Home for Sale, Part 2

Our house is still on the market. Granted it's only been on for a month, but I had high hopes. We've had 7 showings so far, which is much more then when we briefly had the house on the market last fall. Of those 7, at least 5 comment on how "well maintained" the interior and exterior of the house were, how they "somewhat" or did like the property, but that the busy street was the downfall. We wish we can add a rule that states you must drive by the property before scheduling a showing. Then we wouldn't have to work so hard on getting the house in perfect shape only to have the street noise ruin it all. It's actually a little difficult to get the house in showing quality condition with SJ. As soon as you clean one room she's in there getting out all her toys. It's like taking 2 steps forward and one step back. Then you have to be out of the house for about 45 min-an hour during the actually showing. Many of the showings have been during dinner time or at a time when SJ would frankly just like to be at home playing. But, we press on and continue to work hard to keep our house looking great and pray we can sell it soon.

Oh, the last showing was for a woman who wanted to find a "quieter" place because her upstairs neighbors were very loud. Well, we live on the first floor. That's certainly a piece of info that can be found in the listing sheet or with a phone call by her agent. But, once again we got the house shining for someone who really didn't have any interest at all!

On brighter news... after over 5 weeks waiting we finally heard that our building permit for our 3rd floor/attic project at the Arlington house was finally approved! We are thrilled. The contractor should start the end of this week (as long as it stops raining.) The count down is on!Let's see if it actually takes only the 2 months they proposed.

On kids and eating

SJ has a knack for always being hungry. Unfortunately she's never quite hungry during an actual meal time. But, as soon as you put away lunch/dinner or as soon as you get in the car, she chimes in with, "I'm hungry" or "I want a snack." This is not really a new thing, but it's something I thought she'd kind of grow out of by now and it only gets more annoying. Granted I always have snacks on hand when we go out they usually are ones that are nonperishable and very portable (crackers, dried fruit, fruit strips, or pretzels), not necessarily good eats like yogurt, cheese and cut up veggies.

I think our new game plan is that what ever she has left of her dinner at night becomes her snack if she requests any food before bed. Although last night we put her left over food in front of her, per her request, during her 20 min of t.v. time before bed. Despite several verbal cues (that's part of my PT lingo) she did not eat one bite. Then she proceed to cry and have a tantrum when the t.v. was turned off and we told her it was time to go to bed. "I'm hungry," she cried and pleaded. "I'm sorry, but you had your chance. You can eat breakfast in the morning." She cried a bit before heading off to sleep but I still felt some guilty pangs about allowing her to go to bed hungry.

This morning she asked for breakfast and was given a bowl of cereal out of which she ate about 8 bites before being finished. Then, about an hour later was hungry again. She ate a snack,then 30 min later wanted another snack. This process seems to be repeating itself this whole day. For a special treat she got a Happy Meal for lunch. She complained the whole way home of being hungry. She proceeded to eat 3 french fries and drank 1/2 her milk and that's all. About an hour after wrapping up her untouched cheeseburger she said she was hungry again. Sigh.....I zapped her burger and so far I think she's had 1 bite. Hmmm.... I suspect in an hour again she'll be clamoring for another snack.

Enjoying Spring

Today it is rainy and only about 50 degrees. But, the past 2 weeks were quite wonderful here in Boston. There was plenty of sunshine and warm days. Last week SJ and I ventured out to a local hiking spot. We didn't do much hiking actually. SJ got sidetracked at the very small creek and decided she preferred throwing stones and branches in rather than hiking. She'd search for good throwing rocks, place them in her hat and then head back to the creek. I also had to give SJ an unexpected lesson on the difference between a rock and dried up doggie doo. I guess that's a good lesson to learn sometime! She also found a pine branch which she adopted as a broom for her doll house.

SJ the Teacher

SJ loves to read books based on the pictures. Here she had an attentive audience with her baby dolls. She also likes to sit on the books she's already read just in case one of her students were to try to swipe it. Kids are so funny sometimes!

Lovin' the braids

On birthdays (take 2) and voting

Today we celebrated Nathan's birthday again. This time with his family. SJ was very excited that her Daddy got to have two parties this year. She said, "When I'm 4, I will have 2 parties, too. And, when I'm 4, I can vote!"

Happy Birthday!

Today is Nathan's birthday! SJ wanted to buy him a cake and then wanted it to have pink icing. We settled on red icing!

It's a beautiful day in Boston and the Red Sox are winning! What a great day!!

All New Things

SJ loves to get new things and when she does she gives them their due diligence. The other day she got a new life jacket and she's been wearing it a lot around the house. She likes to play one of her games, this one she calls "Summertime." In Summertime she will alternate between her swimsuit and life jacket and her new summer Tees and shorts. She will get out her swimming goggles, her beach blanket and all her beach toys and have a blast! She often wants me to don my swimsuit, but at that I have to draw the line!

Home For Sale

Our house has been back on the market for just over a week now. Last Sunday we had an Open House. We worked ALL weekend to clean and spruce up the house. It looked amazingly good. We were very excited and thought for sure that there would be at least 10 people looking at it.

Well, when we returned home and met with the realtor his first comment was, "Well, it was kind of slow." Upon further questioning he mentioned that only 3 people came through. The first woman said, "I'm sorry, but I don't want a condo. I thought it was a single-family house." The second man said, "My wife is in the car with the baby. I'm going to go out so she can come in and look." Well, he ended up just driving off. And the 3rd person came with an agent and appeared to be the most promising person. So, all that work for a "slight" interest by one person! We vowed never to have an open house again!

We did get contact on Friday that someone wanted to look at the house today. After church we spent a couple hours tidying up and making sure everything was again in tip-top shape. We set out 3 of the booklets about the house that the realtor made and figured if the people had any interest at all they'd take one. So, we headed out for an hour and did some errands (hence, the picture of SJ at Dunkin' Donuts!) When we came back we noticed one of the booklets was gone. This is very exciting. I know it doesn't really mean much, but in this flat housing market any sign of interest is a good thing. So, we will just continue to wait and see. Please pray we can sell this house quickly and for a good price. We'd really just like to move on and put all our time and efforts into the Arlington house!

Tututaluba

Today I took SJ to the dance studio so she could get her ballet clothes in preparation for her PlayDance class that starts on Thursday. I don't know if she'll ever take off the ballet clothes. She loves them and all afternoon she has been playing "ballerina." Right now she's waiting for me to finish up so I can go pretend to be the teacher. Earlier I wasn't allowed to be a ballerina since I didn't have on the ballerina "suit" like her.

Awww....

Just a cute picture of SJ and her babies taking a rest in their strollers.