And that, my friends, is what I call CLOSURE

If today were a movie this would be a simple way to depict it.....

The plot: A young family of three travel to OKC to sign closing papers on the home they just sold.

The villain: Hallie Grace, 13 months old.

The hero: a strawberry flavored Sara Sara cupcake.

Well there you have it folks. I could leave it at that and you could fill in the rest with your imagination....but that wouldn't be like me, now would it?! Actually before I can tell you about this lovely headache of a day, I must first rewind back to last Sunday for the full story. No wait!! Actually I must keep going back to the day we found out we had a bonified offer of our house. Holds onto your seats because HERE WE GO!!!

August 16th: Riley got a call from our realtor, Gina, telling us about our first offer on the house. An offer?!?! Pinch me because this can't be real! Riley kept this juicy secret all day from me until he talked details with Gina and got some advice on whether or not to take the offer. He told me that evening and I felt like I was having a deja vu. Rewind back to that day in November of 2010 when Riley told me he had been offered a job in Woodward. I just remember staring at him in the kitchen thinking "did I hear you right?!" That's kind of how I felt when he told me we had an offer for more than our asking price. "WHAT? I don't get it?! What's the catch?" Well, it turns out there wasn't a catch. Just a nice young couple who wanted our home and offered us over asking price in hopes that we would cover closing costs and other costs that popped up. Costs did pop up.....but we dodged em. Or more like we wacked em out of our way. It was kinda like we were playing that game in an arcade where the little beavers pop up and you bop them with a mallet. Yep, just like that. ;)

August 19th: we accepted the offer.

August 23rd: bad news. Riley met with the buyers, Gina and a home inspector. Riley got home late that night to tell me that the inspection could have gone better than it had. He now had a list of things he needed to fix (or hire someone to fix).

August 25th: more bad news. A structural engineer was sent to the house to give a report about a sagging area of brick about the garage. This is where I get confused. Let's see if I can explain this: something about a beam that wasn't supportive enough and needed to be repaired and would cost $3000. Hmmmmm.

August 26th: we buried our heads in our hands.

September 1st: we devised a plan. The buyers had been eyeing our new bedroom furniture and we had given them a price to consider. They had decided they didn't have the cash to buy it at the time. It just so happened that the furniture would be a good bargaining piece. We offered them the furniture for FREE (ugh) if they wouldn't make us pay for repairs on the garage. Hook, line and sinker. YES!!! And NO!!! I was excited for two reasons: we wouldn't have to move the heavy stuff and we wouldn't have to pay for repairs. I was sad for obvious reasons: the furniture was exactly what I'd always wanted and it was nearly brand new considering it's been sitting untouched for almost a year.

September 4th: moving day. It was that time. Time to move all of the stuff we'd been ignoring. Well, kind of ignoring. We had convinced ourselves that it was serving a purpose being kept in the house for "staging" purposes. Basically that meant we were too lazy to move it all until absolutely necessary. Well, it was absolutely necessary last weekend. I was already in the city after the OU game the night before so I met Hallie and Riley at the house for what I thought would be an hour of loading. One hour turned into six hours. I had forgotten that Hobby Lobby had thrown up inside my house and I hadn't touched a bit of it since we moved. It was all there waiting for me. Like each of my favorite pieces were sitting there looking at me saying "where the heck have you been? So it looks like you completely forgot about me?!" Yes, yes I had. We began the moving and loading process at warp speed...no messing around that day. I had a grand plan to take the opportunity to get in a workout while we packed so I enthusiastically told Riley that we should run from inside to the car back and forth for an extra workout. Let's just put it this way: I was the only idiot jogging in and out of the house all day. ;)

The controversy of the day was this: to leave the mirrors or not to leave the mirrors? Is it possible to actually be in love with a mirror? Because I think I was. In fact I was in love with four mirrors that I'd specifically and carefully picked out for the three bathrooms in the house. After taking one down in hopes that Riley would be on a roll and pack it up without noticing what it was, my plan didn't work. I had to kiss my mirrors goodbye.....

