Love you and Miss You Grandma

Yesterday afternoon I got the phone call you never want to get. My mom called to let me know that she had gone over to see my grandma and after knocking a few times my mom went in and saw that she was not alive. Needless to say, I was devastated and felt horrible for my mom. Of course being the amazing woman that she is, my mom was so strong and put together on the phone. As I broke down, she telling me to remain calm for the sake of the baby. She said she was doing well and my grandma would finally be with my grandpa who she has been missing desperately for 3 years.

For those of you who did not have the pleasure of knowing my grandma she was an amazing woman! Carol Schatzman was a woman full of life, the life of the party and always dressed to the nines (with a glass of Chardonnay in her hand). She remained active and vibrant until the very end and will always be remembered that way. I'm so thankful my boys had the joy of knowing GG (as they called her). They loved her so much and will miss her as well.

GG and Andrew on her 80th Birthday, May 22, 2009

GG and Matthew at Sunday dinner August 2, 2009

Baby Girl Keeping Things Interesting

Well yesterday after the boys woke up from naps I was having some contractions but didn't think much about it. But then they didn't let up. Should I call the doc? He told me to call if I had more than 6 an hour. These were pretty consistent but not unbearable. I knew if I told the nurse I had more than 6 an hour they would make me come in. Drew told me he'd leave work and I should call. I called and was on hold for about 10 minutes. I took it as a sign that I would be fine and hung up and went on with the evening. The contractions continued through the night, not horrible but every time I woke up my stomach was tight.

This morning I woke up and had to take Matthew to the pediatrician to get a couple of shots that we put off at his 18 month check up since he had a virus. I was still having contractions and told Drew I would call when I got home from Matthew's appointment. I called and left a message for my doctor's nurse. She called back and was like "Why didn't you call yesterday?" Oh great! I knew this wasn't going to end well. She said she was going to talk to my doctor and see if I should go to the office or right to the hospital to the Women's Evaluation Center. She called back and said to get to the hospital ASAP.

I called my dad and he came over to watch the boys until Drew got out of a meeting. I got to the hospital, got checked in and hooked up to the monitors. The baby was doing well so that was a relief. I didn't think anything was wrong but on the way to the hospital I began to worry. Luckily after the monitored me for a couple of hours, checked me out, and gave me some medicine to slow the contractions; I was free to go. And luckily, I'm not on bed rest! Can you imagine?!

So I came home from the hospital and Drew told me he was going to take the boys to the zoo while I rested. What a good hubby! The contractions have really slowed down and I hoping it stays that way.

wow, Wow, WOW

So much going on!

wow: I've come to the conclusion that the people buying our house might be a tad crazy. The requests they came up with after the inspections were quite ridiculous. MAYBE if we had a multi million dollar brand new house it would have made sense but WE DON'T! We have had more inspectors, electricians, handy men, plumbers in our house this past week than the ENTIRE time we've lived in this house. And they were just here to give us estimates and opinions. Everyone pretty much came to the same conclusion...CRAZY! So what do you do in this situation? Obviously their realtor is not giving them good advice. Every time Kathy talks to them their realtor says, "well they are first time home buyers, they are just really nervous." GIVE ME A BREAK! I could go on and on but I won't bore you. We finally came to an agreement tonight at 9, 3 hours before the deadline. The positive of this is we are one step closer to closing on our house.

Wow: Finding a preschool for Andrew has become the most stressful, time consuming project since deciding to make the move out west. How does being 35th on a waiting list sound? I mean I understand registration for preschool is in January and the sought after preschools fill up quickly but I was not able to find one opening in our new little community. Talk about having contractions all week. I could not justify driving 45 minutes to Andrew's current preschool. WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO?! Well I ended up calling a preschool the next district over and they had ONE opening! The drive will be 15-20 minutes but Andrew will be in preschool AND as an added bonus, it's Catholic!

