30 days

Well we've been in New York for about five weeks and we still like it, so that's a good sign :)  Sorry to report I haven't been as good at taking pictures, I'll try to work on it.  The house is still on track and we should be closing by August 17th if things go as planned, which hopefully they do or we'll be in a hotel for awhile. 

Today was my 30th day of the 30 Day Shred.  We've also been eating healthy and keeping the house clean for over 30 days now.  So I guess if the saying that it takes 30 days to build a habit is true, then we've officially built some good habits!  The last two weeks Jason and I have both only lost 1 pound each, not nearly enough for how ridiculously good we've been.  I blame mine on building muscle since the 30 day shred is a lot of that.  I can tell we both look thinner and I can see all the muscle I've built, but we'll see this weekend how the weigh in fares this time around.  Next month we are going to do Atkins for a week or two and then I am going to do the Advocare 24 day challenge again in hopes of shedding more pounds. 

Sam gashed his lip open one night last week and now has a big canker sore where he cut it, poor guy.  He also had a little flu for a couple days.  I'm glad he's feeling better although I think both the boys are teething, which makes fun days for me :)  On the bright side it seems Noah may finally be sleeping through the night, hooray, that's amazing!  Now if we could just get Sam potty trained, which seems impossible since he still tries not to go poo rather than the opposite.  Sigh.  I'm thinking maybe I should just get him potty trained on the peeing part and see what happens from there ???  Any tips or thoughts are welcome!!!

That's about all that's going on here.  Jason still likes his job a lot and he has actually moved past just training and started working on projects, which is great.  We have been working on re-doing my website so that once I have a studio space we can launch it and I can start doing a few sessions a month.  It is a huge process, but it is going to look fabulous when we're done!!

Well that's about all that's going on in our neck of the woods.  Hopefully I'll have some pictures for you all next time :)

the lemonade stand

Not too much to report from the last week.  As far as the house goes, we are still negotiating on the furnace (it's old so we told them replace it or we are walking away, but we are pretty confident they'll do it), but should get that settled tomorrow and then the house will be ours and the rest will be up to the underwriters to get the loan taken care of. 
On Tuesday I took the boys to that Tumbling Tykes place and it is fabulous.  I bought a yearly membership so we can go once or twice a week.  On Thursday I went again and invited the lady from the branch (who also just moved from WA) to come along and bring her son.  The boys had a blast.  Friday night we had them over for pizza, I know you all should be so proud of us for actually socializing and making friends. 

Saturday we wanted to take the boys to the park again and this time get some pictures of them playing, but Saturday didn't work out exactly how we planned.  We got woke up at 6am by construction work and Sam got woke up at 6:20 by the fire alarm going off repeatedly (due to the construction).  The boys took long naps, I took a nap, we spent a lot of the day in bed watching Smallville, lol.  Once we finally got up and going we did actually try to take the boys to the park but it was just too dang hot, so we went back home and took them swimming instead.  We went in the outdoor pool this time, and it was amazing, so much more fun than the indoor pool.  I can't wait to do it again next weekend. 

I do hope we don't have too much trouble with the construction over the next month while we are still here.  I know it won't always be as loud and they may not always start as early, and of course not setting off the fire alarm is huge, so I think it may be ok.  If not, I have some possible solutions up my sleeve, so we'll see.  I was pretty mad about it on Saturday! 

Today we broke down and moved Sam's bed into our room because Noah just makes too much  noise in the last couple hours of his sleep and he always wakes Sam up too early.  Hopefully with Sam in our room he will stop waking up way too early. 

Today was day 19 of the 30 day shred.  I weighed on Saturday and I am down 10 pounds.  I am not losing it as fast as I feel like I should be considering just how good I've been with my diet and exercise, but at least I'm losing I guess.  Jason weighs on Mondays so the verdict is still out for him.

Well I didn't get any pictures of the boys this week, but I did finally finish editing the lemonade stand session I did with them and the other Tirrell grandkids a couple months ago, so I will post some of those here for your enjoyment :)

Free!

Yesterday I finished editing the last of my sessions, what a great feeling!  We have still been really enjoying it here!  The people are nice, the weather is great, and it's fun to check out all the new stuff around us.  Today we went to check out the third mall that is nearby.  Then we went to an awesome park to let the boys play.  They had a blast.  It's so fun watching them play and explore.  It's been nice having Jason home every evening with no homework and me not having my business to worry about.  We've suddenly become so much your traditional family.