See, it just jumped off the wall to leave with me. ;)

What was the babe doing all of this time? Oh, just being absolutely positively PERFECT. We could not have asked for a more well-behaved and content child that afternoon. She started out on the kitchen tile just reading books while we removed things from the walls and counters. She was a huge helper as we took down curtains and rods and loaded stuff on the dolly (and I don't mean baby dolly).....

"Load me up and take me home already"

"I've got the ladder dad. Don't worry, you aren't going anywhere"

Once we moved the operation outside she set up camp in her high chair with some Goldfish, milk and teething rings we found in the freezer....

Oh, and look what else we found in the freezer........

"I think we forgot some stuff in here"

Yeah, that hurt a little bit to throw all of that out. That is until I made a game out of it. Basketball with year old frozen items is kind of fun. I tossed things while Riley held a box for me and Hallie looked at us like we were crazy. After looking at all of that food, we realized we'd worked up at appetite so I ran to get lunch for everyone. And I mean everyone....

"We've been waiting mom!" (check out Riley's cool hat he found in the attic)

"Did someone say lunch time?"

In these next three photos I captured the thought process of a one year old:

"Something smells good and I sure am hungry"

"Yum, that's where the smell is coming from"

"Don't mind if I do..."

After lunch we got back to work on the attic. Aka Junk City. This is what took the majority of the time. Never have I seen so many stupid useless items that I once thought were important. But we had a blast. No, really, we did. We couldn't stop laughing while emptying the ridiculous item after item. Lots of badgering and making fun of eachother for items we'd saved over the years. Riley was having way too much fun throwing items at me from atop the ladder when I wasn't expecting it just to see the look on my face. All were soft harmless items I might add. If he started throwing glass I may have been worried. Hallie was behind us in her high chair continuing her streak of angel behavior. I just couldn't get over her good girl ways that afternoon. Little did I know that inside she was a girl who was working on getting sick. :( She was a trooper though and didn't even shows signs of being sick until we made a quick run to Walmart for a garden hose. While we waited in the checkout line she started rubbing her belly and threw up a bit of her lunch. I started to pay closer attention and sure enough she felt warm. That was my cue to get on the road and head home. We left Riley who was busy bitterly crossing things off of the repair list made my the inspector and the buyer. Hal hardly had room to ride in the backseat after we finally had everything loaded up....

"Don't mind me mom, I'll just use this rug as a pillow and this curtain rod as a seatbelt"

I just couldn't resist getting one last picture of my big girl in her baby girl room. Not a tear fell that day as I'd decided to put on my big girl panties that morning for Riley's sake...he's heard me whine about the

house for 8 long months...the least I could do was suck it up that day. Here's Hal in her room made specially for her with love....

Hard to believe...

She's just getting so big

September 9th: CLOSING DAY. I told you it all happened pretty quickly. Three weeks and it was a done deal. Have I mentioned I love our new realtor?!?! She has been outstanding over the past two and a half months. We still couldn't believe that we were actually closing on the house this morning when we woke up. We both had short mornings at work and were on our way to OKC by 11:00. (roll the movie) This is where the unsuspecting parents in the movie get a taste of what is to come during the course of the day. For the sake of brevity (which we all know I am not good at) let's just say that it involved about 90 minutes of screaming/whining despite Hallie being beyond exhausted. I won't even put the situation into words because I want to forgot today as quick as possible. Once we pulled into Yukon we were more than ready to bail from the car. Hal was the recipient of a quick outfit change (one that wasn't covered in banana and antibiotic). After getting cleaned up despite her efforts to escape every way she knew how, we headed into the bank to pick up a cashier's check for closing. After more lovely screaming in the bank we loaded up in the scream machine (aka car) for a short fifteen minute drive to Ms Mindy's house. Ring any bells...our old neighbor who was Hal's babysitter? Ok, now that I've caught everyone up....we dropped her off at Mindy's after visiting for a few minutes and left for the title company. I guess I should share my reluctance to leave such a fragile child with a babysitter whom she hadn't seen in months but Mindy had actually volunteered to watch Hal and wanted to get it some playing time. I warned Mindy about her shenanigans today and her alter ego that she'd been introducing us to so far that day. I gave her plenty of fair warning....I think. We had a little spare time before closing started so we went across the street so that I could stock up on some new scrubs for work. Yippee! Nothing like new work clothes to turn the less than desirable day around. Riley ended up having to drag me out of the store (I probably could have stayed in there all day...I love scrub shopping) because it was that time. Dun, dun, dun.

