Pick me, HGTV!

They won't ... especially since the network doesn't even know I exist or that Bryan & I have a new house that I have no idea how to decorate :)

After having a FABULOUS lunch with my Mom and Beth Hennings yesterday (thank you!), Mom spent the afternoon with me giggling over Maverick's antics and helping me search for window treatments. We came up with (what we felt like was) a really good idea for coordinating treatments for the den and kitchen, with a cool window seat cushion we're going to make out of two extra panels we ordered.

Once I set the "official" date of our Open House for May 21st (eeek! so soon!) it suddenly became very real to me that I need to REALLY get on the decorating ball! The only room in the house that looks (almost) completely put together is the den...

I have the change of address/open house invites now (they came in the mail on Tuesday!), so I need to get those addressed and sent off pronto! The problem is that the only time I can really do that is when Maverick is sleeping or licking the heck out of some peanut butter in his Kong :)

Anyway, today I decided to finish figuring out these window treatments, and made a decision on what will go in the formal dining room .... but I'm totally stumped with our bedroom. 100%. Again, HGTV designers .... where are y'all anyway!?

On a completely different note, Bryan was surprised when he got to the office this morning by this:



How sweet is that? I'm glad he's enjoying his job so much! And his co-workers are super nice to him. One of them even baked him a cake! :) His birthday's coming up on Saturday, fun!!

And, final subject change I promise, Maverick is so dang smart. Maybe too smart for his own good (and too smart for us too!) This morning he had his breakfast as usual, and then we played, took a walk, the usual, but he must have decided he was still hungry. He walked over to the bin where we keep his food and looked at it, looked at me and sat down. Then he walked over to the basket with the treats, looked at me and sat down. He repeated this a couple of times until I realized he was "sitting" like I make him do before I give him his food or treats! I thought that was pretty effective communication coming from an almost-3-month-old puppy! Once I got the message and gave him some more food, his tag wagged like crazy and he gobbled it right up. Problem solved! I didn't mind giving him some more, even though we're supposed to stick to the "3 meals rule" because he never eats when he's not hungry - and he's been going through a huge growth spurt. I can't blame the little guy for needed fuel for that growing!

Easter Sunday

After 2 hectic days of putting in a sprinkler system, Bryan & I decided to take Maverick and spend Saturday night at my parent's house. They have a new pool/hot tub and it's fabulous!! I took an awesome picture of my Mom & Dad in the hot tub on Saturday night, but it's on Mom's camera, not mine :(

Sunday morning saw us up bright and early on the way to church, but we maybe should have gotten there an hour early instead of 30 minutes early, because it was standing room only. Man, was it packed! I guess lots of people who don't usually go were there + their families. Insanity.

Then it was back to the lake house & family started to arrive! Aunt Jana & Uncle Keith were there with their 4 children, Aunt Tricia & Uncle Dwayne were there with their 2 boys, Meemaw & Papaw, my parents, Grady, and Bryan & I (and Maverick). It was a pretty full house! And it was such a good time!! Prepare yourself for a lot of happy photos! :)

First, on the left everyone is visiting & on the right Regan & Blake are jet-skiing.



On the left, Reed with his swollen knee is hanging out, & on the right Dwayne, Kyle, Tricia & Garrett trade out jet-skiers.



On the left, Meemaw & Dad look adorable, and on the right Uncle Keith & Garrett bond in the hot tub.



On the left, the visiting continues and on the right Meemaw learns how to get Maverick to sit!



Below Maverick takes his first swim (which we're not sure he enjoyed, haha) and then gets dried off.



Saturday was Aunt Tricia's birthday, so of course there was cake!
And a lot of time spent in the kitchen getting food ready and eating :)



Maverick destroys some of Mom & Dad's flowers, but still looks adorable.
And Grady strikes a pose.



Bryan took a swim - the cold water felt good on his swollen cheeks :)
Blake & Garrett jet-ski.



