Katy, here we come

Tomorrow we close on the house! We will officially live in Katy, Texas by this time tomorrow. I will be offline for about three weeks since AT&T is booked until after the new year for new service hook up. Although, we will have the new fiber optic Uverse, which sounds pretty awesome. Lots of unpacking to do and I have to get a tree up in time for Santa to come down our new chimney!

Merry Christmas to all,

Sarah

Oh what a night

So there is the terrible stomach bug going around that causes all sorts of nastiness and I have been thankful we have picked it up. So after spending the week cooped up in the house I was surprised when little M started acting sick and threw up on me before bed two nights ago. He is still feeling down but no more vomit. So I had chalked up most of his symptoms to teething which can cause all of the above. That is until last night when C threw up dinner all in his bed.

It could have been a lot worse so I am not complaining just stating the facts. It started around 10 p.m. with all of his dinner coming up all over his bed. Husband and I took turns hugging and cleaning and got him all set to go back to sleep in his bed. 10:30 p.m. it happened again. This time we moved his mattress into our room and all settled down to sleep. 11 p.m. a little more. then at 2 p.m. Poor thing, for most of it he was just dry heaving (which IMO is the worst).

Of course it is crazy how fast they bounce back. He was up this morning, his normal chatty self. I let him have blueberries and water for breakfast and he has kept that down so far.

Husband is out shopping today. It is not fair that he never gets to spend the hard earned money he makes on anything else besides paying bills. So I sent him out to finish up the Christmas shopping we had left and to fetch some things for Great Granny.

Hope your weekend is vomit free!

Two weeks

We close on our new house in less than two weeks! I have been trying to distract myself with Christmas shopping and decorating but I still cannot wait to get moved in. Why does it take so long to buy a house???? The told us it is going to to take about an hour to sign all the papers at closing. I can just imagine how C and M are going to handle that! Aunt Becky might be able to come with us and play baby wrangler, which would be awesome so we don't end up signing our life away without reading all the papers first.

Husband and I are still humbled at how things turned out for us. It has never been more apparent to us that God is at work in our life. We watched our friends put their houses on the market and sell within days. It took our house three and half months to finally sell. All that time we were in limbo and putting up with a long commute and wondering "Why o Why are we having to go through this!" Turns out that we needed to wait so that the right house (at the right price) would be there when it was our turn to buy. If we would have bought sooner it would have been a house that was okay but not the right one and one we could feel great about. It is so hard to be patient and to realize that sometimes the answer to your prayer is "Wait." Okay enough sermonizing, I just wanted to share what is in our hearts right now.

In other news, M is already pulling up on his knees! He just started crawling pretty good. Looks like he will be an earlier walker. I guess that will just coincide with my new years resolution to lose weight. At least I will get my exercise in running after these two! Oh and running up an down the stairs ought to help with the junk in the trunk also. Oh and of course, just about the time I start to lose some weight and look/feel better, I bet I will be pregnant again. Ah the circle of life. hehe.

C is really excited about Christmas. This will be the first year that he "gets it." This is so much fun for Husband and I. His gift (a train table) arrived a couple days ago and I just can't wait to give it to him.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

What a busy Thanksgiving holiday we have had! We started the holiday Wednesday by visiting with Meemaw and Papaw in Bedias. On Thursday we feasted on turkey and all the seasonal sides lovingly prepared by Meemaw and had a great nap! Well, it was an okay nap because I had a nightmare that instead of my new palace of a home, we had bought some dirty run down house and Robert just kept telling me that this was all we could find and to make the best of it. Boy was I ever glad to wake up! Especially glad to wake up because Meemaw had made pumpkin cheesecake. After dessert, we packed it up to go visit Granny and Papaw in Montgomery.

Friday, Aunt Becky was channeling Julia Child and whipped up a french feast of Beef Bourgoune, yeast rolls and apple cake. Another good nap, this time nightmare free, and then my mom washed all the cats! Maybe we should make that part of the holiday tradition.

