Merry Christmas!

How Do We Spell Relief?

S-O-L-D

Yes - you read that correctly! We had our home inspection yesterday. Now we have this in our front yard:

What a great feeling!! All this from some woman who was walking by and not looking for a house, but then decided she just had to have ours last Monday! (We were happy to oblige.)

We don't have to be out until January 11th, but the plan is to start to move soon....today? Tomorrow? We want to be out (and in) by Christmas and to FINALLY be able to be 'normal' in the new house. Today was our FIRST day NOT for sale and we are taking full advantage! You should see our living room. We've made NO effort to put ANYTHING away today. Jack's toys are still out...it's so much easier to have a toddler and a house not for sale. Today we didn't even cringe if he touched the dishwasher or fridge or got food on the floor because....we can clean it L-A-T-E-R... when we want to because nobody is coming over today - at least nobody who doesn't already know us. The 'real' us. :) And get this...we may even have FISH for dinner!

We've gotten much, much neater as a household through this ordeal, and we don't intend to let the pendulum swing completely the other way and turn into utter pigs... maybe just on Sundays, but it is liberating to be able to sit in this mess and not care. :) I know we'll put it all away later, but we can actually go to the grocery store tonight and leave everything as is because we won't have a showing while we are gone.

And...get this - another bonus came with selling the house, last night we actually got to go shopping. Since we didn't know what house we would be living in (and oh yeah, two mortgages and adopting from Russia made things just a little tough. ;) ), shopping had almost become nonexistant for the past year except for maybe a stop at Kroger....how I've missed shopping....for things other than food....

Last night we bought mirrors for our new bathrooms. Doesn't that sound exciting?? Actually it was great fun. I think even for Erik:) (Okay, I just reread those 2 sentences. Do I sound old or what?? - did I actually just say it was fun to shop for bathroom mirrors on a Saturday night??)

Wow. :)

On the way into the store, Jack was in his first snowfall. He looked up at the sky and opened his mouth. He thinks snow is great fun!

One thing Jack does not think is great fun is getting stuck in the toy box. Earlier today we heard crying by the toy box and after rounding the corner, we were greeted by this sight:

Of course we helped the poor guy out.....(giggling the whole time to ourselves.)