There are even more photos, but these should give you a general idea of how much fun was had by all! I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Wisdom-teeth-less

Early Thursday morning Bryan had his wisdom teeth out + 2 other teeth that weren't doing him any good. He experienced more bleeding than is "normal," but not to a scary point - it was mostly just kinda yucky and a pain for Bryan, poor guy. His cheeks were super puffy, but by today (4 days in) they're much less swollen. He made me promise to not take any pictures, so no Bryan-the-Chipmunk photos today :(

He's doing much better!! And back to work tomorrow!

DIY Sprinkler System

WOW! I'm exhausted and so are my parents, my neighbor (Peter), and the two "hombres" we hired for just Friday afternoon. However, we have about a 94% complete and installed sprinkler system!! There's a little bit of electrical business that isn't being cooperative, but we're hoping Bryan can sort it out once he's recovered ... and then we'll have a 100% complete sprinkler system! Until then, we'll keep using the hose - but it shouldn't take too much longer!

Photos of the hard workers! Mom, Dad, and then Peter & I.





Bryan mostly spent the two days sleeping on the couch, thanks to pain killers and ice packs.

The puppy, however, spent the two days by being a nuisance and incredibly cute. Check the little man out:



In case you were wondering, he's burrowed into a tunnel for one of the PVC pipes :) He felt free to enlarge it by means of his own digging, of course.

Facial or Hair Cut?

Not for me - for the puppy!

You may have noticed that our little man has a TON of hair. It grows curly and in waves EVERYWHERE - including his adorable little face. It was getting so wild that it was in his eyes, and getting really matted below his eyes and around his nose from his eyes watering.

Before:


Keeping in mind that Maverick is infinitely more calm in the evenings after dinner and playtime, right around when he starts getting sleepy, I decided that last night he would get his first "hair cut." Don't worry, we really weren't overly ambitious - we just wanted to trim the hair around his face. This is still a little more challenging than you might think since he's tiny, and very squirmy. I had Maverick sit first in my lap so I could trim one side, while Bryan fed him small treats at strategic intervals, and then we moved him to Bryan's lap so I could do the other side. The result looks good!! Well, we think so.

After:


What do you think?
I think Maverick enjoyed stalking the vacuum cleaner after the haircut more than the actual haircut process, but that's pretty standard around here :)

It's hard for me not to include more pictures ...

I love this one because it just seems very personality appropriate. Goofy, ready to pounce, yet still relaxed. That's Maverick.



And this one is just too cute. He would WAY rather play tug or chase than watch me blog or check email or facebook!

Growth Spurt!

A month ago we took Maverick to the vet and he weighed in at 7.3 pounds. Then, three weeks later (last Tuesday) we took him back to the vet and he weighed in at 8.2 pounds. And now, exactly one week later, we went back to the vet to finish the 2nd round of shots, and he weighed 9.6 pounds!!! Oh my gosh! I guess that explains why he is ALWAYS hungry! Over a pound in a week!! He definitely looks and feels heavier, so it makes sense, but I had them weigh him twice just to check.

It's been officially a month today since he joined our little family. According to the scale, he's growing up already!! :)

We love our pupppy!

Tomorrow we'll have had Maverick an entire month! Can you believe it? When I first took him to the vet right after we got him he was 7.3 lbs, and now he's 8.2 lbs. It really doesn't sound like much, but he does look bigger! You may notice that most of our better pictures of him are when he's sleeping. It's WAY easier to take photos of a sleeping puppy than an active, hyper, playing one!! :)

Rarely does Maverick sleep curled up into a ball. It's so cute!

This would be Maverick sound asleep with his face inside Mom's shoe :) Too funny!


Since he's a fan of digging up our flower beds, we decided to give him his OWN digging spot. He's starting to realize it goes much better for him if he digs here than over by the bushes! :)


He LOVES his monkey toy!!! It's almost as big as he is though, which makes it hilarious as he tries to carry it around :)

Again, peacefully asleep with his arm around his toy, and his back against another.