Saturday - Saturday was spent celebrating the 40th wedding anniversary of Meemaw and Papaw. We had a party in Bedias and fun was had by all. 40 years is such an accomplishment these days where it seems people get divorced after the "new" wears off. It was so touching to see the entire family surrounding these two special people. I hope that I am that blessed 35 years from now. Saturday night, we had dinner with my parents at the best restaurant in town. They left for El Paso early Sunday morning. Cooper was sad to wake up and see that they were gone but he learned about the magical land of El Paso where Granny and Pawpaw now live.

Sunday was spent resting (Family can sure wear you out) and decorating our Christmas tree. Cooper was so excited and helped me put all the balls on. He really loves the fiber optic Angel on top (thanks Pawpaw). I put out some other decorations, but not the whole shebang because we are moving in two weeks. Once we move in I will have six days to get ready for Christmas in our new house. I will be happy as long as we have a tree to put the presents under and good food to share.

I am getting tired just writing about these last five days and I still have to take great Granny to the store today!

Our new house!

Take a look at what we bought today. Just a small little purchase...

It is 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths with a huge game room upstairs. We are so happy and will move in right before the Christmas. It has been a long journey for us, first selling our house in Leander and then trying to figure out where we wanted to live. We looked at so many houses and finally, our plans finally caught up with God's and we found this neighborhood with some inventory homes just waiting to be sold before the year's end. It has a great backyard with a covered patio and there were at least 10 kids playing out side in the cul de sac today.

Now to get packing!

Me oh my, I love pie!

Pie. American as it gets huh? Well my grandmother, now affectionately known as Great Granny, makes the best chocolate pie in the world and she made us one yesterday. I had invited her to come down to our house for dinner. I was making pot roast and I had not seen most of the week so I thought it would be nice for her to get out and see something different than her four walls. Anyway, she made a pie to mark the occasion. She called me around three in the afternoon and told me to come fetch it because she can't walk with the pie. Her golf cart is broken so she had to walk but I told her I would drive her back home after dinner. So we feasted on pot roast and chocolate pie. Cooper ate all his dinner to get his pie and sat and savored every creamy, chocolaty bite.

We then got on the computer and I showed her some recent pictures of the Japan Jeffrey's. We have not seen them in two years and they all look so much older. Well not Josh and Jenn, they look the same but the kids sure have grown.

We drove her home and told her good night. I then had to throw the kids in the bath and hurry to get M to sleep. He was do tired and probably a little miffed that he did not get any pie!

House Hunting Chapter 26

We spent the entire weekend looking at houses. This was supposed to be the weekend that we wentto a friend's daughter's birhtday party and sat tight and just waited until our house closed this week so that we could look next weekend with no strings attached. But no, Husband and I got bit by the house hunting bug and called up Ol' Roy the Realtor (side note - our realtor is like 800 years old but he seems to know his stuff). We looked all over the Katy area and Richmond and then back again at Katy. C and M were little troopers and did not put up too much of a fuss. C thought we were going to a playdate at Katy's house for the ride up there and was very disappointed to find out the reality of what Katy was. So, in classic poor mothering style, I feed him candy and other white starchy things to keep him happy all day long.

Hopefully we will hear when our closing day is sometime this week and can close the Austin chapter of our lives and get on with the blockbuster sequel that is the Houston area.

Mmmmm Turnips

We have harvested the turnips. Well, only two turnips because well, you can only eat so many turnips. I thought I would leave the other ones to grow a bit more. C was really excited to pull them out of the ground but he kept leaving them lying around after that. I will cook them tonight and see if I can't get him to eat them. I will use the time honored southern tradition made famous by Paula Deen herself and slather them in butter. I am not ambitious enough to wash and eat the greens. Maybe tomorrow. I hear you can wash them in the washing machine. I might just try that.

M stood watch from the stroller for rabbits and other varmits . None were sighted.

The cabbage has started to form and the some radishes have seemed to have survived the nightlty rabbit attacks.

Breakthrough!

M slept from 6:30 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.! This is the first time he has ever slept that long. I have been working on getting him on more of a routine and I guess it finally worked. Oh, did I forget to mention the crying it out for two hours the night before? I suppose that could have helped too but I would like to take credit for the routine. hehe.

C and I made Turkeys today out of his hand prints. He was more into cutting with the scissors than anything else but at least I got him to do something art/craft related. M ate frozen blueberries while we made the turkeys. Whenever it stops raining, I plan on going on a leaf hunt with C and then making crayon rubbings or more turkeys.