I haven't yet mentioned the fact that we were in fact happy that we had sold the house. I thought that might be important to get out in the open. Lol! Yes, we were happy. Happy that we will only be making one house payment and paying one set of bills....and we will no longer have to think about "what ifs" and "how longs". We patiently waited for the buyer to sign all of his papers and then it was our turn. Everything went fairly quickly and within an hour the house was no longer ours. What a load off! Burden removed. We can breathe again!! We picked up our sleeping grumpy, I mean beauty, and made our way (screaming the whole way) to the outlet mall. Miracle of all miracles.....Riley was excited about going shopping!!! I must've died and gone to heaven. I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that his enthusiasm may have had something to do with the fact that we no longer have a mortgage to pay. :) My excitement level was on the lower side which mostly had to do with the screaming creature in the backseat. I say "creature" because we were beginning to wonder if someone had stolen our child and replaced her with a look-alike. We had forgotten the stroller and had decided we could tough it out and take turns holding her through the stores. I don't think she would have tolerated the restraints of a stroller on this day anyways so it really wouldn't have mattered. We had our eyes set on the Nike store so that was our first stop. Screaming, screaming and just plain embarrassment ensued and I was ready to go after collecting a few items and chasing a barefoot crazy hooligan through the store. I kept looking around for the people who had stolen my sweet girl and replaced her with a very angry baby. No where to be found....

"If you buy me one of these I'll consider being quiet..."

"Is that a threat?!"

Riley took his time browsing through the Nike and Under Armour stores while Hal and I braved Carter's and Gymboree. Nightmare of all nightmares. This is when I decided that today would be characterized as my worst day of parenthood thus far. Now I had never really thought about naming a specific day for something so negative. But today was that day and there was no denying it. She spent our time in these stores throwing her cup at shoppers, slinging her binky across the store, tugging on my purse and screaming when I would take it away, pulling her hair, flailing on the ground and banging her head into the floor and last but not least trying to shoplift. Yes, there's a sly girl inside that tiny little body. I had to set her down on the floor for a tiny second while I grabbed my wallet....my darling daughter decided to make a beeline for the opened exit door while holding a toy block set that she so conveniently snatched off a shelf. Holy. Shoplifter. I was mortified as I dropped my shopping bags and purse to chase after my red-handed lady. This is the moment where I proclaimed my famous saying ..."I give up." Right after that, Riley came walking through the doors to meet us. As I leaned over to hand her to him she let out the scream of all screams and latched onto me like I was leaving her forever. 25% cute. 75% mortifying. Did I miss the memo? Was today "Embarrass your Parents Day"? No, I'm pretty sure today was Grandparent's Day. It's going to come as no surprise that we hightailed it out of the mall...I stopped and grabbed some food to go for the three of us at the food court while Riley and Hal headed back to the safe zone. Or so we thought. A nap seemed very appropriate at that time. But villains don't give up that easy in movies, don't ya know? After screaming for another 90 minutes we were able to hear our own thoughts and actually speak to one another without hollering to be heard. This is when the hero prevailed and the villain took a much needed nappy poo. I ate my cupcake in silence. Golden, delicious silence. Sigh....

I wanted to make sure and end this post on a happier note so I've saved this part for last. Funny I should call this a "happier" moment considering I thought it would be anything but.....however, it turned out okay. Before we left Hal with Mindy, we pulled in the driveway of the house that we used to call home to say goodbye. Not like a corny walk around touching the bricks and crying while I think about all the fun times we had there kinda goodbye. No, it was more like this: I wanted to get some pictures (of course) of our big girl on the steps of the house so she will be able to see the place where she first came home to....and where we got to spend that precious first three months together at home....and where she got to spend time making Grammy so happy....and where we discovered that she was the love of our lives....

Her first home

This is the kind of goodbye I wanted. I only shed a couple tiny tears today....and nobody even knew. That must've been my own personal goodbye to the house. Although, I can't promise that there are no tears falling as I'm typing this right now...but I didn't make any promises. ;)

I know that the people who bought 305 Lakeside are going to make it a happy home.

