First day of Ballet

Happy 11 Months Israel!

I can't believe you are almost one!!

Israel

Crawling through my chives and lavendar!

This kid could live outside if I let him. He goes to the door and whines and says "buh buh!!" ( bye bye)

Clean?

This is the living room literally seconds after I picked up all the toys and vacuumed for a showing. I put the vacuum in the closet and came to the living room and grabbed my camera and took this pic. The mess makers are FAST!!

Showing number 12

The day before yesterday our Realtor let us know that another Realtor wanted to preview the house for his clients. Apparently his clients were brand new parents of premature twins and were quite busy at the moment with their new parenting duties. The Realtor was previewing some houses to see if they might be something his clients want to try and find the time to view. Okay fine no problem. We cleaned the house for the 9 am showing I didn't have a car yesterday but I loaded the kids up in the double stroller and walked around the neighborhood for 45 min ( he was late) until he was done. I spoke to the Realtor on his way out. Israel was beyond needing a nap and I could see he ( the Realtor) was heading for his car so I headed back to the house. The Realtor told me the house was beautiful and well taken care of and he thought his clients would really like it. He said they would def be back for another viewing. Great, good news. It often takes us several days to hear any feedback from a showing so we didn't think much about it.
Fast forward to 5 :45 pm. The house has since been destroyed by the monkeys we call Keira and Israel. There are toys everywhere. EVERYWHERE. The kitchen is a mess as Mike had just finished making taco's for dinner. The house smelled like meat and garlic ( gross). We are sitting around the table eating ( and the kids are tossing food all over the floor of course) and we notice a car stop in front of the house and then another car. The people get out of their cars ( 3 people total ) and I notice that one of them is the Realtor from this am. I figured well that's sort of odd they got our of their cars but maybe the client wanted to see the yard/ do a drive by etc. After another few min they are still standing there I tell Mike maybe he should go talk to them. Meanwhile Mike's brother drives up followed by his mom and dad. So Mike heads outside to see whats going on. The Realtor tells Mike they had a 6 pm showing. NEWS TO US!! Our Realtor forgot to call us to confirm. Major oops. The kids finish eating and we pile the dishes in the sink, sweep the food that's all over the floor thanks to the kids and do a 30 second toy sweep.... and head outside. We apologize profusely to the clients telling them we are sorry there is dinner mess everywhere, and toys everywhere but they are welcome to look around. We then proceed to walk around the neighborhood with Mikes brother and parents and the kids for another 45 min .
Phew!!! Craziness and so embarrassed at the state of the house for the showing. At this point we are still waiting to hear back at what they thought but we are assuming its something similar to everyone else's comments. "Nice, well taken care of house but they settled for a house with a garage."

Deck restaining

Mike has been itching to do something around the house. Our deck is only 1 year old but whatever stain we applied last year was 50% rubbed off already. Not sure if we bought a cheap stain or if its due to the fact that Mike stained the deck prior to 2 months of straight rain... remember that great summer we had last year?? :o) Anyhow Mike bought a new stain that should last at least 7 years and spent the last 2 weekends pressure washing the deck, sanding it and re staining it. The kids love to play on the deck and were a bit grumpy that daddy was out there and they weren't. It looks great now and we hope it holds for several years just in case we are stuck here for a while. If you want to see pics of the finished product check out Mike's home improvement blog. Betterdiy.blogspot.com. He will be posting pics there soon of the project.

Vigneau Labor day BBQ

Israel the climber

The kid climbs everything! He is always getting into trouble. This am I turned my back on him for one second and he had climbed from his clip on highchair thing to the table!

Keira's first day of preschool

She had to bring a stuffed animal the first day. She wanted me to take a picture of "sheep" as its sheep's first day of school too. Drop off went great. She wanted to paint and went right up to the painting area, gave me a hug and kiss and was good. She said " You come back to get me later???" I said "yes!" and she was fine!
I came home and put Israel down for a nap and wow. No one needs me at the moment. How cool is that???? I think I am going to love this preschool thing!! :o)

Dear Keira,

I am not meant to be written on!!
Love, Israel

Sept

I can't believe its September already. That was a fast, busy, super hot summer. I've haven't posted much lately. The tiredness and nausea has me dragging myself through everyday. I am utterly exhausted by the time Mike comes home. He has been working long hours and picking up my slack by doing most the cleaning and grocery shopping and meal prep. I'm 10 weeks now and hoping that there is some energy and no nausea days somewhere in the near future. I have yet to make a pre natal appointment and I'm not sure what I'm waiting for... perhaps some energy??
Keira had preschool orientation last week and loved it. She didn't want to go home. She is excited to start real school this week and I'll admit I'm looking forward to the 2.5 hour break twice a week. I think Israel is l also looking forward to the 2.5 hours twice a week where nobody steals his toys, knocks him over and tells him "No!" every second.
Keira also starts Ballet this coming Saturday and asks me everyday when she gets to go to Ballet class.
We had another showing this week bringing our total to 11. The post showing report was one we hear very often... they decided to make an offer on a house with a garage....
We are looking forward to some fallish weather! Israel is going to be 11 months old in a few days. We are already planning on his first birthday cake and what we will get him for his birthday. Keira is excited about this part the most.
That's all the exciting news at our house at this point.

Luau

Our friends hosted an awesome end of summer Luau. Her is Keira with her Margarita.... :o)

House

We have had 2 more showings in the last 2 weeks. Bringing our total viewings to 10. In 6 months. Our contract with our seller's agent expires tomorrow. We have decided to give it one last shot and leave the house on the market till Nov 11th. We will reassess then but probably at that point we will take it off the market and settle in for another few years before trying to sell again. We are keeping our fingers crossed that maybe, just maybe it will sell.

Videos

Some cute videos.

School

We registered Keira for preschool last night. She is very excited. Its just 2 days a week for 2.5 hours. Its small Christina preschool run out of a local Lutheran Church. I know preschool is not necessary for education but I think she will enjoy it and this preschool is very affordable so we figured we would give it a shot. Next week is orientation where we go for an hour and I stay with her and then the week after begins real school. The only part I am leery about is all the germs she will bring home....

We had some unseasonable cool weather- in August! We dug out the fall clothes for the first time. Israel has learned how to wave and says bye bye. Well it sounds more like "buh buh" Other than mama and dada thats the only other thing he can say so we are excited about it!

bubbles

I've discovered that adding bubble bath to the "water table" adds to the entertainment factor.- Big time. Its definitely more fun to play with bubbly water than regular plain water.

Feeding time at the zoo....

All ready for Ballet!

Mike took Keira to get her ballet shoes this morning. She is taking a once a week ballet class that's begins in about 3 weeks. She is very excited. She is all ready to go, well technically we still need to get her some tights but other than that she is good to go!