The Finch Family

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Ready for the ox ride.

Throwing rocks into the mighty Mississippi.

Adam and friend Natalie racing up the hill.

HHEELLPP!!!! Anna rolling down the hill in front of the temple.

Lizzy in Nauvoo after an exciting game of hide and seek.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Our two year old

Today Lizzy had a very two year old day. She spilled 3 or 4 cups of stuff, emptied all the movies out of the closet, screamed at the park for all the world to hear (we are talking tantrum like screams here), but still made us smile. I told Greg when he came home that she was having a very two year old day. Then later, just before bed, I gave her a drink, which of course she spilled (on purpose, I don't know), it was grape soda by the way, and while I was cleaning that mess up Greg came in and asked what happened, and I told him again that Lizzy was having a very two year old day. Lizzy piped up and said, "Yep! I 'm just sweet little Lizzy". To which Greg and I just cracked up over. She really is sweet, just some days are more trying (and messy) than others.

Rejected

Well, Saturday morning we put in an offer on a house that we loved!! We felt like it was a very fair price; it was 97% of the listing price, which is what most houses sell for. We did ask for the fridge and an old ping pong table that was down in the basement and of course, we asked for a home inspection. They countered our offer at only $900 off of the asking price and wanted to move the closing date out a month (leaving us with no place to go for a month). They also balked that we wanted a home inspection, saying that we just wanted to nitpick over everything (any smart buyer gets a home inspection). We countered their counter offer with the same price we started with, but dropped the fridge and ping pong table and agreed to move out the closing date the extra month, in effect raising the price for us a good $3,000 or more. They rejected our offer, saying they needed more money. Our agent was not too thrilled with this man, who seemed to have a bad attitude, and according to her, became smug when they rejected our offer. Needless to say we were not thrilled either. So we lost the house that we really wanted. I guess we could go back and make another offer, but we haven't felt like that is what we should do. We are disappointed, but really feel like things will work out for the best. It is a little scary knowing we have a deadline to be out of our house (May 24 th is when we close) and not having a place to go. We would love to avoid moving into an apartment for a month or more. Why move any more times than you have to? Anyway, we didn't expect this to happen, and nobody likes to be rejected!

Ben update

In the midst of all the house stuff going on, I haven't blogged about Ben's visit to the doctor last week. He weighed in at 16 something, which is about the 25-30 percentile. He was 3oth percentile for his height, and you guessed it, his head was a whopping 80th percentile. Poor kid doesn't have a chance with both Finch and Ebbert genes. He still is not rolling over from back to front, but is starting to sit a little bit by himself. He still loves to be held, but that's not so bad. He is sleeping decent at night. He will usually sleep from about 9:30 until 4 am, when I will feed him and he will go back to sleep until about 7 am. He has started eating baby cereal, which he likes. The hardest part is keeping him straight up enough in his seat for him to eat. He is very pleasant and cheerful and easy to be around. Lizzy calls him Benny boy and is constantly smothering, smooshing, or pushing on him. Ben takes it all very well. We are sure glad to have him as part of our family.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

An amazing turn of events

Well, we have had A LOT going on around here this past little while. Last weekend Greg had good Friday off so we wanted to make that our last weekend of work on our house, before we put it on the market. We worked and worked. We met with our agent on Monday to sign papers and get things going. Over the weekend we decided that we should paint our (big) master bedroom too. So after we met with the agent, Monday we painted until the wee hours of the morn. Tuesday night we finished that up. Wednesday morning we scrambled to get our room put back together before our agent came to take pictures of the house. He listed it later that day. We got a call that evening that someone wanted to come and see the house today (Thursday). Well they came today and they made an offer today!! The first person to come and see our house made an offer!! It is a full price offer no less!! Hallelujah!! We accepted the offer, that really had no strings attached, they didn't even want an inspection. Between being thrilled and elated, we are panicked because we have no where to move to. We have been so busy getting our house ready that we have hardly looked at other houses at all. In fact today was the first day we have really gone out looking and we looked at a whopping two houses. Anyway so much is happening. We feel so thankful that things have gone quickly; I know the money isn't in the bank yet, but this is a tremendous first step. Now we can really look forward to a new home with more space for our growing family!! Here is a link to the listing to our house since a lot of you haven't seen it. http://www.dickcarr.com/silver_listingDetail.asp?ID=165224
With so much of us in this house it will be sort of sad to leave, but also so exciting. How blessed we are!!

