This and that...

I hope the weather is beautiful where you are and that you're feeling well and enjoying life to it's fullest today. I know you are because you're reading our blog!

I was putting laundry in the washer and I looked beside me and our seven month old is STANDING UP! I laughed out loud, that sort of surprised loud laugh and she wasn't sure whether she was doing a good or bad thing. She had used a full laundry basket to pull herself up. She doesn't crawl yet, though it won't be long. She has been successful in rolling across the entire living room. Even as we speak, she is sitting up on the wood floor and pushing herself backwards with her bare feet. So, we have mobility, albeit primitive.

Juju has also cut TWO teeth now! This was much bigger news, I think, when her big brother did the same, but it still makes the news, just not the front page. I finally got a good picture of them, see?

Here our model is wearing an original Becca shirt from 1977,
it was embroidered by the model's great grandmother in Tennessee.

Our church is having it's GRAND OPENING this Sunday at 9:30am
in case anyone should want to come join us!

MOVING ALONG......

We've had an exciting week regarding our house. Sunday and Monday we more than Spring cleaned, we Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter cleaned. Tuesday the entire realtor company we're using walked through our house and we were officially "on the market". That day they called and told us one of the realtors wanted to take a couple through the next day. So, Wednesday night we made ourselves scarce and our house was shown for the first time. That day, we got another call that two more families wanted to view the house Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately, both of those cancelled right before the visit, but both want to reschedule. So, we've been encouraged especially since there's been some interest and we still don't even have a sign out yet. I'm not sure why there's not a sign out yet, but I'm not losing sleep over it.

Right before we leave for our house to be shown, Ben and I:

• Vacuum and wipe floors
• Wipe down the tub, sinks and counters
• Clean toilets
  
• Deal with anything left out on the counters or tables
• Change any poopy diapers outdoors to keep the stench out
• Open all the blinds and turn on ALL the lights
• Pick up litter from outside
• Deadhead the flowers
• Throw a few chocolate chip cookie dough balls in the toaster oven to make the place smell like home
  

Let me know if there's any other good ideas we should do. We've been eating out a little more to keep the messiness to a minimum and I've strictly been forbidden to bake as my husband doesn't want to clean the mess. I'm a messy cook, but put my almost 3 year old helper into the mix and you might as well take a five pound bag of flour and just dump it on my floor. It looks the same.

What seemed a monumental task last week, has become somehow doable. I mean laundry. I'm trying to keep the place clean enough that you don't see piles of it in baskets around the house or sitting out to be folded or put away. I'm trying to follow the FlyLady routines to maintain the house. The cleanliness is novel, we all like it, not sure we can sustain it though. Hopefully, the house will sell fast.

Above is a picture of the mosaic that was two years in the making. When Z was about Juju's age, I took a pottery class and made the clay base for this sign with the numbers glazed on it. I had the pieces of tile sitting on top in our basement for the last two years thinking it would take forever to glue them all down. Well I did it last Friday in about two hours. Saturday Ben grouted it, Sunday he mounted it!

Just HAD to share!

Finally, I found these two blog entries worthy of sharing. Actually, I wished I'd posted them myself, so instead of stealing I'm linking you to the blogs on which they were found:

Beneath the Couch Cushions - This video should NOT make a person cry, but it did me, tears of joy, I'm so weird!

The Schrembecks - Just outright informative, please read if you have kids and use Vick's VapoRub!