The boy loves to eat dirt, grass and mulch. I'm not really sure why we buy dog food actually... :)


I hope you enjoyed the photos! He's so stinking cute and we love him!

Hourly Pay?

Tutoring is a great part time job - especially as a temporary measure until I can figure out something more permanent. It's a little frustrating because I mostly work in the evenings and weekends when Bryan is home. Since this is temporary, we're not complaining - but it will be nice to have a normal "day time" job again, either part time or full time, so that our times off will mesh a little better!

I'm frequently asked what I charge an hour .... well, since I'm contracting through a company, I go by their rates. This is somewhat misleading, however, because some students take a lot of prep work! This means what I'm paid actually gets divided up between my prep work, driving time, and actual tutoring time. Prep work usually takes an hour ... driving time for all of my students so far is about an hour round trip ... and then tutoring itself is either an hour or hour and a half per session. Meaning what I get paid is more like per every 3 hours, not every ONE hour. See what I mean? And then I'll have to pay taxes. And fill my car up with gas. I'm pretty sure I should get paid more ... and I would if I was a private tutor instead of a contractor. Maybe I'll just have to branch out and go for it on my own.

OR maybe I'll find a job! Keep praying. I've done a lot of applying, but since most districts and schools are firing instead of hiring, it's really kind of a bleak time for searching for education jobs. We'll just see what happens!

Aggieland & Puppy Sleepover

This past weekend was really nice! Tammy Mitchell was awesome and volunteered to keep Maverick on Saturday so that Bryan and I could drive up to Aggieland to attend the Maroon & White Game with some friends - David, Adam & Jacob. Before the game we had some delicious BBQ at C&J's BBQ and I even got to see my little brother & his fiance briefly! The game was super hot and sunny, but I think Bryan really loved being able to see the football players he's been reading about in action. I think he feels pretty good about this coming season, but we'll just have to see. (Side note: parking was free! I didn't know A&M let people do anything for free!)







After football the other 3 guys took off and we ran some errands around College Station and had dinner at Freebirds (yummmm!)

Then we headed to Olsen Field (soon to be Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park...) to meet a friend of mine for some Aggie Baseball! They played HORRIBLY. I don't think our infielders remembered that they were supposed to actually field the ball ... ridiculous. But it was so great to see Megan!
Since the game didn't even start until 6:45, Tammy said Maverick could stay the night. He had an AWESOME day playing with their little puppy, Lucky, and she said he slept the sleep of the exhausted, haha.



We got home really late, slept past 5am for the first time in a month (thank you Mitchell family!) and went to Palm Sunday service. Then we drove over to their house and picked up our very tired but very happy puppy.

It was a great weekend!!! I'm about to head to my tutoring session, so must get busy!

Bits and Pieces

I looked back over my blogging history, and realized that I've never slacked so much as in April this year! I think that's because it's become a little harder to carve out the time and energy for it :)

My addiction to the TV show Gilmore Girls is official. It aired from 2000 to 2007, and I've been having Netflix send us discs as we keep returning them. There are 7 seasons and 6 discs to every season .... it's going to take a while to receive and watch all 42 discs, but I'm so excited! Maverick would obviously rather play chase or tug than watch the show, so I occasionally have to remind him that it's not ALL about him :)

Actually, speaking of Maverick, he's been really good lately. He's getting (a bit) better with his crate, almost zero house training accidents, and he's just about mastered the command "sit," which most dogs don't master this young! He's also finally figuring out what his name is, which is cool. He ADORES our across the street neighbors, and will sometimes try to look out the window next to the front door to see if twins are outside playing. It's so cute. It's still a little challenging to sometimes get our schedule nailed down, since it's not always consistent, but we're getting there!