It sure made us H.A.P.P.Y.

Oh The Drama Of It All

Do ever just have those days where you just want to crawl under a rock or sprawl out on the floor and die?

So I'm the only one??

Well, maybe not.....

Turns out she's just a little bit too much like her mother.

So much drama coming out of one little girl as she collapsed on the floor and buried her head into the rug.

All I could do was laugh as she did the splits and placed her head on the floor in between her legs.

Impressive flexibility, I was thinking.

She then let out a big wail right before flipping over onto her back and letting out a larger than life SIGH....

Oh and I can't go without drawing your attention to the mop of red hair atop her purty head. OH MY!!!

A fiery red head???

We are in trouble.

Laughter's the best medicine

After three days of fever and just plain feeling like crud, all it took was a comedy skit put on by none other than daddy to turn her frown upside down. I didn't get to witness the debut of Riley's show but I was able to catch the encore once I returned from picking up some medicine for Hal gal. I had left the house very worried and in a hurry to pick up a second medication in hopes that it would kick whatever is kicking Hal's booty. One hour and two pharmacies later, I had the magic potion in my hands. As I pulled into the driveway I spotted a scampering Hal with a huge grin from ear to ear when I waved at her. Excuse me??? Surely God hadn't answered by prayers that quickly? Woah, talk about a turn around. He must've sensed my desperation to end this never-ending fever. She was playing chase with Papa and laughing at Riley. Did we really need this medicine that was so hard to find?? Lol. Yes, yes we did. She seemed overjoyed that I had returned with it.....

See what I mean?

I picked up my babe and felt her forehead....NO FEVER! She had lots of kisses for mom and I heard all about the big dinner she'd just scarfed down. PTL!!! When I left all she wanted to do was close her eyes with her burning head lying on my shoulder....

And this is how I found her after I got off work today.....

This just goes to show that laughter really is the best medicine......

Jamaica mon!

Super Dad!

Wayne's World

Can we do this every night?!

She was eating it up...along with all of her dinner. The things they do while I’m gone never cease to make me pee my pants with laughter. She lit up like a thousand Christmas lights each time he came in as a new character. I might add that each of his alter egos were inspired by random junk he found sitting in the garage.(that was his staging area of course). Apparently it was some sort of dinner theatre…well whatever it took to get her to eat a good meal before taking her potent meds was fine by me. After all, we haven't had the best luck with food lately....

"You are kidding, right?"

He claims that she ate turkey, pineapple, strawberries, banana and cookie tonight while watching "the show". COOKIES?!?!?  “Comfort food” was his response when I gave him a puzzled look as to why he gave her cookies for dinner. Lol!!! Makes sense, I guess. Those two are amazing together! I'm glad Riley is the cool parent because I would look like a complete moron trying to do that.

In addition to laughter, we also had these things on our side....

A lil of this...

....and a lil of that.

Oh wait! That's mom's medicine.

And speaking of "the help".....

She was sweet and brought me my paperwork

The past three days have been lots of napping, no sleeping at night, fever off and on, runny nose and droopy eyes. Nanny says “the eyes say it all.” Those sad eyes. :( Lots and lots of cuddling has been going on and I've got to be honest and say that that part has been wonderful. I love nothing more in this world than when she falls asleep on my chest. Moms have healing kisses, right???

MUAH!

We took a trip to the doctor on Tuesday after a terrible night. I got up with her at 3:00 a.m. and tried just about everything I could think of to sooth her…she thought I was nuts when I tossed her in a cool bath in the middle of the night. Lots of screaming and no sleeping. The bath didn’t help at all and only made her more restless. We spent most of the night rocking in the chair while she tried to calm down and sleep. When we all got up and around that morning Hallie was still burning up and it was obvious we needed to get her some meds ASAP. So Riley used one of the many perks of his job and we got into see one of his providers immediately. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say immediately. We had a nice little hour long wait in the waiting room since they’d squeezed Hallie in for the morning. Despite her fever and overall yuckiness she was tolerating the wait pretty well I must say. After handful after handful of puffs I decided she was going to turn into a puff so we put those away and resorted to books and running around the chairs for entertainment…..

