Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for June, 2011
On the market
After four days of non-stop work and a LOT of sorting and cleaning, our house is officially on the market. Since we’re not closing on the new place until October 1st, we’ve decided to list it for sale by owner for a little while to try to get the most money we can. Greedy? Maybe, but I do have the time to put in showing it now, so why not give it a try, right?
We have literally filled Theresa’s garage with stuff from our house. We took furniture, boxes, winter clothes, and almost everything from our office. It was so much work because we had really let the office go. It was filled with piles and piles of things that we needed to sort and find homes for. Some of it got sorted, but some of it got put in boxes and hauled away. We’ll sort it later. Last night we rented a steam cleaner and Dave cleaned the first floor carpets. Today I took the kids to Danielle’s and I cleaned the second floor carpets.
As of right now, the house looks so good that I can hardly remember it being this clean and uncluttered. The pictures were all taken for the FSBO website today, and tonight I wrote everything up and submitted it. We’re hoping it goes active tomorrow morning. Now all we need is some interested families to come see it. I know that they’ll love it as much as we have if they do. Let’s hope we get them in the door, because it’s going to be difficult to keep it looking this way 24/7.
Another one’s gone
Ben lost his second tooth yesterday evening. Again, there was very little fanfare or ceremony. He simply came up to me with a tooth in his hand and said, “the tooth’s out!” And again, the new tooth is already coming in. It’s crazy how easy this has been.
We left the tooth under his pillow and again the tooth fairy came and left Ben some money. It was a dollar this time, and I explained that the first tooth is a very big deal, so that’s why it wasn’t as much as the first time. Regardless, he was excited and itching to spend his money. Since we had a good behaviour day today, Ben and I made a trip to the dollar store. Emma was a little bent out of shape that she didn’t get to go this time, but I tried to explain to her that she would eventually lose teeth, too, and then it would be her turn to shop by herself. It kind of worked…kind of. It’s so funny to take Ben to the dollar store, because he truly believes that everything there is awesome. He had a difficult time deciding, but finally chose a stuffed T Rex. He named it Rexie and was in seventh heaven the rest of the evening.
Just what we need…another stuffed animal in the house. Let’s hope he waits until he’s out of the stuffed animal phase before he loses the rest of those baby teeth!!
Holy crap
We bought a new house today.
Oh my God, we bought a new house today!! I still can’t believe this happened. We’ve been sort of looking for well over a year now. Not actively looking at all, but going to Open Houses here and there and watching the listings pretty closely. To this point, we had never seen anything that we really liked in our price range. But then on Wednesday, this house was listed. Since I had signed up for alerts to new listings, it came to my email. My friend Alicia was over with her kids for a play day on Thursday afternoon. The kids were playing so well together that we had time to really look at the pictures and the floor plan and analyze the house. It was in a neighborhood that I love and it looked really good. The three areas that we wanted to improve upon; the garage, the kitchen, and the mud room, were all better than our current house, and the rest looked just as good or better in some cases. I knew we had to see it. So I contacted a colleague who is also a realtor, and he set up a showing for this morning. Just like I figured…I loved the house. But the crazy thing was that Dave liked it too…it actually has a garage that met his approval!!
After we saw it we went to breakfast and I was pressing him hard to put in an offer. I just had a feeling that this was supposed to be our house. I typically don’t push for things like this. I’m not rash or spontaneous with money. I think Dave was shocked that I was working him so hard, but I think that he had some kind of feeling about this house, too. We knew that it was priced to sell, and it would not be on the market long. If we wanted any chance at it, we had to act.
So we put in an offer, and after one counter, we got the price we wanted! I’m still in shock but I’m very, very excited. I don’t think I’ll worry about selling our house just yet…I just want to enjoy the thought of moving into this new house, which really has the potential to be our dream house, for now.
