Some much needed Daddy time...

There is nothing my kids love more on vacation than spending a whole week with their dad!  Chris is such a patient and joyful dad to these three sweet kiddos.

Happy Three Months Abby!

Yes, I know Abby has already turned four months, but I'm still going to post Happy Three Months to our sweet girl!

Abby's third month of life was the craziest yet.  We packed up and moved from her first house, all with a super complicated house sale.  Our stuff was put into storage and we were living out of bags for about three weeks until we could move into our new house (no easy feat with all the baby gear!).  We also had to say good-bye to Abby's first house, first town, and first friends.  We traveled 12 hours with this baby girl (who hates the car seat) to my mom's house where we would live for about three weeks.  And we took a MUCH needed vacation to Abby's first trip to the beach.  The month was filled with lots of chaos---moving, oil tanks, last minute house repairs, packing, organizing, staying away from the house to let the packers/workers do their work, saying good-bye to all of our dear friends, driving a 12 hour drive to North Carolina, taking Abby's first family vacation to Emerald Isle! 

So at three months, Abby loves to sleep.  She started to sleep some really long stretches sometimes 8-10 hours at a time.  She must know that her mommy is sleep deprived and can use any extra sleep she can get. I feel very spoiled since both boys never slept through the night until they were past a year old.  She may be just completely worn out after spending a day with her hyperactive brothers and mom!  Abby continues to be swaddled and placed in her Rock and Play, which is perfect because it has traveled with us everywhere!  

Abby has found her favorite pacifier, the Soothie!  We have a Wubbanub pacifier that Courtney gave us for the drive south, hoping that it would help keep her a little more calm and happy in the car.  Thankfully, she took to it right away and loves her little doggy pacifier.

Abby continues to nurse about every 2-4 hours.  She is a HUGE spitter and is on reflex medicine to help keep her a little more content with all the amazing amount that comes right back up.  She flies through bibs, burp cloths, outfits, and anything in projectile distance.  She actually takes bottles without a fight, unlike her brothers, so this mommy loves the occasional break from nursing!

Abby has started to enjoy rides in the double stroller.  She loves to play on her playmat.  We have started to put her in the Bumbo so she can sit up.  And the bouncer is the perfect place of this baby girl to sit.  Her favorite place to be is the Baby Bjorn, carried by her mommy

Abby is such a easy, happy baby.  She rarely cries and just is content with life around here---we LOVE her so much!  She gives big smiles, has wide eyes, and loves just to watch and watch and watch.  And there is a lot to see! 

 

We love you baby girl so much!

Beachin It, 2013

So after the chaos that we have been experiencing for the past few months (moving/complicated house sale/and baby Abby's arrival), it was about time that this family took a week away just to spend time as the five of us!  We have to give my grandma a HUGE thank you for letting us spend a week at the beach house in Emerald Isle, NC (my favorite favorite place on Earth!) before Chris headed off to DC for our next family life adventure.  

It was the perfect week for our family.  There is VERY limited Internet, television and.....(this is HUGE), Chris didn't even have his cell phone with him.  WHAT?!?!  Chris has always had to work on our vacations (just the nature of his job), but since he was transferring jobs, he officially had handed in his cell phone and computer before vacation but had yet to start his new job so he was phone less.  It was fabulous!!!!!

We spent a lot of time at the beach just soaking in the ocean view and playing in the sand all day long.  Chris and I were a bit apprehensive how the boys would be as the year before Andrew was terrified of the ocean and Aiden wasn't  much better.  And we didn't have a third child at the time either.  

But, this year was great.  I have to say the boys still were pretty fearful of water (Andrew's toes never hit it and Aiden was apprehensive staying just at the very's water edge), but the sand was enough to keep these two busy.  Andrew LOVES LOVES LOVES to dig and this giant sandbox was amazing to him.  (He even asked me today when he could have a sandbox.  We had one at our old house and he told me all about he wants one to dig and drive and dig and drive.  He would spend hours in it.  I just can't decide which one to buy, but I better get on it because this boy is ready for his sandbox!)  

Aiden stayed busy chasing around his parents, building sand castles, jumping in the water, looking for shells, and playing with his brother.  He had to be like his Daddy---if Daddy wore a shirt, then he did.  If Daddy was shirtless, so was Aiden.  If Daddy had sunglasses on so did Aiden.  A week with his Daddy was just what this boy needed...

