Little Lehigh River

This summer we spent A LOT of time down by the river! :)  Last year I was introduced to this awesome little area and since Nash HATES swimming in a pool I decided that I wasn't going to pay for one this year and use the river as our water fun!  It turned out to be a great idea.  We went to this awesome place every Monday and Friday afternoon for weeks.

This area of the river is very shallow and does not move quickly at all.  There is a nice beach area for the little ones to play in and the moms to lounge and talk.  I loved putting my chair in the water on those HOT and HUMID days and enjoyed the nice cool water on my toes...Sounds amazing right! Well it was!!!!

Darin even got to join us a couple times, along with a few other dads.  The kids always liked it when the dads came because they would get to walk down stream.

My friend Christine wins the best mom award.  She would get in with Emory and help him swim around.

She even fetched floating away toys.  Such a hero..what mom!

Our child on the other hand was content staying close by mommy and playing with his dinosaur.

And every so often he would check out what the other kids were up to...

Even baby CeCe dipped her toes in the river...

On one occasion there were a flock of geese that swooped through our area of the river.  This picture is not the best, if you look closely you can see the geese and poor little Ellie is crouching down away from them.  It was cool and little frightening too...

I think the kids had so much fun playing at the river.  I know I enjoyed the relaxation.

Our little river rat....

Loving the Living Room

We are progressing along in our home.  We have finished the majority of the main floor and I am in hopes that it will be completely done by the end of this week.  Here is what the Living Room/Entrance looked like when we first viewed our home back in April...

Yeah the curtains were the first thing to go when we moved in!

Next I began ripping out the carpet.  This is the trash pile of flooring/carpet minus a couple of bags.

Then there was this crazy hardwood flooring.  It doesn't look to bad in this picture but it really was damaged and not very appealing.

So we got our crowbars and hammers and began destroying!  I don't know if we have ever recovered from this...HARD WORK...and super noisy!

Heres the pile of wood when we finished.  We couldn't put it with the trash because of the nails sticking out of it.  So I spent a night hammering the nails and now we have them in bags and we put them in the garbage can each week.  We can't put it all out or they will not take it unless we pay another $50 for pick up...blah!  I wanted to do a HUGE bonfire!

We also painted.  This room started out a yellow cream neutral color but Darin hated it.  So I let him pick the colors and we have blue now, which I love.

The entrance wall is a deeper blue.

...and well the stairs have seen many phases over the process.  I liked a picture I saw of stripes.  So I started with a brown and cream stripe...which looked GREAT!  Then we changed the room to blue so I painted the cream, blue.  That looked like a nursery so I added white and it just was too much so NOW this wall is solid brown. :)

This is the stack of flooring.  We decided to do a vinyl wood flooring.  It was super easy to put in and it looks really nice.  Not to mention easy to clean!  So here is the FINAL outcome....

My mom was a great help on SKYPE, and she told me where to hang things.  Sometimes I LOVE technology...

We were happy to find couch covers because our couches are a deep blue like the chair and the room was a bit BLUE!

We still need to put pictures in the frames but overall WE LOVE IT! Nash's speech therapist was a great person to bounce ideas off of.  She has a good eye for decorating and she suggested the rust color to accent the light blue...which I never thought of.  

Our Current Situation...

We have been living in our new home for a month now.  Last Saturday with some help from friends we moved the rest of our furniture from the storage unit to our garage.

A few weeks ago we had moved all the boxes to our basement.

We have been working very hard to rip out carpets and paint rooms before our carpet is put in. The upstairs will be carpeted professionally and the main floor is going to be my job...YIKES!  Thank goodness Darin has been willing to help out with the remodeling when he is home.  It takes a lot of talent to do it with a monkey on your back!

The carpet is almost ripped out, I just need to do our bedroom and Nash's room.  Time is ticking and I need to get to work!

Darin and I got sick of sleeping on an air mattress so when our mattress was brought from the storage unit we took up camp in the living room.  The main floor's carpet is torn out as well it is just the top part on the floor right now so we are not walking on the plywood.  There is some hard wood flooring down stairs that will be the BIG project.  It going to be a FUN destroying job!

The house is coming together little by little.  Home Depot has become our second home.  Nash knows the parking lot and says "OM EEPOP!" even more sad is the people inside know us by name...especially the flooring department.  I am sure when I am putting in the floor they are going to see A LOT more of me. :)

Television...

Since there has been a whole lot of this going on....

There has been WAY to much of this going on....
Sadly the TV has been our babysitter as of late because of all the construction chaos!
The white thing under his tires is a pillow. We have not moved our furniture into the house yet since we are going to redo the floor and we are painting. I put pillows down in front of the TV to mark the correct distance Nash should be sitting at while watching TV. He would love to be right up next to the TV, pointing at everything that pops up. He is such a good boy and is obeying the pillow rule as he has placed his car on top of the pillow. (Given the pillow is a little closer then usual). I am heard saying "NASH, PILLOWS!" many time during the day to remind him to move back from the TV.

