Jack 'O Lanterns

Yesterday Kian and I went to Walmart for some things and picked up some pumpkins for carving. There weren't any larger pumpkins and Kian wanted these cute little ones so I told him he could pick out two. Then I found kits that allow you to kinda make your pumpking a Mr. Potatohead of sorts. He picked out the animal one. The pumpkin on the left is a dog and the one on the right is a cat. He's so proud of them! Anytime anyone comes to our house he tells them about them and wants to show them off :) A great idea

We are All Moved in!

We checked out of our hotel today. The heater should be fixed today and some repair guys should be showing up any minute to ground some of our outlets. We still have a lot of unpacking to do. But the house is starting to feel like a home :)

Happy Birthday to Me

Yep, today is my birthday :) It was mostly spent unpacking with some phone calls from family sprinkled in. Our house finally has cable and it starting to really come together. We are having to get kinda creative with storage, but it's all coming together.

This evening Jamie and Kian took me out to eat at Olive Garden. We had one of the best meals as a family there! Our sever was amazing first of all - we tipped him nicely! We had some really great wine, Kian ate salad - A LOT of salad (he's not a lettuce guy but he was tonight!). Most times we are still eating when Kian is finishing...we tonight we were waiting for him!

It was a good birthday, enjoying the crisp autumn weather and spending time with my two favorite guys in the entire world.

Unpacking, Unpacking and More Unpacking

Today Kian and I hung out at the house today waiting for the heating guy to come and fix our furnace. Of course they came, replaced a few things and left before really making sure it was running. Two minutes after they left the furnace stopped working so I had to put another call in....that was at about 10AM. The guy would "be here today" and didn't show until 6PM :P bleh. Needless to say I have the entire Kitchen unpacked. I am realizing how much counter space I have lost :( I am having to compromise on a few things that I like having in my kitchen....like a portable dishwasher and a nice toaster oven :( I keep reminding myself that we only have a 9 month lease and hoping that when it's up we will be able to move if the place still seems like it's not all it's cracked up to be. I sure do miss owning our own place that's for darn sure.

Unloading and Unpacking

Bright and early the Allied truck was sitting in front of our new place. Unloading went faster than loading that's for sure. Kian was a mini manager telling the guys what room to put things in - oddly enough he informed them that the big screen TV was to go in his room lol Smart kid! He also spent a good part of the time putting things in the backyard and riding his bike around an area on the walking path right next to the house.

I got a good amount of unpacking done while Kian was at school and I hope to get more done tomorrow. Unfortunately we found out today that our heater was broken so it was rather cold in the house so I didn't want to bring Kian back over there after school. He had a pretty rough day anyway and was pretty crabby. Poor guy is still adjusting to the time change - just like the rest of us.

Tomorrow morning the furnace guys are coming to fix it and hopefully we will be able to hang out there for a good part of the day and get more settled. But it sure is good to have all our stuff with us now in Illinois. Now we just need our cars and we are all set!

We Got our Place and Will Have Our Things TOMORROW!

We signed papers and such for our lease this morning. I am planning on heading over there to do some laundry and check out what I need to do/buy to get the place ready for us to move in.

Then, after Jamie got to work, he got a phone call from the driver of the moving truck and asked if he could deliver our stuff tomorrow!!!! How crazy is that?!?!?!

So, we will be all moved into our new place in less than a week from leaving Livermore! Now, all we gotta wait for is our cars :)

Photos of our New Place :)

As requested, here are some photos that were in the listing for the house we are renting :)

View of the front of the house, garage, and side entry way:

Front Yard

Back Yard - behind the fence is a paved walking trail and a creek

Pantry/Electrial area. This is right when you walk in the side door - I am planning on putting up a curtain or something so people don't see all my Sam's Club goodies in there ;)

Kitchen shots - there is a small area in the corner across from the cabinets in this photo where our round dining table will fit perfectly in

Front entry way and living room (you can see the side entry from this angle as well)

Other side of the living room

Hallway in between the bedrooms and living room - this view is toward the Master bedroom

Hallway view toward the bathroom - laundry area is just to the left

Photos of each of the bedrooms - there are three in a row and look very similar - I can't tell which is which in the photos lol One will be the Master, one will be our office and one will be Kian's room

Newly remodeled bathroom

Well, that's the tour! We are going to go through the paperwork tomorrow! I am hoping that I will have a few days to start laying down some contact paper and what not before the movers arrive with all our stuff!

Ah, it's good to be back in the Midwest :)

Things just seem to be falling into place. We heard back this afternoon that we got the place we wanted to rent. Jamie started work today and he's really liking it. Kian started preschool and he's loving it there. I am starting to learn the layout of the area. AND we had Jamie home to eat dinner with us and he was actually able to spend time with Kian before he went to bed!

Here is a photo of the little house will be renting. Wednesday morning we go in and sign the paperwork to finalize it. It's estimated that our things will arrive on Friday!!! So at least I will have a few days to get somethings together at the house before the unpacking begins.

