control

M is starting to enjoy picking out her own outfits. Some days she just needs editorial power over which shoes she'll wear. Today, her whole outfit was of her own design.How can you argue with enthusiasm like this?

sold

Last night we put the finishing touches on the negotiations and our house is officially under contract now. Hooray! We think our little house is pretty great, but we were still surprised at how quickly all this happened (six days on the market, four showings).

We both have had a few pangs of sadness now that it's a reality that we'll be leaving this place. Now we're off on an adventure to find a new place to call home!

membership has its privileges

We love the Museum of Life and Science here in Durham. We especially love it when members get in an hour before the general public. I think that M, L and I were the first non-staffers in the door this morning and that meant that we had the entire place to ourselves. We try to save the indoor activities for inclement weather, so with sunny skies and warm-ish temps already this morning, I herded them outside. They made a beeline for the sandbox.


After M used the tools in the sandbox, she divided them into categories and proceeded to line them all up. Guess all my work to keep things at home organized and show-ready have unintentionally rubbed off on her.


My favorite kiddos appeased me by pausing for a photo op outside the butterfly house.

Before too long, school groups arrived and the museum grounds were full of kids and parents and chaotic fun. It was so nice to start off the day quietly, though!

good news

Josh brought home some unexpected, but (in my opinion) well-deserved good news. He got a promotion in spite of layoffs happening at the office. I'm proud of him and I'm glad that the folks at Hill-Rom are realizing that he's pretty awesome. Way to go, JP!

work, work

We've been contemplating a move closer to Josh's office for about 6 months, but never made any moves towards getting back in the real estate game. That would require effort and research and right then we were tired/lazy. And the housing market (at least for sellers) was supposed to be yucky and we probably wouldn't sell for much more than we paid for this place. Blah. Really, our current house is just fine, we decided.

BUT! After spending a couple of afternoons house hunting with Chelsea and Jonathan (including looking at a few comparable places near our neighborhood), we realized that the market is better than we presumed. Combine that with the first-time buyers that are out shopping for houses to beat the April 30 tax credit deadline (the probable type of buyer for our little abode) and we decided to put our house on the market. Well, it's almost on the market. All those unfinished house projects we have? They are quickly nearing completion... even without Stan the man around to help. We're hoping to get listed within the next 10 days or so. Wish us luck.

We're hopeful the place will sell quickly, but if it doesn't go under contract by the end of April then we'll take it off the market and be content staying here for a little longer.

And with all the activity that must occur to get this place ready for potential buyers, the blog will once again take a backseat... but only temporarily.

cooking with kids

To keep things interesting in our kitchen, my goal is to try an average of one new recipe a week. This week's experiment was to create butternut squash gnocci and I figured it was low key enough that M and L could help me in the kitchen.

I did most of the prep work the night before (roasting the butternut squash and making the dough) so that all I would have to supervise was the shaping of the gnoccis. About 5 minutes into helping my two favorite two-year-olds roll out the dough into snakes and trying to teach them how to cut the snakes into pieces (with dull table knives, mind you), I realized that they had more interest in squishing and squashing the dough than actually following my lead. So I changed course, gave them each a section of dough and presented them with the playdough tools and some forks for making patterns. I also brought out a bowl of sprinkles from my cookie decorating supplies to give them additional decoration options.

(note: anyone dealing with the dough should consider using a clip to keep their hair out of their eyes/face or be prepared to get sticky dough all over your face/hair when you go to brush it away... that's why both the kids have hair clips)

The kids were occupied for a good thirty minutes... enough time for me to roll out the gnoccis, cook them and assemble the rest of our lunch.

And even though they ate almost all of their dough by the time I had our actual lunch ready, they both cleaned their plates and asked for seconds. I think that is pretty high praise for this recipe, indeed.