WOW: Drew resigned from his current job today and starting a week from today he will be taking a new job! We decided we should have as many changes as possible in the next 3 months just to see how strong we really are:)

Oh man...I almost forgot. Matthew got his first haircut on Saturday. Let's just say he had a pretty good mullet going. We continued to put it off because he had the cutest curls in the whole world. But Friday night we were headed home from our Friday Pizza and stopped to let Andrew put some money in the fireman's boot who was collecting money. He gave Andrew a sticker and said, here's one for your sister! Well that did it! We headed in the next day to the Hair Saloon where Drew and Andrew usually go. I was a little embarrassed because it's really just for guys but I wanted to be there for his first hair cut! Once he got a sucker he was really good and Andrew was the perfect big brother. He sat on the floor in front of Matthew and read him books like a teacher. It was priceless!

The Drama of Buying and Selling a House

So last Friday we headed out to the O'Fallon/Winghaven area (for those of you that aren't from St. Louis, this is about 30 minutes from where we live now, technically not in St. Louis County). It was a breath of fresh air for us. We had looked at so many homes that just didn't suit us. Finally we were looking at homes that felt to "fit" our growing family. We were surprised at how quickly we made it out there and looked at 6 homes that night. Let me say, the boys were troopers! The first and last home were our favorite. We came home slept on it and were back at it on Saturday. We ended the day by looking at our 2 favorites and invited my mom out to give us her opinion. After discussing lots of pros and cons we decided we had a favorite. We decided to take ONE more look at it with my dad on Sunday morning. Thankfully, my mom kept the boys. My dad liked the house as well and we decided to write an offer. We were really excited because it looked like everything was going to work out.

We gave the owners until 5pm Monday to get back to us. At 6pm Monday we still had not heard. Their realtor told us we would know within the hour. Well the countered back, which we expected, but they only came down $1,000 and took out some very minor things we included, which we did not expect. It was disappointing but we knew we would just counter back and see what happened. One of the things the owners took out was a contingency we added for us to put in a fence and we would abide by the subdivision guidelines. We thought this was quite bizarre and knew we would not be able to buy the house if we could not put in a fence (the house backed to a pond). We were wondering why they couldn't just "fill us in" if there was something we needed to know. Between that and a few other inconsiderate things they did Drew was becoming quite irritated with the owners.

To add to the drama of Monday, we were having a lateral sewer inspection as ordered by our buyers. Well it ended up the guy couldn't get through the outside line and need to come in. Apparently he knocked (as hard as an ant) and didn't think I was home. So he called the realtor of the buyers and the next thing I knew the other realtor and the buyer were standing in my MESSY house. I was so embarrassed; I mean I was feeding the boys lunch, there were toys everywhere, I hadn't cleaned all weekend because we were looking at houses...oh it was horrible. Anyway they were here for over an hour and they guy doing the inspection was unable to do it...it was drama.

I spent the entire morning Tuesday trying to get ahold of someone from the subdivision "board" to answer my questions about a fence. They were actually VERY kind about it and helpful and told me a fence would be no problem. Once we got that taken care of we countered back and to make a really long story short they didn't budge much after that and we were becoming more and more irritated and realized these were all signs that this was not the house for us...even though we LOVED the house and the area. Guess it was time to get back on the horse and keep looking.

Drew and I got back on the internet and made yet another list of homes to look at. Thankfully, Kathy was able to take us out on Wednesday night to look at 4 more homes. Oh man, talk about depressing. Of course we were comparing everything to the house we wanted so the bar was set high but still...it was depressing. I tried to be a big girl on the way home but lets just say thank goodness my sunglasses were on.

We decided to give it one more try on Thursday. Soon we had a whole team working for us trying to help. My good friend Tracy who I played soccer with at TU just bought a house in the same area and was so helpful. We came up with a good list and headed back out. Thankfully my mom came over to stay with the boys, they can only take so much house hunting. Before we went out we had Kathy talk to one of the realtors about our situation. We loved a house in the neighborhood next to the one our original house was in and it was the exact same floor plan. This house was priced higher but had a fence and some other "extras". After talking to their agent Kathy discovered we could probably get the house for a price we could afford. Drew and I were so excited but thought it may be too good to be true. So we exhausted all of our options and looked at 4 more homes before going to this one. The second we walked in I said, "can we write and offer tonight?" Drew agreed, there was no reason to drag it on. We were writing another offer!