The home inspection went well!  The furnace is old so we are hoping the sellers will replace it, but other than that just a few small things.  We were very pleasantly surprised!  So we'll see how things come along through the rest of the process.  We are very excited to get in there and start making it our own. 

With all the help Jason's company has been giving us with relocation and temporary living expenses we should have a good sum of money left after closing to turn the garage into my studio.  It's a two car detached garage that should be perfect for us to turn into my studio.  I will definitely enjoy these few months off, but I know I'll be excited to start up again when the time comes.  I am just going to be sure to stick to 4-6 sessions a month and no more under any circumstances.  That will be the perfect amount to keep it a small, on the side job that doesn't take up much of my mommy/wife time.  And will still substantially supplement our income and let me enjoy my creative outlet.

Well since we got here I have actually managed to keep the house clean and make sure we pick up after ourselves, amazing I know!  We have also been eating healthy and working out.  I've lost 8 pounds and Jason has lost 10.  I moved up to level 2 on the Jillian Micheals 30 Day Shred today and just about died, but I plan on finishing the full consecutive 30 days (today was day 11). 

After exploring all 3 malls in the area we have found that none of them have free play places, which is too bad.  But I found a place called Tumbling Tykes that is $225 for a yearly family membership and has all day open play.  You can also pay extra if you want to sign up for any of their mommy and me classes, which I think I will do.  Turns out this coming week is free trial week so I am going to go to three of the classes, and then probably sign up for one that starts the following week.  I have also found a Baby Boot Camp group that I think I will start in August.  I'm really excited about that.  There's an instructor that teaches the class and all the moms have their kids in their stroller and you do a whole workout including strength and cardio all while entertaining the kids.  Should be a good way to make friends too.

The boys are still doing well.  They actually play together sometimes now, which they didn't use to, so that's great.  And Jason still loves his job, which is also great!  And now all you really care about, pictures of the cute boys ;)

Sam likes to help Noah onto the couch, it's hilarious.

And Noah likes to attack Sam while he gets his diaper changed :)

Sam has started wanting to do everything himself.  Here's him trying to get his shirt on by himself :)

Noah likes to go out onto our little deck, shut the door, and then come look through the window at us.

Fighting over dad's smoothie :)

Sam loves to make forts!

Noah also likes to sit out on our little deck and just watch the cars and people go by. 

Noah doing what he does best (make messes)

The boys with their new hair cuts and in their matching Toy Story swim trunks.  We took them swimming here at the apartment complex on the 4th of July.  That was pretty much the only festive thing we did that day since we don't have a yard and don't know anyone yet, lol.  It was still fun though.

Our First Two Weeks

Well needless to say, we've done a lot these last couple weeks!  The trip here was exhausting to say the least.  We're not in any hurry to do that again!  We spent our first three days house hunting.  We had already done a lot of searching and norrowing things down online so by Friday we felt pretty settled on which house we wanted.  We put in our offer Sunday just before Jason started his first day of work.

We are nervous for the inspection this Thursday since it's an old house (about 100 years old!).  Most of it has been updated though.  It's cute and definetly move in ready, although we'll do a lot of work making it our own, which we are very excited about.

Here is where we are living now, a very nice apartment complex that Jason's company is paying for as our temporary housing :)

Here is the house we are looking to buy:

You can see more pictures here: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2430-Consaul-Rd-Schenectady-NY-12304/32475358_zpid/.  We like it a lot and can't wait to move in!  Hopefully it all goes smoothly!  It's in a nice neighborhood, which is harder to find in Schenectady, a lot of the city is much more compact and you are very close to your nieghbors and closer to some of the more ghetto parts of the city.  This neighborhood is spacious and feels tucked away from the city.  And it's only 8 minutes from Jason's work!

Jason loves his job so far, and we are both very glad about that!

The boys have asjusted very well and I've made a nice schedule for us.  I am trying to finish up my last session (Rachel's wedding) and then I'll be business free for ahile.  It's been nice not having sessions all the time.  I have actually been able to keep the house clean and spend lots of time playing with the boys. 

So far we really like New York.  It's been perfect weather and the people are very nice and friendly.  We aren't looking forward to having to make friends though, lol. 

And that's about it!