  

Abby was a great beach baby.  She either was eating, watching, or sleeping.  The easiest beach baby ever...

 

I will share a few more pictures in the next few days, but this family vacation is just what our family needed.  Some time away from life to relax and make some special family memories and there is no better place to do it than at the beach.  

Good-bye Cranford!

So after a very stressful house sale, we finally said good-bye to our lovely town of Cranford, New Jersey.  I dragged my feet moving to New Jersey (trust me, any of my Connecticut friends can attest to this fact), but there is a little piece of me that will always stay in the state of New Jersey.  Some great friends, an amazing town, and a fun place to raise our little ones.

Our movers packed and packed and packed and packed.  They were super friendly and fast---just what this family needed.  I'm a little Type A about organization, but I just let it all go this time around and trusted the men who knew what they were doing.  

We said our final farewell on a Friday morning as we headed south with our final last stop at our favorite "sanity saver" coffee shop, Rockn Joe's.  

Our VERY full car headed south with all of our baby goods, toddler items, and last minute items that didn't make it into the moving boxes that would keep us alive until we moved into our new house a month from now.  See below (and remember there are two dogs in this car too!!!!)  You can't see the dark circles under my eyes (they may have become permanent now) after a full week of packing, saying good-byes, an oil tank chaos (see post below), cleaning, and more all with these three kids all on our own.  

It was quite an interesting drive with all three kids, but we finally pulled into my mom's driveway that evening with some very excited kids, dogs, and parents!  It was time for a week of vacation before Chris headed to DC while I held down the fort at my mom's house for two weeks on my own!  What a start to summer...

 Good bye Cranford, the Rogers family will miss ya!

A VERY complicated house sale:)

Today, I'm going to share the story of our first house "sale".  What a crazy moment in our lives it was...

Chris found out that he received the accounting fellowship with the government when I was 37 weeks pregnant.  Yes, crazy enough, right?  Abby was born 1 1/2 weeks early, so about 1 1/2 week later.  With a newborn baby and two little boys, we were quickly trying to organize our house to get it in "showing" condition, no easy thing especially with 1400 square feet for a family of five.  Anything that we weren't using went into our attic, baby items were minimized, toys were packed up in boxes for the attic, and it was time to get this house listed.

In Abby's third week of life, the house was on the market.  This is also the week that Chris returned back to work.  So here I was in my first week of being home with all three kids and that Wednesday, the house was scheduled to be listed.  Not a problem, the open house wasn't until that Sunday and I had a maid scheduled to come on Saturday to do a BIG clean before it.  Little did I know that starting at 7 am on Wednesday morning, I would be fielding phone calls from realtors that wanted to see our house. On the first day on the market (Wed), there were 8 showings.  Now, what do you do with all three kids all day long while your house is unavailable, especially when one is nursing?  Target, library story times, restaurant meals, and one gracious neighbor!  Within the next three days, there were at least 20 more.  Before the open house even occurred, an offer was given, we accepted, and the house was sold.  

Now, you are probably thinking...that is amazing!  Yes, it is.  We were very excited that it looked like the house was sold and all we had to do was find a rental place.  That brings you to the house inspection.  About two weeks later, our house was inspected for more than four hours.  CRAZY, right?  It is almost 100 years old, so of course it has some things that could be updated, fixed, repaired.  We also had our own house inspection before we moved in less than three years ago.  So we weren't overly concerned.  

When we got the initial report, there were some BIG possible problems (that our inspector failed to notice), but the main one involved a possible metal object in the backyard.  Now, this is something that I have never heard of or was even aware of, but oil tanks were buried in backyards in New Jersey.  They were decommissioned when people changed to gas heat, but left underground.  It has become a BIG issue in New Jersey because if you have a "leaking" oil tank, then you have to pay remediation of the soil (without insurance's help) which can cost anywhere from $10,000 at the least to over $100,000.  