Side note: On the way home from looking at houses Kathy called and told us the new owners of our house wanted to come over the next day at noon to check our shower. REALLY? Obviously they don't have kids but of course we complied and got out of the house so they could check our "shower". Not sure that was the whole truth since I came back at 12:50 and they were just leaving our house from the shower check. But whatever, we're doing whatever we can to keep them happy until September 16.

Well it wasn't too good to be true! We got the call Friday afternoon that our offer was accepted!!! THANK YOU GOD! We could not be happier. We knew it was meant for us to lose the first house and end up with a better house, in a better neighborhood, with a bigger, fenced yard...just perfect! Here is a link to our new home!

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/63-Blue-Sage-Ct_Dardenne-Prairie_MO_63368_1107813504

We close on both houses September 16, the day after my birthday, 2 days after Drew's birthday...guess I won't be spending my birthday at the spa:)

We also received the inspection report from the soon to be owners of this house last night. Let's just say RIDICULOUS! The report was 31 pages from the inspector. I could go on and on about some of the unrealistic requests but I won't bore you. This morning we talked to Kathy who let us know she would talk to their realtor (I thought Drew was going to go into cardiac arrest while on the phone with Kathy, his blood was boiling!). Then we took a trip to Lowes to get the things we knew we would be able to fix and put calls in to our handy man and electrician to come out and look at some other things. It's so frustrating that at any point during this process these people can "walk away". We are doing everything we can to keep them happy without basically giving them the house.

Well that was long winded but I know one day I'll be glad I wrote down these memories.

So Much to Tell

Andrew's party:

The party was a huge success! Unfortunately, the garbage men were unable to attend but everything else went perfectly. The truck was a big hit. The kids had so much fun putting garbage in the cans and dumping it into the back of the truck. I also had a table set up where the kids could decorate a flower pot and plant a seed. Then they would end up with a plant just like Walle. The other activity I had set up was wheel painting, where the kids dipped the wheels of a matchbox garbage truck in paint and then rolled it onto paper to create their own design. Then of course we had all of our outside toys to play with as well. It started to rain about an hour into the party so we moved everyone to the basement where we opened presents and played. Then it was time for cake. We had to wrap the party up promptly at 1:00 because we had someone coming to look at the house at 2:00!!! Thankfully, my parents stuck around to help distract the boys and clean and as we walked out the door, people coming to see the house showed up.

THE Showing: During the showing, we decided to just drive around in hopes that the boys would nap. As soon as we pulled onto the highway, Andrew was sound asleep...in his conductor costume that my mom had given him. It was so funny. We drove around and looked at a few houses and then headed back home. On our way home, we got a call that the couple who had just looked at hour house wanted to come back! So we drove around a little more and began to get excited about the second showing. After some more driving we came home as the couple was leaving. Needless to say, we were all really worn out from the activities of the day. So I grabbed take out and we all chilled at home. Throughout the day, we had gotten 4 phone calls asking for showings on Sunday! We were so surprised but hopeful that this would be THE weekend. Well about 2:00 on Sunday we got a call that an offer was being written. When we got the offer we were a little disappointed b/c it was really low. We countered back and then they countered back, and then we countered back and then, you guessed it, they countered back.

THE offer: All of the countering was completed at 9:00 on Monday night. We accepted their last offer and Kathy came over about 10:00 for us to sign the papers. Drew and I were both in shock, we attempted looking at houses on line but decided to just call it a night. Of course a lot of emotions go along with selling this house. I have loved this house since the day we looked at it. Our street is awesome with wonderful neighbors and kids. I just love the feel of Glendale, like a small town. We know our police officers and firefighters, it's just a good feeling. BUT the whole reason we are moving is our house is TOO small. So we need to move on and find our next PERFECT house. (If you are wondering why we wouldn't just buy another house in Glendale...that's a good question. But the answer is the difference in price between and 2 bedroom and 4 bedroom is very large. )

The Hunt:

We began our house hunt last night. We looked at 5 homes and weren't too impressed. Tonight we are headed back out to look at 2 more. The main problem is we don't know where we want to live. We are looking in Ballwin, Eureka, Wildwood, Chesterfield, South, and even O'Fallon. We'll keep you posted. Thank you everyone for your prayers and support during the selling/buying process.

