House for Sale - Photos

We changed our minds over the weekend and decided to stage the house empty. So we have all moved in with Katie and Milt while the house sells. The house went on the market yesterday. There are quite a few photos of the house you can view by clicking here. We are very tired from packing up the house and finishing all the various projects.

Staging

We are starting to stage the house. Today we completed two rooms, Grace's room and the third bedroom (also known in our house as Peri's room, since Grace's friend Peri slept in that room two years ago).

Grace's room:


Grace's room:


Peri's room:

Goodbye chain link fence

To make the house welcoming, we removed the chainlink fence today (Nelson cut it out with the sawzall without losing even one finger).


We replaced it with a picket fence: (also pictured: Mark and Milt)

Grace's celebration of last day of school

Grace and teacher Alice:

Grace is very happy that preschool is over for summer break.

Grabbing a Camel

Holden is beginning to figure out what his hands can do.

Bedbugs

House Update

We definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are close to
having all our possessions packed. The shed in the backyard is
filling up with boxes so we can show the house. Thank heavens that
shed is so big. It means we don't need to rent a storage unit to
store our boxes for a few months. The remaining work that needs to be
done has shrunk to the level that the human mind can almost, but not
quite, conceive of it. We plan to work hard on the upcoming Holiday
weekend and, hopefully, be ready to put the house on the market by
next Wednesday.

For all of our enemies out there that have ever hoped that fixing up a
house would exact some sort of vicarious revenge for you, you may
sleep peacefully in your vicariousness. Also, please note that your
vicarious revenge has hit fringe targets - the various friends and
relatives drafted into helping this rather large effort.

The Final Push

Through some small miracle, we might get this house on the market by the end of the month. This weekend we focused on the kitchen.

Mark, our home repair expert, otherwise known as "Mops":


Milt changing a light fixture:


Our new granite countertops (and the hole where the sink used to be):


We did have a classic home repair moment. I turned off the water supply to the house to remove the sink and to replace the broken water shut off valve at the sink. After we installed the new valve, I went back to the basement to turn the water supply on - and nothing happened. No water flowed to any faucet in the house. This was disconcerting. For an anxious half hour we investigated and tried to determine why the water pressure wasn't coming back on. We have an old system - so finding replacement parts would be difficult. Also, it's hard to sell a house without water. We removed the flow valve in the basement, looked at it, determined it still worked, and reattached it. Then the water started flowing again.

Why do you do hard things?

This morning Grace was up with me at 6:30am. Just before I walked out
the door, she asked me, "Daddy, why do you do hard things?" At 6:30
in the morning this is an extremely difficult question to answer.

Obligatory Sleeping Baby Pictures

We're contractually bound, as parents, to inflict sleeping baby pictures upon an unsuspecting public. (Photographer's note: The difficult part in these shots to somehow capture the peaceful image of a sleeping baby while framing the picture to exclude the piles of moving boxes and the piles of miscellaneous stuff waiting its turn to be put into a moving box.)

New floor tiles

We are putting new tile floors in the basement and in the laundry/pantry room as we get prepared to sell.

Old basement floor:


New basement floor:


The laundry room getting its makeover:


So - now, does anyone want to come over and grout a couple hundred square feet of tile?

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Saturday Morning, May 12

Here's a quick video of two happy children, Holden & Grace, on Saturday morning.



Click here to view this video directly on youtube.

Haircuts, Bedtime Attire and Happy Baby

We all have new haircuts.


Here is Grace with her new elephant towel and on Thursday night when she insisted she had to go to bed wearing bunny ears.



And here is just a great photo of one happy-go-lucky baby boy.


*As always, click on any of the photos to see full-sized pictures.

Scenes from a Baptism

Here are some of the highlights of Holden's baptism, including a 5 year old girl who was ecstatic to see her friends standing in the pews on the balcony. (Holden was baptized on Easter 3 weeks ago.)



Click here to view this video directly on youtube.

Holden Video - 3 Months Old

Here is a video of Holden at 3 months. He is smiling a lot now and trying to talk back when we talk to him.



Click here to view this video directly on youtube.