Well...after a possible metal object was found to be in our backyard, we were concerned that it could be an oil tank.  Several neighbors, realtors, and friends thought that there was no way that this "object of concern" was an oil tank based on placement.  Chris decided to uncover himself using a chisel to dig over six feet down (starting on the same day that he had his wisdom teeth taken out) to discover that yes, it was an oil tank.  This caused us to have to call a company to remove the oil tank.  Waiting a few very anxious weeks for the dig to happen, this is what happened...  

 And what do you know, we have an 1000 gallon oil tank (none come in this size, most are 250-500 gallon, but our lucky house has this crazy ridiculous size!)

Not only did we have an 1000 gallon oil tank, but our tank had holes, which meant automatically that it is LEAKING.  Not good news, not what any house owner wants to hear.  Automatically, we have to start the soil remediation process.  

 

They removed the tank from our backyard.  A worker from the company discussed the next process where again we had to wait a couple weeks before the next dig to occur which involved getting the soil tested and cleaned out until the soil came back clean.  

So again the wait would happen.  Now, we were very anxious for several reasons.  One:  Chris had to be closed on the house to be able to start his new job (in less than three weeks now).  Our buyers couldn't close until we had a No Further Action letter from the government which could take months.  Two:  We had no idea how much we were going to have to pay.  Again, it could be around $10,000 or up to $100,000 and remember insurance doesn't cover this.  What a mess.  This may be a reason that my blogging fell off the face of the earth.  On top of it all, we have a newborn at home, two little boys, and trying to get moved within the next couple weeks.  Let's just say that this was one major stress in our life...

So a couple weeks later, they fit us into the schedule (thankfully they pushed us ahead of others based on our very complicated situation) and the BIG digger came.  The environmental engineer came to do the testing.  And this SUPER anxious wife (with all three kids) left the house.  There's no way that I could be there.  (And did I mention that this happened on the day that the movers were at our house packing?  Three days before our official move was going to happen.  It couldn't get much crazier.)  While the kids and I were spending our day with Courtney and her kids (she somehow wants to still be friends after all the mess that she managed through with us!), Chris was back at home anxiously awaiting results of the dig and directing the movers.  On top of that, the oil tank happened to be halfway under the deck so we were hopeful (but not optimistic) that they wouldn't have to tear our entire back deck off.    

Now, are you ready for the results?????

 

The soil came back clean.  Not a trace of oil in it.  None.  Yes, we were shocked and elated to hear this news.  After all the mess that had happened over the past few months, we were thankful that the process will finally be ending.  The hole was filled back up.  The back deck was thankfully not torn down.  And the house was going to be sold.  

I don't even know what to say about this big giant mess of a house sale.  How did this happen to us in the first place?  I have no idea how our realtor when we bought the house failed to mention to us about this issue (us not knowing being first time home buyers from out of state), but I can't rehash and try to place blame.  Chris and I have put this awful, and very expensive, process behind us because there is no sense dwelling on it.  (And thanks to my parents for putting up with some very tearful phone calls!)  We are thankful that we were able to sell the house to the relocation company who now owns it until the NFA letter comes and they will close with the buyers.  The No Further Action letter has officially arrived and I am thankful to say that Chris and I made it through this entire mess only as a stronger couple and remembering that our kids are the most important thing to us, not our house/money/possessions.  I have to admit that there is a little piece of me that is loving this "rental" thing while we are doing this two year fellowship in DC, knowing that a problem is just a phone call to the landlord.  I also know that I may be the "pickiest" home buyer the next time around after the crazy house sale/inspection ever.  And last, but not least, at least these moments brought a little more entertainment to these construction loving boys' lives.  

Our First Home!

Since I use this blog as a scrapbook of our lives, I have to post some pictures of our first house that we have owned.  This is the house that we said good-bye to over a month ago, as we said farewell to a great neighborhood, town, and friends.  

This house brings back lots of memories.  Andrew's first house.  Abby's first house.  Lots of family and friends came to visit.  Great neighbors.  The front tree blooming beautifully.  Lots of repairs, painting, and yard work.  Walking to downtown.  Lots of neighborhood runs.  Walks to the park.  Walks to school.  Dogs in the backyard barking.  Waiting for Daddy to arrive home on these front steps.  Snowstorms and hurricanes.  Oil tanks.  Visiting with neighbors on our front sidewalk.  Planting flowers in our front planters.   SO many great memories that we will cherish forever.