January in a Nutshell

It's been a while since I've posted an update. It's mostly been because we've had a tremendous amount of life change over the last month or so and in the process of all this change, we haven't been on the computer as much as normal. Let me explain...

Nick's cousin Ryan found out in mid-December that Nick was looking for a new job. Ryan has been an audit coordinator for a small company called TCI in Edwardsville (right next to the Legends area) and was offered a promotion if he transferred to another location near Memphis, TN. He worked some magic and on Christmas Eve, Nick was offered Ryan's position in KC. It was so timely... Nick had been unemployed for all of but a week, but it was enough to create an incredible amount of stress in our house. I doubt I need to tell anyone that it is an awful time to be looking for a job in the US. We were so happy to hear news of a job offer. Nick started on January 5 and since then everything has been a whirlwind.

The commute from our apartment in St. Joe to TCI round trip is about 100 miles. Nick's parents have been wonderful in offering their home in Overland Park up to us on weekdays so Nick's commute to work is all of but 15 minutes at most one-way. It's helped out greatly. On the weekends, we've been traveling back up to St. Joe to box everything up (we gave our 30 day notice on the apt. at the beginning of the month). We started house hunting the week Nick started his job. We knew we wanted to be somewhere in Johnson County because Nick would like to take some IT classes and he can go to Juco for a great price if he's an in-county resident. On our budget, neither of us new if it would be possible to get what we were looking for (3 bedroom, 2 bath, double car garage, and basement), yet alone find what we wanted on a good side of town. Thank goodness, the economy has been on our side when it comes to house hunting. We looked at several homes- mostly foreclosures- that would need a lot of work. We put an offer on one in Olathe a couple of weeks ago and eventually lost in a bidding war. The experience turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the house was not move-in ready and needed to be completely overhauled... most likely a bigger, longer, and more expensive project than we were anticipating. In a need to find something fast, I took Luke and viewed homes with our realtor while Nick was at work. We ended up finding a short-sale that was in much better shape than any of the other homes we'd viewed. It had been on the market since May and had gone down in asking price 30K. After our bidding war experience, I knew it wasn't wise to wait around so I called Nick up, told him it was "the one", he trusted my instincts and I put down an offer. Later that week, our realtor took us back so Nick could view it too and he ended up liking the house as much as I did. As seems to be our case with putting down offers, we soon found out that there were two other offers on the table... and because it's a short sale, it could take weeks before we find out if they accept our offer or not. At this stage in the game, it's looking good. We've found out that the other two offers are no longer being taken into consideration... they're looking at ours. We just have to wait on getting it in paperwork to be official. We are very excited to have a place of our own. We have had a fairly positive experience living in an apartment the last year and a half, but it will be so nice not to share walls with neighbors... and how wonderful to have a yard for our little guy to run around, and space inside to have family and friends visit often!

This week and next we are house sitting my grandparents' house in Lenexa while they are vacationing in Hawaii. They built a beautiful home in 2000 with who knows how much square footage and it's been wonderful to spread out and have some room! Luke's enjoyed have free range to roam around and explore a new place. The master bathroom has a wall that's all been mirrored... Luke loves it and is convinced his reflection is another seven month old little boy.

Thinking of which... I can't believe our little man is already seven months old, but there's no denying it. Luke loves to talk gibberish and does so with very serious mannerisms... he fully believes he's speaking full sentences and it's hilarious to watch. He also cannot be left unattended for even the shortest amount of time as he tries to grab anything and everything nearby to help himself stand up. We have been in some pretty un-child friendly environments as of recent and he has the bumps and bruises to prove it, as he's fallen and hit corners of glass coffee tables, rod iron frames, hard wood floors, brick fireplace corners, etc. I'm so thankful that it's nothing more than bumps and bruises he's had, too!

I thought he might be crawling by this point... he definitely can get from point a to point b if he wants to but he still insists on army crawling (on his belly with his elbows). He's such a daredevil with how he stands and tries to let go, I think he may skip crawling before he goes straight on to walking but we will just have to wait and see.

The last few months or so, he's begun to develop a bit of stranger anxiety... strangers being anyone but Mommy (yes, even Daddy can be a stranger at times). Thank goodness for having a baby carrier; it has helped so much as Luke still is very into being held and at 20+ pounds, holding him with one arm for long amounts of time is now undoable.

Luke still has days and nights mixed up most of the time. I thought we were on the road to progress back in late October/early November, but then teething started and he's been back at it again. I would be open for advice... I've tried regulating his schedule so he develops a bedtime routine that starts at the same time. I've tried limiting his naptimes throughout the days. What never ceases to amaze me is how he can be up all night and stay up most of the day; and then to the contrary, we can have one good night where he sleeps through most of it only to continue to sleep hours and hours on throughout the next day only to stay up all night the next night! :(

That's kind of things here. Nick and I have felt tremendously blessed and are so thankful for how God has answered our prayers with Nick's job and we're very excited about buying a home. I'll keep everyone updated as things continue to progress and we end up permanently moving to the KC area.