VBS
This week the kids have been attending Vacation Bible School, or VBS, at church. I have such fond memories of VBS from when I was a kid. I attended for years, but then also helped and eventually taught when I was older. It’s a fun week of singing, playing, making crafts, and having fun while learning more about our faith. I was looking forward to it for the kids, and I have to say that I have not been disappointed. They have absolutely loved it. I think that anything involving that many kids that is organized that well is bound to be fun for preschoolers. The start each morning all together in a group meeting that gets them all fired up for the day. Then they split up into their crews and go to each station…the crafts, the games, the stories, the snacks, etc. Finally they all meet together in the big room for the round up again, and they sing all their songs together again. The parents are invited for the last half hour, so I’ve gotten to see a lot of the interaction and hear a lot of the songs each day. Tomorrow is the last day and both of them were disappointed to hear that news. Emma even asked me, “But how long befo-uh we staht the next Bible Schoowuh?” I guess she thought it would continued all summer.
I have to admit that I’ve also enjoyed my mornings this week. I’ve gotten more done in those three hours each day than the rest of the day for sure. I guess VBS is beneficial to all of us. Now if I could just get those songs out of my head…,
A new gymnastics
Emma started her new gymnastics class tonight. We chose The Jump Spot mainly because it had a class offered for her age during Ben’s Tuesday night T-ball. You see, after one week of T-ball it became very obvious that we had to find something for her to do during that time. Without a playground or anything near the ball fields, it is nearly impossible to entertain her during the hour and a half that he’s playing. So off we headed to her class while Dave and Ben went to T-ball.
I’m so exited that we chose this place. After only one night I can tell that this class will be so good for her. They work her hard and they have high expectations. When she once said that she didn’t want to do something, one of the teachers came into the mat area and told her that they don’t accept “we don’t want to” at The Jump Spot and she made Emma do the drill. Emma was crying before the incident was over, but I was happy that they didn’t let her get away with the attitude. They worked on real tumbling skills, too, like hand stands, different types of rolls, and cartwheels. She had much more actual instruction in one class than she had the entire time at the Tiny Tumblers class through the park district. There are also only two other little girls in the class, so she gets a lot of individual attention. I think we chose wisely.
When class was over Emma was tired, but super excited. She was smiling ear to ear and didn’t stop talking the whole way home. I hope her enthusiasm continues for the entire session, because I know these classes will be really good for her.
Father’s Day fun
We had such a nice Father’s Day today. After sleeping in and letting Dave sleep in even later, we let him open his presents in bed this morning. The kids had each drawn him a picture and picked something out to buy for him and they were really excited to give the gifts. The Illini trinkets they picked out went over big, but that was nothing compared to the pictures they drew for Dave.
This was Emma’s drawing:
In case you can’t tell, that’s Dave in the middle, Emma on the left, and Ben on the right. I know you probably don’t need an explanation since the resemblance is so uncanny. Just thought I’d help.
This was Ben’s drawing:
I hope you can figure out that this is a picture of Dave, Ben, and Dave’s new caddy. I’m not sure if all the love is for his dad or for the car, but either way, it melted Dave’s heart. Ben worked so hard on it, and he wrote all the words by himself. I simply wrote them out on another sheet of paper, and he copied them perfectly.
I know that both of these pictures meant more to Dave than anything we could have bought him. He took both to work to display with pride. 🙂
The weather wasn’t real great, but it started to clear up in the afternoon, so we headed to Peoria to hit the zoo. It was actually a good day to go there because it wasn’t super hot and more of the animals were out. We stayed a couple of hours and had a great time together. Then we headed back to Bloomington and went to Aunt Theresa’s, where Uncle Dan was grilling for the entire Kerber family. The kids and Dave swam and the family had a great meal together.
It was a nice day for me, and I really hope that Dave felt appreciated.
The truth is that I could not ask for a better Dad for my kids. He’s patient, caring, cautious, helpful, and he loves to spend time with his kids. They give him joy every single day. We all love you, Daddy. Happy Father’s Day!!
Tree trimmin’
It was gorgeous out tonight, so Dave decided it was time to take care of some trimming that’s been needed for a while. He got out the hack saw and started cutting smaller branches.
But the chainsaw was needed for many of them. The kids love it when he does this kind of thing…it’s big fun for them to help drag the branches to the street, which is very helpful. Of course, before long, it turned into a big game for them and they were running around with branches trying to fight and/or race with them.