We are still waiting on getting the closing date on our house. Hopefully it will early next week. Soon after that, we will be able to make an offer on a house. The market seems to be great for buying so we hope to get a great deal on a great home.

Good luck Granny!

Well, Robert and I finally decide to move closer to Houston and my parents up and decide that they are both going to live in El Paso. I mean could they get any further away from Houston and still be in Texas? Here is a nice guilt inducing picture!

All kidding aside, Granny is leaving in the morning to go out to El Paso to live with PawPaw. It has been a long time coming but we are all glad it is here. I know she will miss seeing C and M everyday but it will make the times they visit all the more special. So good luck to Granny and PawPaw as they try and remember what it is like having your spouse around 24/7.

In other news, husband spent the last two days removing all of our belongings from our house in Leander and transferring them to our POD and a trailer. Poor thing must be sore and very tired, but we are officially moved out of Leander. We should close on our house next week and truly be free to start our new life in the Houston area.

Halloween and House Hunting

We had fun filled weekend of trick o' treating and house hunting. C and M both got dress up as a cow and cowboy respectively and we headed out into Bedias to see how much candy could be gotten. We stopped by Memaw and Papa's church first and then headed over to the fire station where C got to see the fire trucks up close. They even turned on the lights on one of the trucks for him. All in all C had a good time, we hit a couple of houses after that and even a little carnival someone had in their front yard.

The next day Husband, M and I set out to house hunt. We looked at four houses and the we think we may have found a winner! Hopefully, we will be putting in an offer on it tomorrow. I tell ya, I had no idea what other people were talking about when they sold their homes and talked about the stress involved but boy do I know now. I can say that it is much better being on the buying end than the selling.

Mr. Pumpkin Head

We had a great weekend! We got to visit with Pawpaw and Aunt Becky. On top of that C got to go the Halloween Carnival. They had lots of typical carnival activities and C took part of all them including getting his face painted, the ring toss, and a newer tradition, the bounce house. I asked C if he had fun in the bounce house obstacle course and he said "Yeah, a girl pushed my bumbum." You see he could not quite make it up the hill because of his socks and the little girl behind him took it upon herself to get him over the hump. In typical toddler fashion he kept repeating that phrase all night long.

Granny saved the day by finding the perfect cow costume. He loves to moo so it was appropriate and he was the cutest little cow ever to be seen! Little M fell asleep right before it was time to leave so I left him with the grandparents and got to spend some one on one time with C.

Speaking of little M, he is not so little anymore! I just moved him up a size in clothes. He is getting better at this eating food thing and last night I began the horrible process of night weaning him. It was not that bad but when I would pick him he would grab my face and give me kisses and try and latch on to my cheeks. It was pitiful and I hate to hear him cry but he finally realized I was not giving in and let me rock him to sleep. Hopefully tonight will be better and he will get the message that the all night diner is closed for business from now on.

Good luck to Granny on her big interview tonight!

A small gift

My babies gave me a small gift today by sleeping in. They got up an hour later than usual. It was a good birthday present. Oh yeah, I turn 30 today. I am by no means freaked out by turning 30 like some women are but it is the beginning of a new decade. I am very happy with what I have accomplished even though others might think it is a small thing. I never imagined my life at 30 when I was younger. I have never heard a calling to be anything like a lawyer or doctor but I always knew I wanted to stay at home when I had children. I spend every day playing and learning with my two boys. To be honest it is not all glamorous (I really could do without latrine duty) and the ever present fight to not feed C PB&J's for three meals straight! But this is what I choose to do. Anyway, I am rambling but hey it's my birthday and I can ramble or wax poetically about motherhood right?

So 30 comes and all I need is a mommy makeover. Life is good and beautiful (well soon to be after my makeover this weekend.)

Zapatos Fantasticos

C has had his little world rocked with the addition of the "light up sneakers" to his wardrobe. He put them on first thing this morning and has been banging around the house all morning making them light up. They really are cute and even have a bulldozer on the side. I guess this is the equivalent of getting your little girl a really cute dress but since I have two boys cute shoes are all I have to look forward to until God gives me a girl or I get granddaughters 20 years from now.

