House Update

Here's the skinny on the house situation...we are 0 for 6. Yes, we've made 6 offers and had no luck! The housing market is ridiculous right now.

House #1--great house, near train tracks that haven't been used in years, found out city is going to revitalize the tracks to use for the Trax system. We pulled out of that offer
House #2--owners decided to rent it instead of sell it and hope the market gets better next year so they can sell it for more
House #3--waited 1 month to find out there was a lien on it that can not be taken off for some reason, so it cannot be sold. Note: It was built at the end of 2007 and has never been lived in
House #4--next door to house #3, has been sitting unoccupied since 2007, found out our offer was accepted while I was on the runway flying to Utah to look at houses again because nothing was working out. Pulled out of the offer because after looking at houses again we realized it was priced too high for the market
House #5--looked like we were going to get an acceptance then they decided to try to refinance.
House #6--Bank owned, won't take anything less than what is owed even though the realtor said the appraisal won't support the amount owed.

I think we are in the lead for the worst luck buying a house. Actually, it seems lots of people are in the same boat. The market is crazy. Good thing we have a couple of tents and some sleeping bags.

I think the plan now is to rent for a month and try again once we are out in Utah to find a house before school starts. I'll keep you updated.

Month of April...Ryan and Caleb's Birthday/Trip to Utah/Zoo

Caleb, Ryan and Alyssa's birthday party...


Birthday party at Grandma and Grandpa Hackings with lots of cousins...

Great Grandma Mae with Ethan and Ireland. She is 94--can you believe it?

Another party for Ryan and Caleb's birthday...

slightly less extravagant cake... All tuckered out and sleeping with his sword (just in case).

Fun at the zoo with the Hancey's...

Ry Ry...

Ryan brought home some of his art work from preschool today. One of the items was particularly funny. It was a picture of Scott, me and Ryan and what he had said about us (the teacher wrote out what he said). Here it is...

My mommy's name is Rain, but I call her Mom. She has long, blackish hair and blue eyes. She wears glasses and ladies skirts. She cooks chocolate chip cookies; that is her favorite thing to eat and mine too! Mommy works at my house; she cleans dishes. Mommy plays games with me and she runs for exercise. Her favorite TV show is "Tom and Jerry". The best thing about my mommy is that she speaks her own secret language.

My dad's name is Ryan, but I call him Daddy. He has longish brown hair with red eyes. He's 8 big--all the way up and he's got muscles! He wears work clothes because he works at an office way up on a hill in the woods. He drives cars. Daddy cooks cookies and likes to eat cheese. He lifts weights and he runs; sometimes he gets me and we fall down. His favorite TV show is "Tom and Jerry". We like to play checkers and ride bikes and play with the remote control rocket ship. The best thing about my daddy is when he flies in the air!

Scott and I had a good laugh about that. My favorite part is that I wear glasses and ladies skirts and I'm pretty sure we don't even own a checkers game. Funny!

By the way, still waiting to hear on getting the house we want. We should know soon. I will post pictures of April events soon.

Big Blogging Hiatus!

For those who check this blog regularly (the 2 of you), sorry about the lack of posts! It’s been a busy past couple of weeks! We settled into the house we are renting and then left for Utah for 10 days. We were welcomed into Utah by New York’s weather! It snowed, was freezing cold, and there was lots of whipping wind, almost the whole time we were there. Weather aside, it was so great to see family from both sides and the kids loved playing with their cousins. Cy and Ethan and Savannah and Ireland were inseparable. Ryan has talked non-stop about Emma and Micah. It felt like home. We’ve loved living in Vermont and New York, but Utah is home to us. We are so excited to move back. With that said, the house hunt was not fun. The house prices are pretty great, but the hassle of dealing with all the short sales, and bank owned homes is not great. A lot of red tape and waiting. We came back to New York without knowing if we’d have a house to move into in a couple of months. We’ll keep you posted.
By the way, our USB port is malfunctioning so I’ll have to post pictures later.

New Email

I forgot to get all my email addresses off my email site before it was shut down. Too many things to remember when you move! Anyway, please email me at our new email address stentmd@gmail.com, so I have your email address.

Thank you!!

Word to the Wise...

Our house sold very quickly so we have to move into a rental house for 3 months before we make the big move. The moving of stuff has gone well, but Scott and I are ready to sell the kids on ebay. Word to the wise...don't move if you have a 2 year old. Have I mentioned that Caleb is almost 2? He has been CRAZY! Scott has had to load stuff onto the trailer while holding Caleb, otherwise Caleb screams at the top of his lungs. He unloaded the trailer with Caleb in the back pack (more than once). It seems the chaos and lack of structure this week while moving has put Caleb over the edge. Ryan, Ireland and Ethan are slightly less crazy. Slightly. Here's a couple of pictures of them when they weren't acting crazy.

Case in point...

Did I just mention (post below) that Caleb is well into the "terrible twos"? Just a small sample of his work.

Two

Caleb's 2nd birthday is coming up next month but he's already deep into the "terrible twos". He's determined to show us who's boss. Good thing he's so dang cute!