My future sister-in-law, Marissa, came by on Tuesday after our vet appointment (Maverick's second round of vaccines), to meet the little guy and visit! It was so nice! I really appreciate her making the drive from College Station. She and Grady have been making some plans for next year that I didn't know about until we visited, so I'm really looking forward to see what ends up unfolding in the next few months as far as their plans are concerned.

The house is really starting to feel like home, too. We L-O-V-E our back yard and patio! I think the only two things that could really make it the teensiest bit better will be a porch swing & gas grill! It's on our to-get list, as soon as we find the right one at the right price. Maverick is also a big fan, as I'm sure you could already guess :) He likes to "pull weeds" and run in circles around the tree. Whatever works for him, I guess!

Tomorrow I start with my newest student, the 4th grader on his writing skills, and I'm actually feeling a pretty nervous. I'm not really sure what to expect, or what to do, so keep us in your thoughts as I try to figure out the best way to help and support this child. Many, many thank to Janie for the pep talk I needed today!

I hope everyone is having a good week and not getting too stuffy from this miserable oak pollen that's in the air. I'm praying for rain so that it will GO AWAY! Awful stuff. Plus our lawn would appreciate a good downpour, as I'm sure the rest of you are thinking as well!

Also: in case y'all were wondering, Bryan is doing very well too :) I didn't want to leave him out. He had a trip to Denver last week and says this about it, "it was a lot of time traveling for a 4 hour meeting, but it was fun and productive, and I got to stay in a very nice hotel!"

I know we're not overly exciting these days, but thanks for reading!

Tutoring & Visits

I realized I haven't really shared much about my new "job." Prep work combined with the hours I spend driving, and actually tutoring do make it feel a job, but it really doesn't sound like one! As of this moment, I have 3 students. I have had several requests from other parents, but I decided to draw the line at any child under the age of 6, which slowed the requests down. I know it sounds cold-hearted, but other than the neighboring kiddos, and our own future little ones, I'm DONE with the 4 and 5 year olds. No more. (Well, no more after one my students finishes with me at the end of the summer.)

First, I have a 5 year old, who is originally from China. His parents have adopted him and we're working on getting him ready for Kindergarten in the fall. This consists mostly of letter recognition, handwriting, initial sounds, numbers, shapes, sorting, etc. He'll work with me until August.

Second, I have a 7th grader. We primarily focus on getting her caught up in math, as well as raising her grades in all subjects by helping her get organized, complete assignments and study for exams. I really enjoy this student! She'll work with me on school work through May, and then possibly take a summer study skills session with me ... not sure about that yet, though.

And lastly (for now), I have a 4th grader. We're going to be focusing completely on his writing skills - penmanship, spelling, sentence structure, grammar, etc. I've never worked on something like that, so it should be an interesting challenge! (Aren't all new things a bit challenging though?) After school lets out his parents said they want to work even MORE during the summer, hoping to get him on grade level by the time school starts next fall. It will take some intensive work on both of our parts, but we'll see what we can do.

I may take other students, but I don't want to encroach too much on the time Bryan and I have together in the evenings and on the weekends when he's off work. Right now I work Monday, Wednesday and Sunday evenings as well as Thursday and Friday afternoons. My hope is that once these students are out of school for the summer, we can actually move these sessions to weekday mornings, which would ROCK!
_______________________

In other news, we've been having lots of visitors at our new home! Mom has been over a couple of times, my Grandma came to stay the night, and this past weekend my Meemaw and Papaw came to take us to lunch and look it over. Plus our friends Laura and Collin have stopped by, as did Collin's Mom. MeMaw & Paw have also been by since we "finished" moving in, as well as my Aunt Jana, my cousin Regan, and friend Samantha. There are plans for many others, as well.
(*Side note* I use the word "finished" VERY lightly)

We're thinking about having a big Open House party on May 21st .... hopefully I can get my butt in gear enough to be ready!

For now, though, I've got a pretty yucky sinus infection (thank you Oak Pollen), and am just trying to keep up with Maverick & my tutoring, as well as doing lots of napping & taking sinus meds. Hoping for a QUICK recovery! This is what happens this time of year EVERY year. Yucko!

