Closing on Friday

Hard to believe, but the end of living with my mother is in sight.

67 Degrees!

Yay for the first Spring-like day of 2011! M and I got home early than usual after his Valentine's Day party, so we rushed outside to enjoy the beautiful sunny day. After M unloaded every single ball from the toy shelves in Gramma and Grampa's garage, he selected two to carry with him in the stroller and off we went for a walk around the neighborhood with Skipper in tow. Mase got to play on his Kangaroo Climber and his Cozy Coupe for the first time in a loooong time, and we were both happy campers.

Valentine's Party at School

I left work early yesterday so I could attend M's first Valentine's party at Broadway. It was adorable, and I'm so glad I was able to make it (Yay for flexibility at work!). All five little ones dug into frosted cookies and Cheetos, and, yes, Mason ate twice as much as anybody else and is still the skinniest kid in class!

Ms. Jen had made an adorable Valentine's photo card, and M came home with two bags of goodies and crafts, including a book on animals from Ms. Jennifer (his new afternoon teacher). You can imagine how excited he was to have another animal book!

Okay, I just went to upload pictures, and I had deleted all of them somehow. We got new computers at work, and apparently the way I used to save pictures to my desktop doesn't work, so I just lost the CUTEST picture of M grinning from ear to ear with Cheetos up to nose. I am soooo mad! I just had to walk around the parking lot and cry. Okay, I was able to find one because I sent a few to another mom this morning, but all the cute ones of just M are gone.

Weekend at Granny's

M got to spend a lot of quality time with Granny and Grandpa this weekend, which means we can sum everything up with three words: Cheetos, donuts, and outside. Oh, and clocks. M is obsessed with the clocks at Granny's house and insists that Grandpa carry him around to all the clocks at least two dozen times a day.

And Grandpa and Granny are always quick to comply with any of M's demands, including whisking him outside every time he cried, "Outside!" We had a good time catching up, and C and I ran by the rental house to check on it, and I discovered that my husband forgot to mention that he dug up all the creeping phlox on one side of the house. Yes, the creeping phlox that would have bloomed so beautifully in a month or so. He can't imagine how we forgot to tell me that. I can.

So all went well until Sunday morning, when Debbie took a terrible fall down the back stairs. She gave us all a HUGE scare and busted up her face pretty badly and it turned out later that she actually broke her arm as well. She held it together until we left, so we celebrated Valentine's Day early with M so she and Grandpa could see him eat his giant strawberry cupcake. In true M fashion, he eschewed the traditional and used the botrom of his Valentine balloon as a utensil for scooping icing into his mouth. Oh, well. It worked.

2 Kids and Counting

So we finally got to meet Natalie and Matthew last Saturday, and they were so unbelievably sweet that it's a miracle I didn't kidnap at least one of them (although I have called dibs on a girl if Miriam has anymore--that's only fair. She has them two at a time, and that's twice as fast as me, so a good friend would share.) We got in around 9 o'clock, and despite my best efforts to keep Mason Baker asleep as we went into Debbie's house, you know the end of that story.

C and I went over to Mirm's about 9 on Saturday morning and helped out while Nick picked up Lindsey at the airport. It's hard to imagine that Mason was ever that small, but Natalie is only 4 ounces smaller than M was when we brought him home from Vanderbilt. Sigh. Miriam looked great and has this twin routine thing down pat already. And I heart Lindsey.

That evening Tanicia came over and we had a pseudo-surprise party for Miriam's 28th birthday. We all dressed up like Duggars for the 2 Kids and Counting theme (haha!), and I made an ice cream sandwich cake from the Duggars' own family recipe. I had borrowed some of Mom's old outfits for the dress-up part, and she asked me, "Is this party making fun of me?" Nope, the Duggars...and Miriam, who is their #1 fan. Anyway, we had fun, and I'll post a picture as soon as Miriam sends it to me (what else does she have to do?).

I Do As I'm Told

Miriam says this is the picture I should have posted of the twins, so I am dutifully posting this picture, which is precious and might make you cry (yep, I did).

Aaaaaaah! I can't wait to hold them!

Oh! One More Thing

Best new development of the month: M saw someone on TV shush someone in a library, and now he shushes Chris. And only Chris. It's soooooo funny!

He seems more little boy and less baby every day. Sigh.

Superbowl Sunday 2011

So C was pretty bummed this year about not having a Superbowl party in front of his giant projector screen, but he held it in well. He isn't complaining too much about not having a place for the projector in the new house, either. We ended up going over to Tom and Pattie's house to watch the game with them and the Hacklers, and we had fun...none of us so much as M, who is quickly becoming a Thomas groupie. Thomas got down and wrestled around with him, and M ran 90 miles an hour until 8:10. We knew better than to break his routine, but we hoped that he would wear himself out. Riiiiiight. I took him home and had him asleep by 8:30, but he woke up at 2:27 with a major diaper breakdown. I got him cleaned up and just took him to bed with us, but he flopped and wiggled all over me until 4:52, at which point an hour and a half of no sleep and the tears streaming out of the eye he had just elbowed made my head spin like The Exorcist. I yelled "take him NOW" to Chris and rolled him to his daddy's side of the bed. Chris told him sternly to go to sleep, and he cried halfheartedly for a minute and then dropped off, and we all managed to get one final hour of sleep in. Again, to all of you who accuse us of being boring now that we have Mason (ah-hem...Kristin!), he does NOT do well off his routine. Period.

They're Heee-ere!

Natalie and Matthew are finally here! The newest (and cutest) Shasserres arrived on January 27th, and we can't wait to meet them. Matthew spent 9 days in the NICU at Gateway (he had, in Mary's words, "wimpy white boy syndrome").

Hoping to make it to Clarksville this weekend to see them if everything pans out.

Ch-ch-changes

Well, as most of you have heard, the Clarksville house FINALLY rented--on the night of my last post, to be exact (That's a good excuse for not blogging, right? Too busy with new house plans? Well, let's go with that anyway.). Chris met M and me at church that night because we were attending a board meeting about the daycare and we wanted to share some concerns we had. So Mase and I were in the fellowship hall eating dinner with Mom when Chris came in and slid in beside me with his oh-so-irritating "you want the bad news first or the good news first" routine. He knows I despise when he does that because he always twists the meaning of "good" and "bad" around beyond recognition.

So after I gave him an evil look, out he came with the news that the house had rented, and I (of course) teared up in stunned joy. Mom yelled out, "Praise God!" I laughed at her and then told her that was a smidge insulting. I cannot communicate how excited we were!

The next day we took the contingency off the contract on our new house in West Knoxville, and since then we have lived in a whirlwind of inspections, appraisals, measuring things, shopping for flooring deals, etc., etc.

We close on the 25th of this month, but it will take a few weeks to fix and cover and replace all the UGLY in the new house, so we won't be moving in for a few weeks after that. The end is in sight! Mom won't miss us, but she is sure having a hard time at the prospect of not seeing M every day.