On the go

On a side note: there was one good thing about Tuesday. A very good thing in fact. Hal and I got to bust out some of our fall clothes. Hal donned a super cute gray striped number with leggings and these cute black flats I've been dying to put on her chubby lil feet. Adorb!! I was pretty stoked about putting on something with sleeves.....

Girls in gray :)

"Must I wear a bow to the doctor?!"

The nurse practitioner told us she had a red throat, red ears and probably a sinus infection. Triple ugh.

"Hey, at least no shots today"

We picked up some meds and got home for some lunch and a nap. The tiny tot awoke after a wimpy hour long nap and seemed to be doing a lot better. She was even up for some play time in the sink....

Still looking a lil rough

That afternoon we both laid down for a record breaking 3.5 hour nap. I didn't move a muscle until Riley walked through the door from work at 6:30. I'm not gonna lie, that was probably the best nap I've ever had and I didn't feel one bit guilty for sleeping the day away. After all, I'm not cut out for this up all night stuff anymore. Good thing we slept that long because Tuesday night brought the same kind of sleeping patterns. She is just so unbelievably restless and can't get comfortable. Her fever always spikes in the nightime and I find her sweating and burning hot. Poor sweet baby. Today she had plenty of "Nanny care" instead of daycare at Miss Paula's.

Well there's the story and I'm stickin' to it. This tired momma is headed to bed to save time for lots and lots of prayers for health for Hallie. She went to bed tonight with a slight fever after all of her laughing and running around, driving her car and pulling on dog tails. She just needs time to rest. I'm not sure she knows what that word means though.....

Sick? Nah.

Labor Day 2011: All in a Day's Work

The first half of Labor Day 2011 could go take a flying leap into a pit of manure as far as I was concerned. But you will see it eventually came back around and totally redeemed itself. It began a lil' somethin' like this......

5:00 a.m.: Screaming child.

5:05 a.m.: I finally drag my tired bones out of bed to see what was the matter.

5:06 a.m.: Discover that my angel is sick. Dispense medicine, give hugs, pour milk and return to bed.

5:30 a.m./6:00 a.m./6:30a.m./7:05a.m.: Screaming child with fever. Not good.

8:00 a.m.: Bitterly leave for work on a holiday. Worried about baby and daddy.

8:00 a.m.: 2:00 p.m.: Smile my way through the day wondering why I had agreed to work.

2:10 p.m.: Came home to a very tired and cranky baby. Sure enough: fever of 101. NAPTIME.

2:10 -2:30 p.m.: Riley tries to convince me to take a nap instead of unloading the trailer.

2:31 p.m.: He lost. I won. We unloaded trailer.

2:32 p.m.: Somewhere amidst the work, the day took a turn for the better.

We had a surprisingly good time unloading all of our crap, er, I mean belongings out of the trailer. We had no idea where we were going to store everything so I made an executive decision to park my car in the driveway to free up one side of the garage. Of course I couldn't go without giving him a hard time about keeping the ol' Mustang safe in the garage while Black Betty has to be exposed to the elements. ;) We worked fast and efficiently besides stopping occasionally to put on a ridiculous hat or shirt that we found in a box. Our discovery of the day: my old twirling baton. Riley performed the most grand twirling performance I've ever witnessed. He's a natural...unlike me apparently. I tried to dust off my old skills but they must be hidden deep deep down because all I got were laughs instead of cheers from the hubs. It's gonna take some practice to get back to spinning. One spin made me feel like I was going to fall down. After our twirling exhibition was over we got back to work making piles. A garage sale pile and a keep pile. Our garage sale pile now takes up half of the large garage. Now to just muster up the energy and motivation to get things ready for a sale. Two weeks! I've got two weeks! That was supposed to help get me motivated right there but it didn't work. Oh well, maybe the magic pricing fairy will come and save me from hours in the garage.

JUNK CITY

Hal slept soundly for a record three and a half hours while we sorted junk. When she finally woke up from her slumber I went it to find a not so happy little person. She was rubbing her nose and her eyes with the back of her hand and sticking out that sad pouty lip.