Baby Update:

As you can imagine this has been a stressful time with everything going on. Sunday I started having contractions. I wasn't too concerned because they weren't consistent and they were bearable. Then the day we sold the house they started to get a little worse. I had my check up today and was telling my doctor about the contractions. He decided it would be best to check and make sure I wasn't going into early labor. He checked me out and everything looked good. He did say I was having an contraction as he measured my belly which made it hard to measure the first time. But the second time she measured right on track. He's pretty sure they are just Braxton Hicks contractions which get a little worse with each pregnancy. So all is good with our little girl.

That's all for now:)!

Video of Andrew...the BIG 4!!!

Check Ups

Tuesday I took the boys to their 4 year and 18 month check ups. Amazingly, we got right in and the doctor was in the room before the nurse closed the door after taking all of their stats. Thank goodness because Matthew was in RARE form. He was still not feeling well from the virus he had while we were on vacation. As I said in my previous post, his fever broke Sunday evening BUT Monday he woke up from nap covered in a rash...poor guy. I guess I'd be crabby too.

So anyway, we got right in to the doctor. The nurse weighed Andrew and measured him on the big boy scale: 41.5 inches (70th percentile) and 36 lbs (25th percentile). Now Matthew of course was a different story. He is still weighed on the baby scale and without fail EVERY TIME we walk into the room at the pediatrician's office he freaks out. So of course I can't hold him on the scale so after 4 times of him trying to dive off, the nurse took his binky and held it so he would reach for it instead of me. After two attempts of that, we got his weight, 22 pounds, 5th percentile. (I'll explain further). Then we got his length by me laying my head on top of him she was able to get it BUT I couldn't hear what she said as far as how long he his because he was so mad. I do know he's in the 50th percentile. So after the nurse earned her paycheck, Dr. O'Neil walked in. Now that I think about it, I think THEY wanted us in and out as much as we wanted to be in and out.

Dr. O'Neil did Andrew's check up first and of course he did great. Nothing to worry about with him. Then it was time for my little man. Matthew checked out fine as well even though he cried through the entire check up. Then came my list of questions...all pertaining to Matthew.

1. He won't drink milk anymore should I be worried?

2. He is extremely picky and would rather go to bed hungry than eat what I put on his plate unless it's the food of choice of the week. (IE one week he'll only eat pizza, the next week he hates pizza and will only eat oatmeal..not kidding).

3. Will he be on Miralax his entire life?

4. He's not talking, should I be worried?

Guess what Dr. O'Neil's answer was to EACH of these questions. MATTHEW IS STUBBORN! Obviously I already knew that but he said it all comes down to him being in control and these are things I can't control so here we are. SUCH A MCLAUGHLIN! :)

Then it was time for shots. Last year they were out of Hep A for Andrew so he needed that. Matthew needed the two 18 month shots. But being the paranoid mom I am and after all of the research I've done, I asked Dr. O'Neil if he thought it would be alright for me to bring Matthew back when he was 100% better. He actually agreed with me and said that would be the safest thing to do. For once I didn't feel so crazy:) Andrew is usually really good with shots. So I didn't make a big deal about it. He watched the shot go in and did awesome AND THEN he was MAD! Once the band aid was on and the nurse was finished he was hysterical. "THAT HURT MOM!" I guess he wanted me to prepare him better. Oh, well once we got the cookies and stickers, everyone was happy again.

Thank God, they put a drive thru Starbucks next to the doctors office because I needed a treat after those appointments:)

I actually brought my camera to the appointment hoping to capture a shot for the blog but that didn't happen.

All Star, Garbage Truck, BEACH

We've been so busy I haven't had time to blog. So here you go 3 in 1!!!