I hurt my back throwing dog food at rooster yesterday. Yes you did read that right. My grandmother has a new unruly rooster that will charge you. I know most of you are laughing at the thought of being attacked by poultry but rooster have about a three inch sharp talon on the back of foot that will hurt you and well, I don't like to hurt. So anyway, I was taking my grandmother the canned dog food we picked up for her when her rooster decided to charge me. Well, I heaved the little pallet of dog food cans at him and got him to stop long enough for me to find a big stick in which to wallop his feather butt should he try again. So, I have an aching back today but no talon marks. If the rooster can't learn to behave I believe I will reappropriate him from pet to Sunday dinner.

It finally happened

I have always been told by other parents that my toddler would one day do something to the baby when I was not looking. So, I should have been more prepared when C bit M on the eyebrow this afternoon. I was devastated that my beloved firstborn would harm my precious baby! Talk about conflicting emotions. C has been great with M since he was born and I figured that if he had not lashed out yet we might have been in the clear. I heard M start screaming and asked C what happened and he told me "I bit M." Just like that, I bit M. Needless to say we had a timeout and then a lecture on hurting people. After his nap I showed him the red marks on M face and C proceeds to kiss it to make it better. I say, the nerve of the boy!

We just spent a great few days with Meemaw and PawPaw. Two new baby cows were born and C got to see one of them. We also spent quite a bit of time throwing rocks in the pond.

M has decided he wants to be mobile. The kid lays around for two months (he could roll, he just choose not to) and now he is about to crawl. Babies are full of surprises for sure! He has also found that he gets a big reaction when he screeches. He is such a cutie pit for sure. I am still trying to figure out how to make his Halloween costume. I am pretty sure C will be Bob the Builder but I will see if I can talk him into something less commercial!

The house has still not sold and it is looking pretty bleak that we will have a new home by Christmas. Anybody want to move to Austin?

Word of the day

I thought I would start a little segment called "Word of the Day" anytime my boys come up with something cute.

Penny Pig - C was fascinated with his cousin Georgia's piggy bank this week. I think I know what to put in his stocking stuffer this Christmas.

Whoopsy Daisy - C says this every time he wobbles on his stool while peeing. Except you have to say it "Whoopseeeeeee Daiseeeeeeee." Too cute.

M is not saying much yet except for blowing raspberries which is just too adorable.

Backhoe or garbage truck- Decision 2008

I realize that the decision between backhoe or garbage might not seem as important as say bailing out the banking industry but it was the most important decision I made today. Costco has already rolled out the Christmas toys and of course, right when we walk in is the glorious monument to all things blue collar. Backhoes, garbage trucks, helicopters, ambulances and even a cherry picker were lined up to the ceiling. So, C thought and thought and settled on the backhoe. On a side note, isn't it funny how all little boys give super hero status to a construction worker but most parents would rather them immortalize lawyers and doctors? Me, I would be happy if C went into construction or made something beautiful with his hands and mind. Maybe not a garbage man, or as my mom used to say a ditch digger.

C waited and waited while I shopped and when we finally got home he played with the thing for an hour straight. I thought to myself, ahh how sweet he is playing with his backhoe so nicely.

Silly Sarah.

After about thirty minutes of playing he brings it to me and declares - lets take it back to the store and get the dump truck. Fast forward about and 2 hours of whining and screaming instead of napping. Finally at around 3 p.m. I gave up and let him get up from bed. He had a snack and is just fine. I hate the terrible twos.

Dear diary...

Hello and welcome to Brown and Blue! Let's see if you can guess what or whom the title of the blog refers to!

I hope to keep this blog updated with the thoughts and musings of my day to day life, a modern day journal. One of my nieces asked me recently "What do you do all day?" Well I thought maybe I should start keeping track. That leads me to introductions, I am Sarah, a stay at home mom or as what used to be called housewife. I prefer domestic goddess, it just has a better ring to it. My husband and I have two wonderful boys, C is 2.5 and M is 5 months old. I don't want to use full names for privacy's sake so I will refer to my children as C and M. and my husband as, well, husband. We are in the middle of relocation to the Houston area from Austin and staying with my mother. We are waiting for our house to sell in Austin so we can get going on finding our new home.

Keep checking in for updates, I gotta run, we are going to Costco today!