Loving life, can't ya tell

While I smothered her with some love and hugs, Riley went to the gym and returned to find a very different Hallie. Her fever had broken and she was back to her old shenanigans…dumping out dog water bowls and emptying drawers. We had taken a trip to the grocery store to get some things to make dinner later that night. Of course we had to pick up some Goldfish which she later decided to share with her BFF while snuggling on the couch....

"Why does she only want to be around me when I have food?"

We decided that the best way to start the evening was a jog together. Riley got his turn pushing the jogging stroller and mentioned numerous times how difficult it was to run without being able to swing your arms….so I’m not just crazy for thinking it’s insanely hard to push while running. The weather was to die for and made the jog seem like a breeze compared to recent running attempts. Riley made sure to take us through his “routine” and convinced us to participate along with him. Hal added a new element to her daddy’s workout….

Meet the world's tiniest personal trainer....

"You can tell by looking at me that I do my fair share of sit-ups"

Oh what motivation she provided....

"Let's go mom!!!! Give me 20 more!!"

A mere 300 sit-ups later we were ready to hit the playground. Hallie was still going strong and showed no signs of her sickness. We thought it had all but left her little body. She made her way around the playground, made several solo trips down the little slide and climbed an extra rung on the ladder….go girl, go! Not sure if Riley is cut out for playground time as he is super duper protective of her….ladder time had him extremely nervous. If she were a boy I think he’d be singing a different tune. ;)

The rest of the evening was just perfect.  After eating dinner and getting a quick wash down in the sink.....

......Hal went to bed without a peep with no fever and happy as a lark. She had worn herself out helping me prepare this….

My form of a cookbook

Baked mac & cheese!

While us ladies worked inside, Riley grilled some steaks outside. Baby to bed. Steaks in our bellies. Peace in our minds. The day seemed like it had lasted forever which was fine by me because it gave the day some extra time get me on its good side. We labored on Labor Day but also found plenty of the fun family time I was hoping for. I figured we ought to reward ourselves so dessert was the treat I had in mind...

Hallie's Video Diary

It's probably no surprise that I take short videos of Hallie on a daily basis. But I rarely post videos on here so I've been saving up a lot of them and these just happen to be my favorites......

Here you will see one very excited and intruiged cowgirl at the rodeo in July. We were so tickled by her nervous laugh...it was hard to tell if she was scared or just super excited. Definitely super excited it turned out!!

When Gman comes around there are always silly noises and goofy faces involved. This funny moment was on a Sunday that Gman came to visit. He was sharng some of his dessert with a hungry, hungry Hallie. She was lovin' every minute of it....

This is one of my favorite videos of my favorite baby and favorite canine. They do love eachother but haven't learned how to share well yet.....

This video gives a whole new meaning to the term "mobile phone".....

In this particular clip, it appears that my child has taken some sort of drug. That is not the case but I call this her "manic phase". Dad got this gem of a video one evening when they were having some daddy/daughter bonding time. It seems as though she wasn't ready to slow down enough to get to the bonding part. You can hear him trying to read to her but she had other plans....

I've mentioned several times before my absolute obsession with her love for books. Here is a short video of us parents being lazy on a Sunday requesting that she bring us a book to read.....

Bathtime Bliss

As in every other aspect of life, Hallie tells us when it is bathtime. No, she doesn't say "bath" or even walk into the bath.....but we know it's bathtime when she is close to an "I'm tired and ready for bed" meltdown. This isn't every evening, of course, but it is nice to know there is one magic way to make her extra happy when we feel a not so happy moment coming on.

The bath waters must give magical smile powers because that's when she shows off her toothiest grins. They are so cute that I just had to risk dropping my phone in the bathtub while trying to get a good shot (didn't turn out good, very blurry, but there are those teefers!!)

"You ought to join me! This is a ball!"

Not only is she the smiliest while in the tub but also the goofiest.....

"Watch me balance this wash rag on my head, mom"

I find myself hollering "Riley, you have to hurry and come see what she's doing!!" at least ten times while she's in the bathtub. She's either playing peek-a-boo with the shower curtain, drinking her cup full of water that she collects from the faucet, or standing up just to plop down and see the splash it makes. As long as there are tubs and water then we'll always have a happy Hal...