By the way, a couple days ago, Caleb came up from the basement with blood gushing down his face. Luckily Scott was just getting home from work and immediately went to get his gear out to stitch him up. I went downstairs to see what had happened and found 2 long vacuum cleaner attachments, a big drop of blood nearby, and Ryan hiding out under a blanket. Apparently there was some innocent "sword fighting" going on.

So I held Caleb down (feeling like the worst mom ever), while Scott stitched him up. Luckily Caleb doesn't hold grudges yet. We feel pretty lucky that this is only the 2nd time one of our kids has needed stitches (especially when 3 of the 4 of them are boys).

Tooth Fairy

Ethan lost his two front teeth this past week. Why do kids look so adorable without any front teeth? I love it! Unfortunately the tooth fairy is a little retarded and forgot to come after the first tooth was lost. At about 2 am Ethan brought me the little baggy with his tooth in it and told me that the tooth fairy forgot him. I told him that the tooth fairy would surely bring him some money by morning. Luckily the tooth fairy did leave a pleuthera of coins by morning. A couple days later, Ethan lost the 2nd tooth and decided that he wanted to keep the tooth instead of get a bunch of coins. So the tooth fairy was off the hook. Good thing, because she's not so responsible. Well, the tooth ended up splitting in two (?) and Ethan no longer wanted it, so he put it under his pillow, and what do ya know, the tooth fairy didn't show. Ethan is not impressed with the tooth fairy that's for sure. I told him to give it another try tonight. Let's hope she will remember!

Board Certified

You are looking at a Board Certified Cardiologist. Scott found out Friday night that he passed his board exam. Yeah!! We were in the car wash when he his collegue called to tell him the results were in. So after a few minutes of stress (on his part, not mine), he logged into the website through his iphone and found out he passed! That was the start of a great weekend...then Saturday night after showing our house 13 times this week (we put the house up for sale on Monday), we got a full asking price offer. So we are feeling very blessed!

Happy Anniversary!!

It is our twelfth anniversary today! Twelve fabulous years. We are lucky to be so happily married!

It's cold here and we have a little snow...

Does anyone in the Northeast like the months of January, February and March? Certainly not me. The mail truck got stuck in the snow a couple days ago and the mailman had to shovel himself out. Pretty soon, he may have to dig out my mailbox to deliver the mail.

Happy Birthday Scott!

One of my friends (Heather R.) wrote 10 things she loves about her husband on his birthday and I thought I’d follow her lead…Here are 10 things I love about Scott…advance warning mucho bragging ahead...
1. Scott is the hardest worker I know. He doesn’t have a lazy bone in his body. He can fall asleep in 10 seconds or less once his head hits the pillow at night because he has given the day his all.
2. Scott takes great care of himself. He gets up every morning at 5am (even if he’s been up half the night on call) and goes running. He eats healthy (see earlier posts), flosses more than regularly, lifts weights, and loves to bike, hike, work in the yard, pretty much do anything active.
3. Scott is very outgoing and truly loves to get to know people. He is very genuine and caring. He could not have picked a better profession for himself. His patients love him because he cares so much about them.
4. Scott is a great dad. Our kids LOVE him! Scott has loved to hold and play with each of them as much as he can from the day they were born. He always wants me to keep them up if he’s going to get home from work late so he can see them.
5. Scott is a great husband. He has every quality I’ve ever wanted in a spouse. After almost 12 years of marriage, I am more in love and more in awe of the happiness he brings me than I ever imagined.
6. Scott is seriously handy and he can fix anything. He’s installed our garage door opener and dishwasher, changed out all our electrical outlets, tiled our bathroom floors, and painted the entire house. He has fixed broken lamps, hair dryers, yard equipment, toys, etc…
7. He is a great friend and once you become his friend, he’ll do anything for you. He is truly interested in people, their lives, their jobs, their opinions.
8. Scott loves to take care of cars. Of course he loves a great car, but even when he’s had a less than great car, he still treats it like it’s a precious gem.
9. Scott handles stress and pressure like a champion. He never gets stressed out. He is always calm and collected in the face of pressure.
10. Scott loves everything from classical music, to boring Chemistry textbooks, to watching his favorite show, World Extreme Cagefighting.

We love you Scott!! Happy Birthday!

Scott and Caleb

Scott and our neice, Addy

Forms galore!

Scott has to fill out 5,649,243 papers to get credentialed, licensed, certified, approved, registered, etc...to start his new job. He's signed contracts, had background checks, filled out form after form after form, sent copies of his certifications, licenses, blah blah blah...it is crazy! Check out the most current packet of 5,000 pages that he needs to sign in a few places....

It's cold outside!

Apparently a big snow storm is headed our way with temperatures colder than it's been the last 4 years. The kids love it! Me and Scott...not so much. We'll let you know how it goes over the next few days.

Peas?