He is pretty creative on where he watches the TV. If I am painting upstairs he wants to be by me, so he watches the TV from the loft area.

Don't worry I am limiting the amount of TV he is watching. I try to work for about an hour then stop and play for an hour or until he is occupied doing something else and I can begin again. He has been so good but the poor little guy is starving for more activity and interaction! Yesterday, I decided it was just to hot to be working and we needed to go to the river. I forgot my camera but it was so fun and the water felt AMAZING! It will be nice when everything is done and we can get back to a normal routine, including MORE trips to the river!

When Nash makes his mind up to do something he has to do it! On many occasions it is Nash and I for dinner as Darin has to work. Nash decided that he didn't want to eat at the dinner table and quietly got down from his chair pulled his plate with him and walked carefully to the back door. He then started yelling "out, mama OUT!" I guess he wanted to have a picnic on the deck. I am so happy he is providing some of the entertainment and fun, because I am just a bit tired these days. Such a helpful and thoughtful little guy! :)

I am loving our house! It is so fun being able to pick colors for the walls and make it OUR own home. When we complete a room I will post pictures with the before and after to show our progress. :) Right now it is mostly me doing all the work because Darin is busy at the hospital. I love doing projects like this, and occasionally I will get Darin on the latter to tape the high ceilings.

Nasharoo...

Our little Nash is growing up so fast.  Darin has been SUPER busy this month in the ER and I have been wearing myself ragged working on our new house.  Nash has been so good at keeping himself occupied through the past months of chaos.  Today I took a long look at Nash for the first time in a while and the child's hands and feet are massive.  What happened to our tiny little boy???!!!  So I decided I needed to take some time here and there to write down the cute things that Nash is doing/saying before they are forgotten.  I have a journal of Nash's life but it is still packed away so I thought I would share some cute things on here.  I am sure the grandma's will enjoy it. :)

Nash has been receiving Speech Therapy for almost a year now and has recently gone to twice a week.  The Pediatric Specialist recommended we tack on medical speech to this as well where he will go to a center for therapy.  All this therapy is really building confidence in Nash and we are hearing more language every day.  Lately he has taken an interest in saying the prayer.  He can't say sentences yet so mostly he just repeats the last word or 2.  He is so cute when he says the prayer because he folds his arms and then quickly covers his eyes with his fingers.  Once I start saying the words he ALWAYS opens his eyes and watches my face very intently.  He loves to say the prayer although one day I was enjoying hearing his voice and made the prayer pretty lengthy.  Soon he started saying "Amen mama AMEN!" in a desperate plea to make the prayer stop so he could eat. :)
Nash has always been a touch me not kid.  He does not like to be cuddled unless he is sick or he is ready for bed.  Darin and I have always taken advantage of the cuddle time during naps and night-time.  Nash was always rocked to sleep and now that he is in a big boy bed we have laid by him just so we could get some Nasharoo cuddle time.  I have been worried since day one that Nash would become dependent on us to put him to sleep.  Especially since Darin and I usually fall asleep in the process of getting him to sleep and usually sleep a good chunk of the night with Nash. (Darin does this more so then me.)  

The other night I was putting Nash to bed and he likes to have our arm around him.  I fell asleep and woke up to him squirming underneath me saying "stuck mama STUCK!"  I have decided since then it is time for Nash to go to sleep on his own.  Nap time has been easy I read him books, then give him a book to read on his own and has fallen right to sleep.  Bedtime on the other hand has been a struggle.  I feel like I am on an episode of "Super Nanny." Nash is really good at coming out of his room to find me.  I just lead him right back into his bed, and we do this over and over until he finally gives up and reads his book, sings or cries himself to sleep.  I have found this time convenient to study my Relief Society lesson as I sit outside his door waiting for the next trip back to the bed.  It is our own fault that he is dependent on us but I am sure happy for that little bit of cuddle time that we had.  I know I will miss it. 

The 4th of July is totally lame out here in PA.  Each year I am more and more disappointed by the lack of fun for my FAVORITE holiday.  Especially when I hear about all the AWESOMENESS going on in Blanding...THE BEST PLACE TO BE ON THE 4TH OF JULY!

This year the 4th was on a Sunday, which made things even more complicated.  Some members in our ward had a get together on Saturday night at their farm.  It was a lot of fun being with friends and Nash and Darin enjoyed looking for frogs by the pond.  I enjoyed watching them do this from a safe distance.  You never know what those creepy things will do! ;)  Darin had to work that night at 11pm so we stayed long enough to do sparklers and then headed home.  Nash loved the sparklers!  

The fun of the evening must have been too much for the little guy because Nash decided to NOT go to bed that night.  Yep we had another weekend of NO SLEEP!  Therefore I boycotted church the next day because, well going to church with a cranky 2 year old and tired mother do not mix.  So we stayed home, and Nash refused to take a nap that day too so yippee for us we had an AWESOME day of being zombies.  

