She's on the Move

Maren decided to really take off crawling the weekend we moved out of our house. It was perfect timing. :) She was filthy after a day of crawling around all over our house pre-final cleaning.

And once she started, she hasn't stopped. She is all over the place and into everything. It is super cute to watch, but man you can't take your eye off of her for a minute. When you do, you find her in situations like this. . .

- Sitting chewing on Griffins bones or toys
- With a lamp plug pulled out of the outlet and in her mouth
- Playing daddy's guitar
- Tearing apart mommy's magazines
- Playing in Griffin's food and water
- Touching the toilet
- Pulling stuff out of mommy's purse

Lesson learned, don't leave her alone unless she is secured in a location without anything dangerous. We have to quickly Maren proof the apartment.

Good Bye 1397 Barrows Rd

Well. . .it is official, we no longer live at 1397 Barrows Road.

We moved out the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was 72 hrs of moving. How we pulled it off is beyond me. We wouldn't have pulled it off without the help of my dad, brother and Kerri. Somehow, we placed 80% of our house inside a 16x8x10 container. The other 10% went to a furnished apartment we are living in in Oakland. And the other 10% ended up in Sara's backyard. Too bad it's not summer, they've now have plenty of patio furniture and bbq's to have a great party.

So why didn't we go to Dublin to stay with Derek's mom? We really couldn't face the commute. It was going to be hard on all of us. And fortunately we found a place to accommodate us and Griffin at the last minute. It is a one bedroom furnished apartment. It has a lot of closet space, so thankfully I've been able to stuff a lot of things in there. The unfortunate part of the situation is within a week, we quickly discovered Griffin isn't cut out for apartment living. And he has had to go stay with Derek's mom, Kathy indefinately. Poor guy. We're sad without him, but he has a lot more space there, access to outside anytime he wants it and a great companion with their dog Spark.

Patience is already wearing thin trying to hold out for our new house. We'll see how long we last. Hopefully we get some news soon. Otherwise, we need to move to plan B.

This seriously ranks pretty high on the moments of stress in Shana's life scale. But when I really start to lose it, I stop and think about all of the families out there without homes or living in smaller spaces than we have without proper living facilities. And I realize my situation really isn't that bad. I am in the fortunate position to be able to choose where I live on my own terms. I am greatful for that. And I will have a new home when all the stars align.

Maren is 9 months old

Today is Maren's 9 month birthday. How is that possible? And through all of this craziness, I almost forgot.

Maren said her first word other than dada or mama Saturday evening. I was reading her favorite little book peekaboo puppy and at the end it says peekaboo baby. And after I said baby. . .she said baby. And we did it a few more times to confirm I was not hearing things. She was for sure saying baby and associating the picture with baby. It was amazing.

She amazes me on a regular basis. She is so strong. How is this little 20lb creature able to do the things she can do. She can move a full plate with one little finger.

She loves exploring food. And she is a good eater. She loved trying new fruit while we were in Hawaii; and pineapple seemed to be a big hit with her. She likes to hold food and put it in her mouth herself. And even though she has no teeth, she likes to try and bite off pieces of food.

And she loves electronics, especially cell phones. And even better is a cell phone with her picture on it. She loves to look at pictures of herself; and she likes to look at herself in the mirror.

She has been trying really hard to crawl. She has been scooting backwards for a while and she finally had her first official crawl today.

My favorite thing of all though is the fact that she poses for pictures. She knows when that camera is being used and she looks right at you with the greatest smile. Here are a few of her recent shots.

Happy 9 month birthday Lovey.

Love,
Mama

Buying and Selling Real Estate

Well. . .we have been back from Hawaii for about 72 hrs and my stress levels are equally as high if not higher than they were when we left. :( We are in the process of selling our house and buying a new home, which is a fixer upper and in a short-sale process. Lessons I have learned so far:

1. Never ever try to sell a house when you have a new baby and a dog, if you live in an area that requires your home to be picture perfect each day when you walk out the door. Move out before you sell it.

