We've Moved (sort of)...

This will be short and sweet but we wanted to let everyone know that we have officially moved. 

It's been a roller coaster ride with our builder and we will continue to have workmen in and out of the house for the next two weeks or so fixing tile, floors, cabinets, paint, and more...but we are mostly in our new home and out of our old house (except for the garage with is still full of all of that fun stuff you use maybe once a year but have to keep "just in case"). We have piles and piles to go to Goodwill, stacks of boxes yet to be unpacked, cardboard coming out the wazoo, and lots of decisions to make as to what goes where. Mom and I got the kitchen mostly unpacked yesterday while Brian built beds, set up entertainment systems, hung blinds, etc...  

The kids have slept great in their own rooms- even with us sleeping downstairs. That's a huge load off my mind as many of you know that bedtime and sleeping is not our kids' forte.  They have been using the trampoline a ton and are enjoying the bonus room upstairs. Jake has friends down the block and Tanner's best buddy lives 14 doors down (yes, he counted). Faith is pretty flexible- as long as she has her "guys" she is good to go. 

This move has made us really appreciate our neighborhood and our friends. They have been so great to us.  We have also had friends take the kids on and off the last week to give us time to get organized which has been great. Neighbors have delivered meals to us the last few nights and dropped by bottles of wine, etc... Mom brought over a case of Hefewiezen which was immediately shared with neighbors that came by last night after dinner. Love it!! 

Our yard faces the opposite direction of our old house so we get morning sun on our back patio and in the afternoon it is shaded and perfect for outdoor dinners and drinks with friends. Our old house was unusable in the late afternoon summers so this is huge for us. It is quiet and peaceful and open. We heard coyotes last night, saw pheasants behind the house yesterday, and are keeping our eyes out for the deer that supposedly show up in herds on the hills behind our house.

We have a crazy few weeks ahead of us. We will spend today getting the old house cleaned out and room made in the new garage for all of the miscellaneous stuff we don't know what to do with. Brian leaves for a business trip early Tuesday morning, returns late Thursday night then I leave Fri and Sat for the PTA conference, return Sunday only to depart again Tuesday-Friday. Phew. Add in baseball and tball and school and homework and everything else and it's going to continue to be wild around here for the foreseeable future. A big shout out to my mom who is always willing to lend a hand and do whatever she can to help us with the house or kids. 

In typical Brian and Marisa decision making fashion we decided to move, built a house, and moved in -all within a 6 month period. Needless to say it's been a little stressful. But we survived. The kids survived. We are both still employed and none of us turned to drugs, alcohol, or gambling during the process.  Of course we are both saying emphatically, "NEVER AGAIN!". And, yes, I know some of you are saying, "yeah, right!"...You know us too well!

Easter 2012

I am an Easter Scrooge.  Even though I have fond memories from my childhood of hunting for eggs, dyeing eggs, and waking up and searching for my Easter basket I just never found the joy in Easter as a parent. I gave up egg dyeing several years ago and for whatever reason the whole easter bunny thing just seems more like a chore. Being as uninvolved with religion as we are, there is no "real" reason to celebrate the holiday- it is strictly parental guilt that leads me to the pastel colored grocery aisles- thinking about my children lying on therapy couches years from now lamenting how the Easter Bunny visited all of their friends growing up but he shunned them. I'm sure they'd be warped forever. 

So I bought candy and filled eggs and my mom and I hid them Saturday night while Brian (even more of an Easter Scrooge than myself) heckled us from the couch.  The kids did enjoy searching for the eggs the next morning but they were especially excited about the eggs that held clues in them. We started the "clues in the eggs" idea when Jake was very young. This year just five of the eggs held clues- a scrambled sentence that led them to our new house. We had been intending to get them a trampoline for the new yard so we used that as our Easter present. Throwing robes on over our jammies we headed to the new house where the trampoline was discovered in the garage (still in boxes since we didn't officially own the property yet).  The kids' enthusiasm was lackluster- especially Faith who was very subdued and later told me that she had really been hoping for a "guy" (another stuffed animal). Needless to say, my attitude about easter and the easter bunny was not markedly improved by their reaction. To be fair, two big boxes with a picture of other kids jumping happily is not quite the same as being able to run out and jump on your very own trampoline. The delayed gratification is a little hard for  a 5,6, and 9 year old. I know once it is set up they will be appropriately excited. 

The big hit of the day was Grandma Mary's gift that she left for them- they each got a chair for their new rooms and a Hex Bug. The Hex Bugs got a full days worth of play as the kids built lego houses for their bugs, homes out of cardboard, obstacle courses, etc... Now they are gathering dust on one of the many packing boxes lining the halls of our soon-to-be-vacated house. 

Opening Day 2012

As usual for us, Easter weekend means Opening Day of baseball season. The last few years have meant all day Saturday at Opening Day pictures and festivities, the only difference this year being ALL of the kids were involved. 


Jake ended up making the AAA Giants. He is the youngest player on the team and is so far struggling with the fact that he is not one of the best players on his team. They won their first game last week 15-1, their pitcher pitched a no hitter and their big hitter hit a three run home run. Jake played all three outfield positions and walked once and struck out twice.


Tanner and Faith are on the same TBall team (we are the Yankees again). We had our first practice last week. It's a small team, only 9 kids total, and looks to be a fun season.



Opening Day followed the same format that it has for the last several years, photos followed by running, throwing, hitting and obstacles course stations. They kids and their teammates all had a good time. Tanner came is first in hitting on his team, Jake came in second in hitting on his team and Faith hung with the boys all day. As it seems to be in the genes, all of our kids came in dead last in the running the bases station on their respective teams (Tanner beat Faith for second to last on the TBall team). We had a good time, but after seven hours at the ball field, came home exhausted.