We bought a house!

I am finally proud to say that we have officially opened a new chapter of our lives.  We are now living 46.69 miles north of where we live now which is about an hour away.  We now live in Fort Lauderdale near the beach, downtown and the airport. We are so excited! I'm not sure if we are more excited that we are living in a really neat location or for the space that we needed but either way it's a great feeling.  I am officially signing the closing papers on August 10th.  Saturday we are going to take a look at the house again to get some measurements of the windows and to get a quote on re-doing the floors in the bedrooms. 

Here are the specs on the house:

One story

4 bdrm/2 bath

2,010 sq. feet

Pool

Has room for Sean's boat on the side of the house

Boat launch is in our neighborhood

10 min. from downtown and airport

3 min. from beach

I especially love the neighborhood because all of the street signs are named after the street signs in Key West and they're so cute! When you drive into our neighborhood you instantly feel like you are at the beach.  It also has a neighborhood park where Hunter can play and we can walk to it. 

The inside needs a little work like I said with the flooring in the bedrooms and some updating and painting so I'm going to spare you the inside photos right now.  I will take before and after photos when we get to that point, I'll post them.

We have so much to do before we move but the good news is that we don't have to be out of our house on the 10th.  The buyers of our house have given us some time in the month of August and if we wanted to we could move out at the end of the month. So its not a complete rush which is great so we can slowly move our stuff in and get organized.  We still have to find a day care for Hunter which we are looking into that this week.  Oh and we still have more boxes to pack! Looks like Daddy will be busy for the next few weeks...=)

My Leiutenant!

Remember awhile back when I faintly mentioned that Sean was studying for his Leiutenant's exam at work?  You guessed it, he passed! I'm so proud of him and Hunter is too of his daddy.  Sean has a ceremony that will take place to honor his recognition and we are all very excited.  Sean thought that he would be starting this position sometime later in the year but apparently he is starting in the middle of August! He has to go to a 2-week training program where he will need to go everyday (M-F, 9-5) compared to his usual schedule of 2-24 hour shifts a week.  Then he will go back to his usual schedule of the 2-24 hour shifts.  This is somewhat in the middle of us moving and me changing day care facilities for Hunter.  I was hoping that Sean wouldn't need to go every day for training because I wanted Hunter to start out slowly at the new day care and Sean would be able to be there and pick him up sooner than later when I would be able to get him at 5:30 pm.  We're hoping to be in our new house by the second week of August.  It was supposed to happen sooner but you know how these house "closings" go...the actual closing date is not what they say it will be...NEVER.  We do have good news on our house though, we will be closing on this one Wednesday so that will be an ease of mind to get one of our closings taken care of.  Since most likley we will be unable to close before we need to move out (August 1) we are planning to rent our new house from the sellers until we are able to close.  I'd rather be living in our new house than in our current one because we have been waiting forever for this! 

Proud of my daddy! Muah!





In the meantime, Hunter will be turning a year old in less than 2 months! Yikes! I am such a "Planner" that I actually started to freak out wondering what I was going to do for his birthday but not to worry, I have figured out what to do.  It is going to be inexpensive and it will involve the GiggleBellies! Sean and I are not the type to do something over-the-top and plus Hunter will not even remember this even though Sean and I will.  So, his birthday will be with family and some friends at our new house.  I just want Hunter to have a good time and dig into his cake and take some awesome pictures of him having fun.  That is all that matters to us.  I really can't believe that he is going to be a year old soon.  He is getting to be such a big boy. 

"Speckles"

Hunter has learned to nod his head "yes" or "no". He just learned the "yes" but knew "no" for awhile now.  I took some tips from his baby sign language book but that is pretty much the only thing that he understands now.  He is "cruising" but I like to say "surfing" because he really does "surf" from couch to loveseat to chaise to coffee table.  Sean and I think he may be walking on his own by the end of the month.  He is FINALLY starting to eat really good! Even though Hunter would eat solid food he would only eat maybe a total of 5 or 6 bites and that was it.  He loves his milk! Now, he is really eating his Puffs, Cheerios, pureed food (mostly table food of whatever we are eating that has texture), he is learning to eat fruit with his fingers instead of in the mesh feeder which he really does not want to part with.  So, overrall he is doing well.  We took him to get his shot that he was supposed to get at his 9 month appointment but since he was sick they didn't give it to him. At that time he weighed 17 pounds and when we took him he now weighs 19 pounds! So in one month he has gained 2 pounds! I knew that boy had to be gaining weight from all that he has started to eat.  Also, its hard to say but our breastfeeding days are over.  Hunter just didn't want to while we were on vacation and I wasn't going to argue with him over it.  He just loves his bottles of formula! It was a good run...10 months.  Even though I'm a little sad because I wanted to make it to a year, I'm still proud of us. 

