She's 1!!!

I probably should have posted this on her birthday but time just slips by these days...What a joy Kira has been this past year. I thank God every day for her, she is truly a blessing

Got her 1 year pics done at Sears since they offered me a free sitting fee and free 10x13....I guess they thought I was going to buy a package from them. Maybe I would have but the cheapest deal they had was $99! Yikes! You can look at them here...

http://www.SearsPhotos.com/ViewSharedAlbum.aspx?ShareID=a7d3a16e-55c0-404b-988a-91809d2db53c

Things we take for granted

Definitely took hot water for granted until we went without it for almost a month! After almost 8 weeks of waiting, waiting, waiting, we got hot water installed today and we are up and running!

Hot water!

Since we moved in on June 24, we have not had any hot water. I have been wondering when it was going to happen, feeling a little blue about it when lo and behold they showed up at OUR HOUSE today! Maybe we will get hot water this week!! Stay tuned...

Drumroll please...

No, not pictures of the house but I thought I would throw in one of a handsome, hardworking husband and a cute, smiling baby! ;)

Here's the kitchen after the tile work was finished...awesome job Dad! Tom helped cut most of the tile so it didn't take as long as it could have!
Another view of the kitchen..........
The bathroom, we didn't have a toilet or sink in there until the week we moved in! Talk about cutting it close!
Living room, before the floor was refinished and before any painting or trim...
The "master" bedroom...another "before" shot
Kira's room, painted and getting closer to being ready...no carpet yet though!
Jim working on some electrical stuff...he rewired the two bedrooms so that we were able to have a center light with ceiling fans. He also helped Tom put together all the cabinets which was a tedious job. I realize now that I uploaded these pics that I have NONE of Dad working and he has done so much of the technical things. Boo to me!
Moving day pics...can you say "CHAOS?"
Goodbye old apartment! We enjoyed making you our home for the past 5 years but it was time to move on...
The new kitchen...that box on the floor is the remaining two kitchen chairs for my little drop leaf table...I spent 2 HOURS putting two chairs together last night and just couldn't do the other two, I was too tired! So I guess I will finish it tonight!
The living room, floor looks nice now with the refinishing done! Notice no curtains or rug yet...curtains I wanted are backordered until Aug 6. Also, nothing hung on the walls but it has still been less than two weeks since we moved in so I got to cut myself a break I guess!
Another view of the kitchen! *Sigh* (of happiness)
The bathroom-sorry all these pics are side views...I am too impatient to rotate and save all of these the right way I suppose!
The master bedroom...I forgot to take a pic of the new carpet for you to see...well, next time I suppose!
And...no pic of Kira's room as she is sleeping at the moment and that is the reason why I have been able to post finally!

We've moved!

Since our last post, we are still in a continuous state of exhaustion but as of Thursday, we have been living in our house!!!! We couldn't have done it without the help of so many family members though.

My Uncle Dan (who is a teacher and thus has his summers off) graciously offered to help us move. Since we were moving on a weekday when most people who would normally help us would be working, we quickly said "yes" before he changed his mind. Bright and early on Thursday morning, we rented a UHaul and starting packing up our things. Uncle Dan showed up at 8:30Am and began helping too when, much to our delight, 6 school maintenance workers showed up to help us load up all the vehicles! Tom has a good relationship with the head of maintenance at the school and he happened to see us moving that morning and sent over his workers to help us load up! With their help, we had everything packed and loaded by 10:15AM! Thanks to the Uhaul, we were able to load everything up and make it down to our house in one trip! So renting that UHaul and spending $80 for it was totally worth it.

When we got there, my wonderful Dad left work to come and help Tom, Uncle Dan and myself move everything in to the house. My Grandmom and Grandpop were already there, Grandpop was working on our plumbing and Grandmom was cleaning my frig! Tom's Mom came over and whisked Kira away so I could focus on getting things in the house without having her under foot. My Mom offered to provide us dinner that night since we were working all day...she made yummy spaghetti! MMMMMM!!! One of my favorite meals!

Now to unpack....

So.TIRED.

You know that whole body tired feeling when you get when you have been going nonstop for a while and all you want to do is crawl under the covers and sleep for a week? Yeah. That's how I feel. I'm sure Tom would concur. 2 more weeks of this. Pray for us! :) Move in date is June 24th...

FYI...bought our cabinets last night! Bathroom was tiled on Tuesday and Kitchen floor is getting tiled tomorrow. That means once that's done, the cabinets will go in and things are really going to start coming together!

Thankfulness

Feeling very tired lately from all the constant work on the house but also extremely thankful....thankful for family that has helped and encouraged us during this time. My Mom, Mother in law, friend Sarah and sis in law have all graciously offered to babysit the little munchkin' so I am able to work on the house...this weekend was no exception. Kristina had Kira on Saturday, and took her to the aquarium with Jason and Grandmom Sherf. Looks like she had a good time! She really is quite a happy girl!

Afterwards, they went to Paneras and gave Kira a loaf of bread to gnaw on...

Here's a video from a couple weeks ago that I just found...