I feel so fortunate that Dave knows how to trim trees to make them look their best. When I drive around I notice trees that are so overgrown you can’t even see the house. Instead of that we have a beautiful maple tree that is growing up nicely because he cleans it up every year. It really makes a difference when you look at our house from the street.
I hope the kids continue to have interest in helping us take care of our landscape. It’s fun and I love their help!
Busy, busy days
I had arranged for the kids to go to Danielle’s on Mondays throughout the summer. Considering that Emma asked to go to Danielle’s every day last week, I think it was a wise idea. It’s good for all of us…they like to have some of their routine back and I need a day to myself to run errands and get things done. I had no idea, though, how much I would need to cram into these Mondays. Last week I had a dentist appointment in the morning (the second half of getting a new crown) and then I had to go to work to wrap up the school year and work with the book crew. That pretty much took up the entire day. So today I was determined to get a lot more done. I made a “Monday to do” list over the weekend, and I was determined to plow through it.
I started the day with yet another dentist appointment, this time just my regular checkup and cleaning. Then I got groceries, made a couple of returns at stores, got Ben some new tennis shoes, dropped off the garage sale remains at Good Will, arranged swimming lessons, made doctor appointments for both kids’ checkups, made an eye doctor appointment for Ben, counted and deposited the garage sale money, made dinner, and picked up the house. Whew. Now I’m sitting down to check email, and it’s almost time to go pick up the kids. I can’t believe how quickly these days go. I am really glad that I’ll have Mondays all summer to do all of these types of errands. They’re so much more enjoyable when the kids are not with me!
Date night
After a long week of transitioning to our summer schedule, working on our garage sale, and a lot of bickering, Dave and I both wanted to have a night that we could spend some time with each other. So we called on Aunt Theresa, and as always, she happily had the kids come over to her house. I seriously don’t know what we’d do without Aunt Theresa. The kids absolutely love going over there and spending time with her. It’s awesome.
As we drove over to her house, Emma asked why we wouldn’t be staying there with them. “Well, Daddy and I are going on a date,” I said.
“What’s a date?” asked Ben.
“Well,” I said, “A date is when Mommy and Daddy want to go somewhere by themselves so they can spend some time together and talk. Before we had kids we went on dates all the time.”
“But when you-uh awe they-uh you just tawk like gwon-ups awways do?” asked Emma incredulously.
“Yep,” I said. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“No,” Emma said emphatically. “Dat is not fun at AWL!!”
Dave and I looked at each other and chuckled. I was so looking forward to having a dinner where we could talk without interruption or without continuously getting up to refill milk or get treats for kids who cleared their plate. It’s funny how important little things like 2 hours of talk time become when you’re a parent. I really wish we would do it more often.
No matter what Emma thinks…I cherish the Date Night.
“Tooth is out”
Yesterday we had a few errands to run to get ready for the garage sale. One of them was to go pick up a cash box and get some change from school. While the kids and I were there, I noticed that my co-worker Caroline was there, so we stopped in the library to chat with her. As the two of us chatted about just about anything other than school, the kids were running around the library randomly. They love to run up and down the steps and rows in the computer lab for some reason.
Suddenly, Ben said, “Tooth is out!” My eyes got wide and I said, “WHAT?” Sure enough, his loose tooth had fallen out. He was so excited. “It didn’t even hurt!!” he exclaimed. Well, that’s no wonder…the new permanent tooth is almost halfway in already. I was so proud of him and couldn’t wait to get a picture.
Ben was so happy that it didn’t hurt him and I was so happy that it didn’t turn into some traumatic event like most things do with him. We put the tooth in a baggie and hung it on the fridge waiting to put it under his pillow for the tooth fairy. Emma kept asking to look at it throughout the day. She was very jealous and was really wishing that she could lose a tooth, too. It was difficult for her to understand that it would, in fact, happen to her, too…she just has to be patient. When bedtime rolled around, he was so excited to put it under the pillow.
The tooth fairy almost forgot to come, but in the end she didn’t let us down and brought him a five dollar bill in the morning! I’m sure it was a bigger amount just because it was his first lost tooth, but needless to say he was super excited and can’t wait to go to the store to pick out a toy to buy. It was another milestone we passes without incident, which is always good and bad for me.
Is This Normal? 