Enjoy the beautiful weather, blue skies, and the last time we'll see the 70s during the day for quite a while :)

Massively late & long post about MOVING

I still owe an account of our moving weekend. Between taking care of the puppy, unpacking boxes, painting, and tutoring, I've not had too many moments to just breathe, let alone write a long blog post. However, the puppy is snoozing, and I've got a few minutes, so here goes!

First, on Thursday, March 24 (I'm THAT late!?!) Bryan and I had our final walk through to make sure everything in the house was exactly as it should be. It wasn't, though, and the guy in charge of building our house was pretty upset that it wasn't all done. There were some chips in the granite that still needed to be taken care of, the windows were filthy, and the concrete on the porch hadn't been patched - three of the many things Bryan and I said needed to be fixed from the walk through a week prior. Everything else was fine, but we wanted these things taken care of. Jimmy (our builder) made several calls and promised us he'd have these things taken care of before we closed on our house the next morning at 10am.

After the walk through, Bryan and I played a very difficult game of tetris packing as many of our belongings as possible (we exceeded our expectations!) into my CRV & his car. This required us to each take about 20 trips up and down the three flights of stairs to our apartment carrying HEAVY boxes. We were pooped. Thank goodness my parents volunteered to keep Maverick for the night so we could get all this done! It would have been about 10 times harder with a puppy underfoot. Around midnight we finally crashed, eager for the next day!

Here's our crazy apartment's dining room ready for the move. I'm SO glad this is just a picture and isn't real anymore!



On Friday, March 25, we were both up at the crack of dawn despite the exhausting evening prior. It was even better than Christmas morning as a kid - we were finally going to close and be allowed to move into our house! We didn't need to be downtown until 10am, but we decided to splurge on breakfast out and leave in pretty of time to make allowances for traffic, etc. This meant we were at the Ryland office by 8:45am .... a good hour and fifteen minutes before our appointment. That wouldn't have been so bad, but the people who had the appointment before us were running late, dang it. Good grief. Around 10:45, we signed about a million pages and initialed a million more, before it was truly ours!! We jumped in the car and headed to our new neighborhood so we could pick up the keys at the neighborhood Ryland office! To say we were excited when the keys were handed to us is a major understatement.

Unfortunately, the high wore off pretty quickly. When we got to the house we found out that the call we got from Jimmy that morning saying everything had been finished by 10am when we signed was not quite accurate. I think there were about 15 people swarming over our house getting stuff done. We didn't get to unlock the door ourselves, we didn't get to just walk around and feel awesome that it was ours. Instead, we had to get out of other people's way and feel guilty about interfering as we moved in the boxes and suitcases from our vehicles. I was getting pretty upset when they were still there a good hour and more after we got there .... around 1:30pm. I was excited about my parents and Bryan's grandparents joining us, and wouldn't have minded their company, but they hadn't come yet. Instead, strangers were all over our house just watching us as we moved in. I was also very hungry (anyone who knows me knows how grumpy I get when I'm hungry), but we obviously didn't have any food yet, so anyway, let's just say I was getting majorly cranky. It could have had something to do with the fact that we got very little sleep, and were getting pretty sore from all the heavy lifting the night before and then again as we unloaded all of it and moved into the new house by ourselves.

Thankfully my parents came with both food and our puppy in hand, and I started feeling a lot better. The people had finally fixed everything and left, and I started feeling like it was our house after all. Bryan, Dad & I went back to the apartment with Dad's truck & my CRV to get a second load. Mom stayed at the house to keep an eye on Maverick & start unpacking/arranging our kitchen. We made sure to pick up our bed stuff as well as another huge amount of boxes, chairs & other odds and ends when we went back so that we could sleep in our house that night (yay!). After unloading the second round, Mom & I made a quick Wal-Mart run for a few things, while Bryan's grandparents showed up with his Dad and Roger (his uncle). They had loaded the things we had stored at MeMaw and Paw's house (like our second bed, kitchen table & coffee table) and brought them over and unloaded them. Since our arms and legs were killing us by this time, we were especially grateful for the help!! And we were grateful to start having some chairs around! Sometime that afternoon the Lowe's guys came and delivered our new Samsung refrigerator, which we love!