2. Selling a home is not a friendly process. It is every man and women for himself. Do not trust anyone.

3. Realtors only make matters more stressful. They don't take the time to understand the full situation. This creates the worst case of the old game"telephone" you can imagine. Meaning is lost along the way.

4. Do not hire a Realtor that sells everything in your area. Because he is selling everything in your area, he has no time for you--this is especially important if your home is not the most expensive property in the area.

5. Do every possible inspection known to man before buying a property. If you don't, it will come back to bite you in the end.

6. Never buy a short-sale property. The uncertainty of it is horribly frustrating, especially if you are a natural control freak.

7. Remember the advice of your elders who tell you. . ."I got divorced over a project like that." Do everything you can to ensure that doesn't happen.

8. Saying good-bye to your first real home is emotional. Let yourself mourn it for one evening. Then move forward.

9. Finding the strength to not lose yourself in the stress is difficult, but required, especially when you now have a family depending on you.

10. Having a vision of the future and knowing the good that will come out of the long road ahead is what will see you through the situation.

Chin up Shana. . .you've survived worse situations.

And as Derek continues to say. . ."This is for the good of our family."

We're out of our house as of this weekend. And we're off to Derek's moms probably through the end of the year. Wish me luck with the move; and look forward to the day when I invite you over to my new home.

Aloha

We are in Hawaii. This is day four. It really feels like day two though because the first two days were filled with traveling. Friday we flew out here. Maren did a pretty good job on the flight. She would have done a better job if the flight crew didn't love speaking on the loud speaker so much. So she only slept for the first thirty minutes and then she was a squirming little gal. But overall, she was good. And she became friends with a man sitting across from us. He loved her and she loved him. That was fun to watch.

Maren was asleep by 5:45 that night; and mom and dad were crashed out by 6:45. That led to an early morning wake up from the little gal. It was raining until about 10:30 that morning. And we checked out of our hotel at 12:00 to then load up at Costco and then pick my mom and run up at the airport. Then we headed to the other side of Kauai to Princeville. This is where we are staying the rest of the week. We were all beat by then so it was an early night again.

Yesterday we headed to the Wailua River area and took a boat ride to the Fern Gratto. Maren loved watching everyone on the boat and crashed out as soon as we hit the Fern Gratto and all the way back to shore. She had too much fun on the ride there. And after that we headed to what is called the queens bath. The signs heading down the path said Treacherous, proceed at your own risk. So, Derek, Ron and I hit the trail while mom and Maren stayed behind. It was a pretty scary trail. It was wet and slick with rocks and a pretty sloped decline down to the area. And once you make it down the hill there is a sign pretty much saying people have died, watch out because the waves can take you away. And when we finally made it there I could completely understand. Yet there were still crazy people getting in there. There is no way on earth. I told Derek as we were heading down, if I fall and may die. Don't come after me. Maren needs you. Lovely thoughts to have on a vacation, but you never know. And at the end of the day mom and Ron were kind enough to take care of Maren so Derek and I could grab a bite to eat together. So, we headed to a local Sushi restaurant in Hanalei called Dolphins. It was nice to have some time to ourselves. Thanks mom and Ron!

Day 4 started with Maren up at 4:30 am. We will see what the rest of the day has in store for us.

Halloween

Maren is in love with her little Giraffe Sophie. It is sadly the Bay Area toy to have, which I'm not always a fan of, but there is truly something about this thing that she can't get enough of, so we decided Maren should be Sophie for Halloween.

We spent the morning at a little Halloween brunch with a group of friends with young children. We tried to line them all up on the couch to get a shot of all of them. They were not having it. So, we tried to throw the moms into the mix and it was still madness.

That evening we headed over to Sara and Jon's for some pizza --our staple food at the moment--and did a little trick-or-treating with Leyna and Hudson. That didn't last long though. Maren was ready for bed after about 3 houses.

And these other shots are from Maren's little trip the weekend before to Half Moon Bay. Half Moon Bay is known for the pumpkins; and they have amazing pumpkin patches there. My mom flew up for a short little visit with my brother, so they met us there.