MIA

So I apologize to all of you who I am sure are just DYING to know what Kaje and I have been up too. Life has been busy to say the least. And I seem to have had a tremendous amount of bad news in the past few months and think that my mind has been mostly per occupied with that.

We have been doing well though! 30 days and counting for Wes to get home! Lots and lots of work going on at the house in just the past 5 days! One upside to a down economy is that home improvement guys offer better rates for cash =) The past weekend I FINALLY got the hallway painted and all of the trim work done (we have only lived in the house for 3 years), the guest bath and guest bedroom have been repainted and all of the trim work has been finished in their as well and it looks AMAZING! My mom and I emptied out closets, cabinets, extra furniture, and took pictures off the wall, got it all packed up and moved into a storage unit to have the house look more staged and less personal. In this market it is all about the buyer. Last night we got the entry way and dinning room completely primed and the painter will be back on Saturday to pain it the same neutral color as the hall, guest room and bath which will help neutralize the house and make it feel larger. As much as I hated to paint over the green (which I am in LOVE with) I knew it would make the house feel lighter and larger, and it isn’t about what I want anymore. Not sure why people can’t see past paint colors but that seems to be an issue, so the more basic I am the better off we will be. Kaje’s room will stay green, the master bed and bath are a deeper tan then the hallway color, the den is a darker brown as well, so those will stay, and then you will just have the yellow in the kitchen. Hopefully all this work will be worth it! On Sunday I am getting a light in the Den! Not sure whose idea it was in the 70’s and 80’s to build houses without central lighting, but I feel strongly that they should be shot! Last summer we added central lighting to all the bedrooms and this will be the last room that needs it! So a HUGE advantage over other homes in the neighborhood and surprisingly enough, not that expensive to add =) The most exciting thing to come is that the last weekend in March I am paying someone to lay the rest of the hardwood floor in the master bedroom! Wes and I can do it for sure, but it takes a while, and what would take us all day, will take a professional 3-4 hours…and for $220 you just can’t beat it! $1 a sq ft! They will also be taking the carpet in the master bedroom and laying it on the stairs and hallway. For those of you who don’t know, I so graciously dumped a gallon of paint down my stairs about a year and half ago, so it will be nice to have that fixed! Then the 1st weekend in April the painter will be back doing some carpentry work. Wes’s carpentry skills have proven to be GREAT if you want your cabinets to withstand a hurricane, but not so great if you do not want to lift a 50 lbs drawer every time you need a fork. So I am going to have Harry put new bottoms in bottom cabinets and re-build that drawer for us as well as finish laying all the rest of the quarter round Wes didn’t get done before he deployed! It will be amazing! The only thing Wes and I should have left to do when he gets home is sod the backyard, and replace the sub floor and tile the guest bath. Sounds like a big job, but Harry told me if we had everything ripped out before he got there (which I am excitant at demolition) he could get the new sub floor down in about 2 hours costing me a whopping $40! And though I will NEVER tile a Kitchen again in my life! Bathrooms are not so bad, so I will be laying the last room of tile needed and we will be officially ready to be on the market!
It is amazing how much you can get accomplished with someone watching your 2 year old and a little money!

All about Kaje

I am not sure where he has learned it, or why it is just now coming about. But he has officially learned how to sass his mother. Not quite with words, but more with gestures and grunting noises that have proven to escalate over the past few weeks and reached a point of no return this week with BB and Aunt Nene in town. It should be fun to get that back in order when they leave here on Saturday. They say whatever you did to your parents you will get back twice as much with your children, I wish I had been a better kid, because we are in for some major attitude issues ( I am sure no one saw that coming LOL). Using the potty has again officially ceased to exist. We only want to use the potty for standing on and filling with water from the bathtub, both options I am not a fan of. Full force potty training will be taking place as soon as daddy is home to assist as well as must come about during daddy’s leave time as we must be fairly close to potty trained to start our new school in August. I love the new babysitter he has been at since December, however think he needs more structure now, so he will be attending full time preschool this fall with an extend hour program. So just half day of school and the rest will be free time, but I think 3-4 hours of solid structure will be good for him as he seems to flourish more in that environment.
Kaje has also grown his vocabulary by leaps and bounds over the past month. Almost always speaking in full phrases and sentences. Although grammar is not always used properly I am still often amazed and that words he puts together as well as how many he will use together to talk to you. I am hesitant to say he is advanced, because all parents think their kids are advanced, however according to most of what I have read it is not until you are 3 that you are speaking in phrase 80-90% of the time and at 4 your sentences should sound like an adult. I have been told by 2 speech pathologist that his articulation is definitely advanced, but I think most of his vocabulary and speaking in phrase has a lot to do with the fact that he is the only one at home with me, so I talk to him a lot more then I think the average toddle talks to their parent =)

Other then that we are great! Just looking forward to Daddy getting home, selling the house, finding a new job, and relocating to Charleston SC.