First of all Happy 4th Birthday to my 1st born son! Love you Andrew!

All Star Game

It was an exciting time in St. Louis a few weeks ago with the MLB All Star Game in town. The weekend before the game we took the boys to the Science Center where they were hosting some of the MLB mascots at the Build A Bear shop. We had a great time and it was the perfect way to get the boys excited about the game. Then Sunday we had Sunday dinner with an All Star theme. My parents got Andrew an All Star shirt and Matthew a hat. Andrew pretended to be Albert Pujols and Ozzie Smith the rest of the week. He even got excited about the home run derby which we were surprised about. Tuesday, Drew got to go to THE game with a client and had amazing seats! He was in the first row behind the visitors dugout. He said it was a great experience. Then to finish off the baseball themed week, we all went to Drew’s softball game and for the first time Andrew enjoyed the game as much as the dirt.
Here is a link to all of Drew's pictures if you are interested: http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1419685007/a=28308882_28308882/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/


A Visit from MiMi and PawPaw

Friday, Drew’s parents came to visit. To start off the weekend we took them to our traditional Friday night dinner, Racanelli’s. At dinner we discussed Andrew’s garbage truck themed birthday party. I told them the story of how we invited our garbage men to the party.

We left the invitations on the trashcans that day. Of course Andrew waited for them and after they came Andrew came running in to tell me that they read the invitation and put it in the FRONT of the truck! Not with the garbage! He was so excited. Then for lunch we decided to have a picnic (I figured this was the best way to keep the house clean for a showing we had later in the evening). As we were sitting outside at our picnic, the garbage men made a special trip by to let us know they would be able to come to the party! I was asking if they worked on Saturdays (hoping they could bring the truck by). Well it ends up they don’t, so they’ll just be at the party, hanging out in their every day clothes☺ Now THAT is a good story!

After I told the story, I was telling them that I was hoping Drew would be able to make a garbage truck out of card board boxes. So after dinner we decided to see if we could pick up a refrigerator box my mom had told me about. Of course we didn’t think about the space we would need to fit it in the car so we left it and planned on picking it up in the morning without car seats.
Once we got home we played a little bit and then got the boys in bed. Once they were in bed we got to talking about the garbage truck project and decided to make it much more elaborate. After putting all of our heads together we decided we were going to take a Lowes trip in the morning and make the truck out of wood. The more we talked, the more ideas we came up with. We finally decided to call it a night and reconvene in the morning.

Of course Matthew decided to wake up at 3am and not go back to sleep. So once we were up and around in the morning Drew began having second thoughts about the project. We met his parents at the hotel for breakfast and discussed the enormity of the project. We decided we should just go to Lowes and price it out. Once we got there and looked around for a while we decided to “JUST DO IT”. My job was to keep the boys happy and look for the accessories while Drew and his parents got the right shapes and sizes of wood, hinges, screws, etc.
Amazingly, we got the car loaded up and headed home. Of course it’s hard for Andrew to think abstractly at his age so he had a hard time understanding what we were going to do but he was excited for about the first hour just watching dad use the tools and getting to help out with a few things. Then he lost interest and found other things to do. I forgot to mention St. Louis had the most amazing weather this weekend. The highs were in the mid 70s and at night it got down to the upper 50s. It was unbelievable.

So basically the entire time Drew’s parents were in town we worked on the garbage truck. It was quite a project but I must say, it looks awesome. (We are adding the finishing touches for the "reveal" at his party on Saturday...pictures to follow). They decided to stay Sunday night so we took them to Sunday dinner which they always hear about. It was the perfect evening, great food, weather, and company, the perfect way to end the weekend. We met them for breakfast Monday morning and Drew headed to work while I headed home and started getting ready for our next adventure…our family vacation.