My new wagon Daddy got for me.  He looks so big!

We're back!

We got back from Vegas late on Saturday night and we had a blast! First and foremost, Hunter overrall did a pretty good job during both flights for the most part.  We had a direct flight there and Hunter did start to get very restless and wanted to be able to get out of his car seat and venture around but there was only so far he could go so it was just trying to keep him entertained for 4.5 hours.  Phewww that was tough.  So on the way back we had a lay over (thank goodness!) so he was able to crawl and walk around all and wear himself out before we got on the plane.  He did wonderful while we were at our timeshare resort and had so much fun with us.

Hunter playing on his car seat on the plane.

We went to the pool everyday...

...some fun during the day....

I got really bored and decided to climb myself up into the dishwasher .

I love my sippy cup!

I love playing peek-a-boo in my tunnel.

Then we had some fun times at night while Hunty was asleep....

Me and my two sister in-laws, Marnie and Jessica

This was after the Cirque du Solei show, La Reve which we loved! 

La Reve after the show.

Thought that this was appropriate..=)

We all had such a great time together and ended with a nice family dinner at a really nice steakhouse at The Orleans hotel:

The Tracey's and Hapgood's!

We had such a great time and can't wait for the next family reunion!

Birthday's and Packing!

Tomorrow is my 30th birthday. Eh. Blah.  Feels just like another day except that I will be in the "30's" club.  I'm starting to be okay about it.  It's not like I can control it or anything but I do hear alot of people tell me that your "30's" is a whole new world and that it's a lot of fun.  We'll see.  Tomorrow will be the first day of it. =) 

Well, its just about that time for us to finally go on vacation to Las Vegas and celebrate our birthdays!  The day we leave is also Sean's birthday (our birthday's are 4 days apart).  We will be there for the whole week.   I do feel like our vacation is kinda long compared to the previous times that we have been out there but on the other hand we are not staying on the "strip".  We will stay at our Timeshare that is right off of it and does not have a casino and is a family oriented resort where they have lots of things to do for kids and has a pool and gym, etc. so it won't feel so much like we are in a casino contstantly.  Sean's family from C.A., his sister in Lake Tahoe, his sister here in Miami, and my brother and his wife will be joining us as well.  We all can't wait to see each other! Also, Hunter will be meeting his Grandpa Jim for the first time so we are very excited for them to finally meet.  

This week, I have been getting everything ready for our trip.  I purposely made sure to book our flight through Southwest because they allow 2 free bags to be checked in (per person) and also the carseat and stroller are free. Seeing that I am like every average mom and woman in America, I will be packing  all of the overthought "essentials" in the 4 suitcases we will be bringing.  Here are what each of my suitcases will be carrying:

Suitcase #1: Hunter's toys, bath toys and swimming stuff (float, goggles, ear plugs and toys) and swimming diapers and some books

Suitcase #2: Hunter's clothes, bibs, medicine cabinet (haha), bath lotion and cleanser, wash cloths, his blanky's, bottles, bottle liners (we use Playtex), sippy cups, extra pacifiers, sound machine (for him at night)and I'm sure I will find a few other things (haven't packed yet)

Suitcase #3: Me and Sean's clothes/shoes (haven't packed yet

Suitcase #4: Me and Sean's clothes/shoes( haven't packed yet)

+ Carseat

+ Stroller

Now in case you are wondering or even you even thought of it, I am planning on going to the store to buy his diapers, wipes, baby food/table food and our food,  water, formula etc. the morning after we get there.  We have a kitchen in the room so it will be nice to make ourselves meals while we are there because spending money on food out there is ridulous plus I don't want Hunter eating junk. 

This was before the suitcase was packed and Hunter decided that it was really fun to get on top of it. 

Oh, I almost forgot I have to bring Hunter some new toys for the flight along with his food, diapers, etc.  So I have the bag for new toys and things that we know he will like to fidget with and then the diaper bag full of stuff.  Over the past few months we've been collecting Hunter new toys from the Consignment shop, yard sales and even had some left over from this past Christmas! Hunter has all new stuff to go on the trip with and explore all of them.  Hopefully some of them will help to keep him occupied for the long flight over there and back.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  When we get to the airport it will be a nap time for him so I'm hoping that we can keep him awake until we get on the plane and then he will pass out for awhile on the way there.  Last time we flew with Hunter, he had breakdown in the airport right before we got on the flight.

Then to top it off, when we get back we are closing on our house on the 17th and then closing on our new house at the end of the month and will be in our new house by August 1! Phewww....this is such a busy month for us.  I'm so ready for everything to be settled. This mommy needs a break (not the vacation one) an official b-r-e-a-k!