We Have Arrived!!!!

We arrived in Champaign, Illinois tonight - all our luggage arrived and everything went well without one hitch! :)

We did have a fairly entertaining day today...provided by Kian himself.

First, when we were at San Francisco Airport, we decided to buy some Subway subs to take on the plane with us. Jamie ordered his and I ordered mine and Kian's subs...we were both paying attention to what the sandwich makers were asking. Toward the end of the line I turned around to check to see where Kian was and what I saw made my eyes bug out of my head... Kian was standing in line with his pants around his ankles, showing his Lightening McQueen underware to anyone who happened to be looking. Of course as I say "Kian! What are you doing?" I see a lady sitting at a table right next to Kian laughing at him. Of course I help him get his pants on and I could not stop laughing as I am trying to tell Kian that he should not take his pants down in public. It was so freaking funny! We still have no idea what happened. I know those pants are a little big in the waist on him so I am not sure if they just fell down and he didn't notice...but the lady at the table next to us sure did LOL!

Second, we arrived early in Champaign so our limo was not ready to pick us up (yeah a limo drives you around from the hotel we are staying at lol). Champaign airport is really small. For my family members, it is very much like the Outagame County Airport. Anyway, Jamie found an empty luggage cart and told Kian to stand on it in a safe way and pushed him around in it. then Kian wanted to push Daddy lol I was laughing so hard I had TEARS running down my face! Kian was able to push him at a pretty good speed after a while!

Anyway, it was a long day of travel but Kian was a trooper and did pretty well if you ask me. We are so glad to finally be here, to see some leaves on the ground, feel the crisp autumn air....ah.....it's so nice to be back in our area of the country again :)

Kian Lost His First Tooth!!!!

Last night when I was brushing and flossing Kian's teeth, I noticed the the front one was really loose. I told him about it and he was immediately worried about it. I told him about what happens with our teeth - losing them and getting adult ones and how the Tooth Fairy comes. I guess his understanding was limited because he wanted me to take it out (which it was really wiggly but not enough that I felt I could pull it out), he wanted me to put a bandaid on it, he wanted to take it out and put it in the trash (which I told him that he should come and get me and not throw it in the trash because it was a special thing!) He prayed in his prayers last night that Jesus would fix his tooth and that he would help us move to "champaign, noy" hehehe

Today he didn't talk much about it. I have seem him wiggling his tooth off and on as I continued packing. Then all of a sudden Kian ran up to me and said "I lost my tooth!!!" He was so excited :) I took a picture of him right away :) (btw, he is wearing a crown from when he was child of the day at school on Friday...he wears it whever he is home lol)

It's hard to believe he's losing teeth already!!! He's getting to be so big! His dentist told me that he would lose them with in 6 months the 4 front ones (yikes!) and that the adult ones might not come in for a while but it's normal. I just didn't think it would all happen so fast!

Anyway, that's our big news - now onto more packing!

5 More Sleeps Until The Movers Arrive!

We are getting down to the very end of our packing. The house is starting to have an echo in some areas. And others are just stuffed with pillars of boxes.

We have disconnected our phones, but thanks to Vonage having a forwarding option. The home phone is now forwarded to my cell.

It's hard to believe we have entered our last week of living in California - but it's exciting too!

Goodbye Discovery Kingdom

Today was our last day at Discovery Kingdom.

We decided to take a break from packing to have some good family time. Plus the park had Halloween themed stuff up so it was extra special. Kian even wore his costume from last year - he was Thomas the Train. Since Thomas is an attraction at the park he got a lot of comments about how cute he was :)

We saw the dolphins one last time - they are Kian's favorite. We also saw the Sea Lion Show and Shouka the Whale Show. They had some special shows for the Halloween theme which was kind of neat.

It will probably be a long time before we get to experience anything quite like this again. We have been very lucky to live so close to such a unique park which has amusement rides and a zoo inside of it.

We closed the park! Kian was so pooped he actually slept in the car on the way home...something he never ever does! We all had a good time :)

Even though it meant no packing for the day, I am so glad we went.

Happy Birthday Toby

Today our Toby would have been 8 years old.

We miss you Toby Bowbee!

My Goofy 4 Year Old

Kian and I were headed home after I picked him up from preschool. We turned a corner and the person behind us passed us...they were going faster than the traffic in front of us (which made me have to drive slower) and Kian pointed out that they were driving fast and a policeman needed to stop them and tell them to slow down. So we talked about how theyw ere probably doing the speed limit and there was just a lot of traffic in our lane making us go slower. So he says: "I'm gonna get my Mr. Incredible Phone (a play cell phone) and tell the policeman to pull that guy over and tell him to SLOW DOWN." I coudln't help but giggle. Then he said "Yeah, I'm gonna call two policman - one, two." I guess the kid already knows about speeding and obeying the law. lol