Later that evening some resident friends that live close by had a bbq.  The meal was yummy and the company was fun!  

We have two new resident families in our ward.  The Smith's are ER residents for the other hospital St. Lukes (but we forgive them.) ;)  And the Gilstrap's are plastic surgery residence at Lehigh Valley.  Andrea Gilstrap's brother is married to Stacie Arthur, who grew up in Blanding and was my roommate for a short time.  (small world!)   We joined these two fun families for the "Breinigsville Independence Day Firework Spectacular!"  This is held only 2 miles from our home. We found a space in a empty field near the park and enjoyed the RANDOM mix of music ranging from a beautiful melody of "Oh Beautiful" to ACDC's song "Thunder!"  It was pretty impressive how they choreographed the explosions to the music.  Not to shabby!  

Nash had a ton of fun running around before the fireworks started.  Sadly this year he was not a fan of the loud noises.  So he sat on my lap with my hands over his ears.  Until our NO sleep boy zonked out... 

This is the ONLY sleep he got that night!  WHAT IS UP WITH THAT!  We are finally back on a normal sleeping schedule, although bedtime is a little later then I would like and but he is taking his 2 - 3 hour naps again! YEAH!

It was a very strange 4th of July weekend but a memorable one for sure.  I am once again SO grateful for the people around us that make Pennsylvania feel like home.

Home Owners!

After a year of living in Emmaus and dealing with our landlord we decided to make a change.  Since the government was offering the $8000 payback for buying a house we decided to check into the market around the valley.  We found it to be a bit pricey because we live so close to NYC.  It was fun viewing so many different homes, and we were able to come across an awesome realtor.  It took a while for us to get a pre-approval to buy a home, and we were sent to 3 different people because of our large amount of debt from medical school.  Not very many banks knew how or wanted to handle a situation like ours.  We finally were pre-approved and were able to get a price range.  Sadly our price range was more in the town home category.  I was not excited about this since it had been so nice not sharing a wall with anyone.  Although, we found some awesome town homes in Breinigsville that we fell in love with.  We had 6 main criteria for a home.

1. MUST have a dishwasher.
2. A finished basement.
3. Lawn and snow removal included.
4. 3 bedrooms.
5. A yard to play in.
6. AND an end unit.

Luckily we found a home with ALL 6!!  We were the first couple to look at this home, and the lady fell in love with our little Nasharoo.  We looked at it twice and decided to put an offer down.  Another couple did the same thing and beat our offer.  However she liked us the best and gave the home to us! YEAH for NASHAROO!! 

Our original closing date was set for May 28th which is our 5 year wedding anniversary.  However it didn't go through.  During one of Darin's late night shifts he researched a special loan that not many people knew about including our lender.  The loan would give us an extra up to $10,000 on top of the government $8,000.  Because this was a weird loan we were applying for it took some extra time.  A LOT of extra time!  So this was the sign on the home for over a month....

Thank goodness the seller was willing to wait for our paperwork to process.  She was moving only 6 doors down and it gave her time to move. 

Our realtor Doug Frederick was awesome, and VERY patient with us.  Sadly his name was drug through the mud working with us, but in the end he was happy to learn about the AWESOME loan Darin had found.  He agreed to this picture only if he could stand in front of the sign because it didn't have his name on it. :)

On June 22nd we were happy to receive the keys to our first home in Breinigsville (BRY-NINGS-VILLE), Pennsylvania.

Don't we look happy... :)  The truth is we were over joyed to not be homeless any longer!

We had awesome friends who helped us out in so many ways during this LONG process.  Our good friend Christine Masick came and picked up Nash the morning of our closing and took him to her house to play all morning while we did the paperwork.  Nash LOVES Christine and didn't even bat an eye, just climbed into her car and said "bye-bye Mama" and away they went!  Our friends the Dowling's let us live in there home for 2 weeks and Darin for almost a month.  We were so appreciative of their kindness.  Here are some pictures of us moving out of their home...

Nash enjoyed playing in the trunk with Kristen's brother Josh until he bonked his head...

Our home is just around the corner from the Dowling apartment.  Thanks again Nick and Kristen for everything!

Here is our home...

It was built in 1998, it is 2100 square feet with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a fully finished basement, lawn care and snow removal and is on a curve which allows a larger safer yard.  At the present there is nothing behind us although there is a development in the process of being built.  At the most we will have one condo behind us.

The home needs a little work, we are in the process of stripping the flooring in the main level, and painting the walls.  We love our home!  We are very grateful that everything went through, our mortgage ended up being only $80 more then what we were paying for rent in Emmaus.  And the best part is WE DON'T HAVE A CRAZY LANDLORD...okay that's debatable, Darin can be a little nuts! ;)  I will post more pictures of our home as we finish each project!