Dad decided to take a break with Maverick. I think they had the same idea in mind ... mmm, a nap :)



That night Bryan & I slept GREAT. We were pooped & we were in our new house! Maverick, however, did not sleep so good .... (we're still working on this howling/barking business). Then on Saturday Ronnie & Roger were a huge help at the apartment. They brought a moving van to get all of our big furniture (couch, chairs, table, etc) as well as the boxes of food, boxes of other stuff & random other odds and ends. By this time we had just about emptied the apartment (THANK GOODNESS). I lost count of how many times everyone went up and down, carrying stuff. It was hot and those stairs start adding up, so we were glad to unload the truck into our first floor garage, haha. My parents joined us with some other stuff we had stored at their house, and they helped us start unpacking. Dad put together our end tables and coffee tables and Mom helped finish organizing the kitchen. Then Paw & MeMaw came back over and Paw started re-doing our pantry and linen closets. I promise in a future post I'll post a before & after picture of the pantry because it's wonderful now!




After all this huffing and puffing, it was nice to start just unpacking and arranging. The only other heavy lifting that needed to be done was moving everything from the garage to our "second" story. I did that the next week while Bryan was at work (minus the desk & couch which were thankfully already upstairs thanks to Ronnie & Roger). Unfortunately I've got several badly strained muscles in my neck/upper back/shoulder area, and I'm not supposed to be doing lifting of any kind. Oh well. Two weeks later the muscle relaxers are finally helping with the added strain I put on them that weekend. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Our jacuzzi tub is getting a lot of use too :)

I have to emphasize how much we REALLY appreciated everyone who helped move!! Mom, Dad, Ronnie, Roger, MeMaw & Paw ---- THANK YOU. So much.

What was Maverick doing while we worked our butts off, you may ask. Well, this about sums it up:



Good thing he's so cute :)

I've forgotten what happened each day Sunday through Friday (it all kind of blurs together), but Mom spent a few days with us to help with unpacking, Maverick & painting. Our La-Z Boy chairs were delivered (they're wonderful!) and our sectional was delivered (love it!). I also started my new job as a tutor (fabulous timing, I know). It's been a bit of a balancing act, but it's really getting close to being done. We have one bedroom that's acting as a sort of storage unit as I slowly go through it unpacking, but at least I can close the door & it's out of the way!



I know I didn't include too many pictures, but I didn't take very many (I was pretty busy). I will post some pictures of the pantry, and painting and all of that sometime soon! You've seen so many pictures of the house as it was built, that it will look so different with all of our furniture in it! It's coming soon, I promise. (Less than two weeks anyway!)

Just a little bit of adorable

I will catch up! I promise! It's just be absolutely crazy around here since last Thursday. I miss blogging :( so I'm on it as soon as I can! Maybe tomorrow when the puppy takes a nap, I can do a massive catch up post.

Until then, let me leave you with just a few snippets of adorable-ness:

Our first night in our new home, Bryan and Maverick naturally watch Top Gun :) What could possibly be more appropriate?



One afternoon the puppy passes out mid-play with one of his favorite toys. Too cute!



And this would be Maverick attempting to make friends with the people on TV. He just waits and waits and finally walks sadly away when he realizes they don't take any notice of him. Poor puppy.



We're still working really hard on the crate training. It's miserable and horribly unpleasant for all three of us, but it will pay off in the long run, so we're sticking with it. He FINALLY decided he likes his Kong today, so hopefully that will help. Fingers crossed!

Have a great night!