The Dunes Beach

We left Tuesday morning for a much needed family vacation. We were headed up to my aunt’s house in Beverly Shores, Indiana, better know to Andrew as the Dunes Beach. It sits on Lake Michigan and is basically on the Michigan/Indiana boarder right outside of Chicago.
The ride up was better than expected. They boys did well considering the 6 hour car ride but of course were all so relieved when we arrived. Once we got to the house and unpacked we ran to the store to get some food and necessities for the week ahead. We got back to the house and had dinner then started to calm down for bed. Of course Matthew was in an unfamiliar place and a little out of sorts while Andrew was so excited he couldn’t calm down so bedtime the first night was interesting but we all got to sleep.

Wednesday the boys were up with the sun at 5:15 and Andrew wanted to get to the beach ASAP. Drew made French toast and then we headed to the beach just to check it out and feel the sand before getting ready for a long trip to the beach. We found out, Matthew is the exact opposite of Andrew when it comes to the sand. Andrew ran down and started making a “sand angel” while Matthew started freaking out that there was sand on his foot. We tried to ignore Matthew and see if he would just get used to the sand. Thankfully there were a lot of bigger rocks on the beach which distracted him and he started collecting them and then saw seagulls and he seemed good to go.

After about an hour we decided we better go get some sand toys and get ready for a morning at the beach. Well I guess beach season is almost over because it took us going to 4 stores to finally find clearance toys at Walgreens. We had a fun morning at the beach and then headed back for lunch. This was the first day we decided to try and hold Matthew off and lay him down for one nap. We figured otherwise, we be stuck at the house all day between both boys nap schedule. It worked like a charm. They both went down right after lunch and slept well. Once they woke up we hit the outlet mall. Both boys got new shoes at Nike and we got some amazing deals at Children’s Place. Then it was home for dinner, baths and bed.

Thursday our early risers were at it again. We decided after French toast and coffee to take a long walk and then come home and get ready for the beach. Matthew wasn’t too thrilled about the beach this day but Drew did a nice job of distracting him by sitting close the water. It was much windier and the waves were huge so at least when he was whining the waves drowned out the noise. Then we went home for lunch where Matthew was falling asleep at the table. We laid him down, then Andrew and Drew and I continued our tournament of Gin (the card game). Matthew woke up like a furnace…guess that explains his mood at the beach. His temperature was 102 and he was pretty groggy. We gave him Tylenol and decided to chill until it kicked in and then reevaluate. Once it kicked in he was up around and playing. We decided to go to a few local stores in search of Dunes shirt for the boys. We didn’t have much luck but had fun looking around the stores.

Matthew was up a lot of the night on Thursday but we did the best we could to enjoy our “vacation”. So we got up and had our normal breakfast and took a walk. Matthew fell asleep on the walk which was great for everyone. Once we got home, we headed to the beach then naps, lunch, and back to the outlet mall for some more deals. Poor Matthew was such a trooper.
In the middle of the night Friday there was a big storm and Matthew was up for that. Drew being the great husband that his is sat out on the couch with him and said it was actually really cool to watch the storm in basically a box of windows. Saturday morning was overcast so we went on a really long walk while trying to figure out what to do on our last day of vacation if it was going to be a cloudy day. Once we got home, it started to clear up and we were excited to be able to spend one more day at the beach. Matthew took a 3 hour nap and woke up pretty upset with a pretty high temperature. We decided to take Andrew to my aunt Missy’s house and find an urgent care clinic for Matthew. Once we got that all arranged, we arrived to the clinic 15 minutes after they closed. We went back to Missy’s where Andrew was having the time of his life (golf cart rides, trampoline, ice cream man) and ordered a pizza. We left Missy’s and prayed Matthew would sleep through the night and wake up all better. Drew and I packed up what we could and headed to bed.

Sunday Matthew woke up after sleeping much better than he had been and seemed a little better. But once he had some breakfast he seemed uncomfortable and irritable. We decided once we packed up we’d head back to the urgent care (we made sure to check what time they opened on Sunday) before heading out of town. So we packed up and headed out. We got to the urgent care and saw that by 7 days a week, they really meant 6…go figure. Thankfully Matthew had fallen asleep on the way and we decided to hit the road. He ended up sleeping for 3 and a half hours, all the way to Springfield! And when he woke up his temp was down to 99! What a relief. Thankfully we made it home safe and sound.