Thursday, March 24, 2005

STRESS!!!

Hey everybody! I bet you thought blogging was going to be another project we started but didn't finish, eh? Well, I just wanted you all to know the reason we haven't been blogging much. We are so STRESSED!! We are trying to get our house on the market by the end of the month, and there is a lot to do. We thought we were about done, but then talked to our realtor and he made some suggestions, including some big projects, like painting some rooms. We aren't doing everything he suggested, but still we are going crazy. As you can imagine it is hard to do much in the daylight hours with all the kids, so that means we have been burning the midnight oil, and not getting much sleep. We are exhausted and ready just to put it on the market without all the millions of details being finished. We will have our last big push this weekend (Greg is off for Good Friday). Hopefully it will be enough. We need some sleep. We need to start looking at houses more seriously. We are ready to be done with all of this! You will know when things start to slow down a bit because we will blog more. Wish us luck. A few prayers would be good too.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Swimming in Caffeine

I took the kids swimming on Friday evening last week (indoor pool of course - spring has yet to arrive). In past swimming experiences, Adam and I have had "hold your breath contests" to see who could stay under the water the longest. After about 15 minutes in the pool, I asked him why he hadn't even put his head in the water yet. His reply: "I can't do it with this much caffeine." "Caffeine?" I asked. "Where did you get caffeine?" He stared blankly at me, then looked kind of sheepish as he realized he use the wrong word. "Oh, what is that stuff called that kind of smells in the pool?". Ah - now we were understanding each other - it was chlorine he was after.

The kids all had a good time. Cautious Anna was brave enough to venture clear down to the fourth step in the entrance to the pool. She refused to go where she couldn't touch - even if I was holding her. Lizzy, on the other hand, would have been just tickled to be at the bottom of the deepend. No fear whatsoever. Since she's only two feet tall, I had to stay pretty close by all the time or she would have ended up at the bottom. Adam finally did dip his head in the water and set a new record for himself. I was able to count to 53 while he was underwater (not seconds, just counts). His old record was in the 30's.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Lizzy to the doctor

I took Lizzy in for her two year old well check today. She weighed in at 27 lbs. (about 75%), and was about 33 and something inches (about 60%). She is healthy and fine. I had mistakenly thought she was to have a shot today, but she ended up not needing one. Strangely enough she was quite disappointed. I had been gearing her up for it, so in her two year old mind, she felt gipped (sp?). With so many young children we are at the doctor's quite often. We have gotten to know our pediatrician quite well; he knows all the kids' names and is always highly complimentary of them, and always ask about Adam, who doesn't come with us anymore because he is at school. We sure are thankful for good health and good medical care.

Mama's boy

Benjamin is a real mama's boy. This causes some frustration for both Greg and I. I have left Ben with Greg 3 0r 4 times, to go shopping, or whatever. Poor Greg, when I come home, I come home to a baby who has been screaming for over an hour, but who quiets down as soon as mama takes him, as if there were no problem. I hesitate to leave him now, and even when we are both at home Ben usually has a strong preference for his mom. I do have to say though, last night, for the first time in a long while, Ben actually sat with Greg for over an hour, while I had a little nap. Heavenly!! All our kids have gone through this strong "mama phase", but none so young as Ben.

Editor's note

Just so you all know, Greg wrote the caption for the Revival picture, not me!!

Friday, March 04, 2005

The Revival

When Anna had her birthday in January, she wanted to go to a huge indoor playground called Jungle Bungle. When Adam had his birthday in February, we went to an IMAX movie. Oddly enough, when Lizzy had her birthday, all she wanted to do was attend an old fashioned Protestant Revival. Well, she fit right in! Attached are some of the moments captured by our hidden camera!