I was on the phone with Scott today while he was at the hospital cafeteria grabbing a bite to eat between cases. After he told me to wait for just a second, I heard him say to the cafeteria worker, "Can I have a big bowl of peas?". Peas? Really? Who orders a big bowl of peas? Not me. Not ever. I said, "so that is what you are having for lunch?" and he said, "yeah, and two bananas, two clementines, and an apple." This should not surprise me because this is how he normally eats, but the peas threw me off. I can't ever imagine wanting a big bowl of peas. I have to wonder how in the world Scott's mom (and dad) got him to have a LOVE for all things healthy?

...and so it continues...Scott was on call tonight and didn't get home from work until late, so being the great wife that I am, there was no hot dinner in the oven waiting for him. I offered to make him a hot dog and a cookie (what the kids ate--I'm ashamed to say). He instead made himself a salad and cooked up some squash. If he doesn't live to a very old age, I will be very mad.

December Wrap-Up

A great Christmas and a some crazy weather...

The Sunday after Christmas high winds caused this tree to come down in our backyard, taking all the power lines with it. You can't tell from the picture, but if fell at a 45 degree angle sparing our house of any major damage. The power was out for about 7 hours.

We had tons of snow a week before Christmas, but by the time Christmas came, most of it had melted away. It was in the high 50's for a couple days the week of Christmas.

Ry, Ireland, Cale, and Ethan on Christmas Eve. Caleb obviously not happy about having a picture taken.

Below, taken at the Campbells Christmas Eve dinner.

We went to some friends on Christmas Eve, and then had 3 families over on Christmas day.
It was so nice to spend our last Christmas in New York with some great friends.

Gingerbread Houses

A couple days ago, I bought a gingerbread house kit for the kids to make...they had a great time and made a big mess. Today I caught Caleb having a little taste...

He didn't bite the candy off, he just sucked on it for a bit...yum.

Here's another gingerbread house that I whipped up. If any of you believed that one, I have a few more tall tales to tell. My cute friend, Niki Lee, sent me this from Williams Sonoma. It puts ours to shame.

Christmas festivities...

Couldn't resist posting these...

Hmmm...wonder who he picked this up from?? Notice the picture in the magazine.

Yep, you are caught!

Just so dang cute!

Someone woke him up from his 5:00pm snooze on the couch. Love the hair.

Ethan HAD to have these.

Christmas Tree

As per Lorenne's request...here is a picture of our Christmas tree. Caleb has had his way with it, so it's already a little mangled, but oh well. Notice the lack of ornaments on the bottom 3rd? He's also eaten whatever candy canes he could reach--wrapper and all.

Stokoe Farms

Every year that we have lived here, we go to Stokoe Farms the day after Thanksgiving. At Stokoe Farms you can pick and cut down your own Christmas tree, slide down the big slide, peruse the country store, and have free hot chocolate and cookies. But the best thing about going the day after Thanksgiving is Santa, Mrs. Claus, and an elf parachute down out of an airplane over the crowd.

Santa came flying down so fast I was sure he was going to wipe out. I was getting ready to reassure my kids that he'd be ok after they peeled him off the ground.

Ireland and Ryan on the slide. They went down about 50 times.

It was soooo cold! I think the temperature was 20 degrees!

Definite hat and gloves weather. Where's that baby's gloves!?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. Maybe 2nd to Christmas. Who doesn't love to eat way too much, watch movies (or football), be with family or friends, and wake up to 3 more days of holiday weekend?

The Circus is in town...

As we were walking out the door for church this morning, Scott got paged and had to go in to the hospital. So it was just me and the kids at sacrament meeting. I was prepared. I had several packs of smarties, toy cars, crayons, etc... Caleb is always difficult at church, but today he was bordering on crazy zoo animalish. Maybe it was the 4 packs of smarties that I kept feeding him to keep him quiet? Anyhow, he managed to wiggle his way out to the aisle and bee line it to the front several times. So I got quite a bit of exercise chasing him and bringing him back to our seats. Just when I thought he was worn out, he took off to the front again, went up the stairs, and was just a few steps away from the podium before I caught him. As I carried him down the stairs, I tripped over Ryan (who unbeknownst to me had followed me up to the front) caught myself on the sacrament table (knocking a tray over spilling water), and sent Ryan sprawling down the stairs where he landed face first and his toy transformer went flying, landed, and made the sound, "I am Optimus Prime". I'm sure this all wasn't in the least bit distracting. The bishop got up to talk afterwards and said, "We'd like to congratulate Brother Hacking for making it all the way up to the front. Not many kids make it this far. I'm certain he will go far in life."

Funny things kids say...

Today we had our first snowfall of the season! The kids were pretty excited. Ryan says, "I just want to get a snowball and throw it at Ethan's bum".

Later...Ryan goes into the bathroom to do his business and a few (like 2) minutes later I go in to help him pull up his pants and he says, "Did you miss me?"

Right before Ethan went to play outside in the snow I was helping him find his gloves and he says, "You look good!"---Why thank you! So nice of him to compliment his mom! Then he figures out that he said it wrong and corrects himself, "I mean you are a good looker, you always find things."

Christmas pictures...

Is it just me or is it nearly impossible to get everyone to look at the camera and smile?

Once we get the kids to pay attention, the parents are not.

Just a natural smile...that's all I ask.