down payment for the house down here! Praise God for relief!! i thought i might be able to copy and paste a picture of the new house, but it won't work for some reason. i'll head out this weekend and take a picture so you can all see it.

what a day! thanks for all of your love and support!

much love and hope for more sleep,

c, c, and t

some random smiles (and lots of parentheses)

the movers came today...it has been a very surreal day. so here is yet another post that is really just an attempt to make myself smile :o) hopefully it works for you too!

this is thalia and i trying to have fun at my new home-away-from-home: Baltimore-Washington International Airport:

i'm not sure if i've told this story before, but we have been on so many flights (one of these days i am going to try to count them) that my 20 month old daughter knows what to do when we get to the airport. as soon as we get close to security, she holds her feet up and says "shoes, off". part of me thinks its adorable...the other part thinks its totally sad!

thalia's second favorite thing to do with her cousin madilynn is rub her head (her favorite thing to do is to poke her in the eye...)

among all the other things aunt jillian taught thalia last week, putting on makeup was thalia's favorite. good thing it was halloween!!

chris' new way of babysitting...give thalia a remote without batteries, and tell her she is playing video games!

since we are going to be leaving (very) soon, we have been saying goodbye to lots of people:

this is great-grandpa and great-grandma denhart (anyone else notice that chris, thalia and i are all wearing green, and jen, wj, and madilynn are all wearing burgundy? totally UNplanned!!)
and of course great-grandma busch (also known as GiGi)

and finally...just in case you didn't believe me:

thank you again for all your prayers and support. we love you all and couldn't be doing this without you!

much love and more sleep (surprisingly)

c, c, and t

long lost pictures

some of you may remember an adorable picture of thalia in her pink swimsuit and life jacket, looking on as her daddy jumped into hubbard lake to try to save our camera that fell in. well dear friends, with a combination of the memory card drying out and gamma bringing over her camera for us to use, here are the lost lake pictures!!!

if you blow this one up, you can see they are both laughing
sunnies!

the last two are my favorites. great memories of one of my favorite places in the entire world.

wish us luck, we are going continuing to go through our belongings to see what we can pitch and what we can donate. we are making pretty good progress though!

much love and more sleep,

c, c, and t