Pools are fun?

Claire and I went over to Heather and Ethan's house for a little pool party. As you can see from the picture, the pool was not a favorite for these two. We even filled it up with warm water from the house. We still had a lot of fun. It turned into a pool side party. Playing with the toys from the safety of land was much more fun. Then Aunt Heather brought out the dance tunes!


The video shows off sweet moves by Claire which include the stomp, and the bounce. She is so funny when it comes to music and dancing. It was a lot of fun. I hope that she will eventually enjoy getting in the pool. Even if Claire didn't swim doesn't she look adorable in her swimsuit.


On a side note. We had a meeting with the foreman overseeing the building of our home. Things finally seem to be progressing. We are waiting on the building permit from the city. Hopefully it won't take more than a week or two. Then we will be all set to start building. He estimated 4 months till complete. That will put it sometime in August. Lets hope everything goes smoothly.

Picking out colors

Today we went and picked out our house. We decided on everything. Brick, stucco, paint, carpet, tile, ect. It was hard to really picture how it will look once it is in a house. I think we made good choices. We had an appointment with Angie at Master's carpet. She walked us through everything. I am so glad we had someone to help us. There are way too many choices! Mark and I are not the best decision makers. I can't wait until they start building. July 1st is supposedly when they should be finished with our home. Let the count down begin.

Our new house!

So it is official, we are building a house. We are so excited. Yesterday we signed all the paperwork. Now we just need to wait for the bank to finalize the construction loan, and go pick out our colors!! We will have a building meeting with Tim (our realtor), Bob (the foreman), and us in two weeks. Then they will start building. They should have it completed by July 1st. HOORAY! We will be building here in West Haven. I'll start taking and posting pictures, as soon as there is something to take pictures of. :)

The simple joys

The weather has been so nice the last couple of days. We have been taking advantage of being outside. Claire and I spend most of our day hanging out in the front yard, well mostly the driveway Claire isn't too sure about the grass still. We got the bikes out last friday, fixed the flat tires and hook up the trailer. We then rode 6 miles. Claire loved riding in her trailer. We stopped at the playground. Where Claire chased the poptart wrapper around, loving every minute of it.

Yesterday we got out our kite and flew it. Claire thought it was fun until we made foxy go flying with the kite. She is over protective of Foxy. Then she cried until we got foxy down and wouldn't let us have him back.

Today we went to the doctor for her 15 month appointment. She is a big girl. 90% for head size and weight and 75% for height. The doctor said she didn't get her size from me. I guess it must be the Hansen genes. On the way home we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some stuff. I saw a box of side walk chalk for $1.25. I thought it sounded like fun. So I bought it. Claire and I then spent an hour outside drawing on the sidewalk. She thought it was the coolest thing ever! I love that baby girl.

Sick Baby

Well if you couldn't guess from the title, our Claire has been sick. It has been a rough week for her the poor girl. It all started last tuesday. At first she just had a runny nose, and I thought it was because she is teething. Then in the middle of the night she woke up coughing and wheezing. We took her to the doctor the next day where we learned she had croup and two ear infections. No wonder she didn't sleep. The doc gave her a breathing treatment and a shot to open her lungs and then prescribed some antibiotics. We were hopeful she would start to show some improvement. Then on Friday she developed a fever of 102. Finally on sunday the fever went away and she was showing signs of being her happy normal self. Well this morning she woke up covered in a rash. I had a feeling it was a reaction to the antibiotics, so I called the doctor. They told me she had to be seen. So I made the appointment and went in. I couldn't get in with my regular doctor. The Doc was 45 min behind. Then she looked at Claire for 5 minutes and said "she has a rash". Thanks Doc I already knew that. They told me to stop giving her the antibiotics and just watch for signs that the ear infection didn't get cleared up. Now maybe it is just me, but I don't think that is the best option. I know there are other types of antibiotics, wouldn't it make more sense to prescribe another one. I feel like it was just a waste of a trip to the doctor. I know it is better to be safe than sorry, but come on. Thats why I called and talked to someone first. I just hope this is the end of the illnesses for a while. I have to take Claire back to the Doctor in a couple weeks for her 15 month appointment. Then I hope we don't have to see that place again for 3 more months. *fingers crossed*

On the house situation, we heard back about the home in clinton. We didn't get it. Apparently when the bank saw that there was interest in the house they decided to ask for more. So they came back and asked for $20,000 more than they had it listed for. I don't believe anyone is just going to be willing to pay an extra $20,000. I'm not sure what they were thinking. We are still waiting to hear on the house in West Haven. I am hoping the same thing doesn't happen with this home. I know there are 3 other offers in on it besides ours. I could see the bank deciding to raise the price, lets hope they don't. We are going to go out and look at some more homes this week. Hopefully we will find some we could see ourselves living in. I figure the more offers we have out the better the chance of getting one. It seems like with so many homes on the market we should be able to find one with no problems. Maybe I am being too picky. But I really want to get a home we will love. Not just buy one to buy one, you know what I mean? Hopefully we will find one and be moved in before Lynn and Faith come home in June. Wish us luck.

Update

Well its been a couple of weeks since I wrote anything. You can see why I have never sucessfully kept a journal. Even when I was on my mission I would go weeks in between entries. Then write a couple pages in attempt to document what I had missed. So I guess that is what this post will be as well.

Mark and I have made offers on 2 homes. One in West Haven, the other in Clinton. Both of which are short sales. Because of which we are told it will be 30 to 60 days before we hear anything back. So we are waiting. I am hoping that we will get one of these two homes. Ideally get both and be able to go back and walk through them again and then decide which home we want. I think the chances are very slim in getting the home in West Haven. The location would be ideal in keeping us close to Mark's parents. I think are chances of us getting the home in Clinton are much higher. I guess only time will tell.

Claire is being Claire. She very successfully embarrassed Mark in church yesterday, but knocking over the piano bench in sunday school and proceeding to play. The ward members insist it doesn't bother them, but I can't wait for day when we can send her to nursery. She has too much energy. She needs something to do with it all, and nursery toys sound like the perfect outlet. We will wait patiently over the next couple of months, and have a little celebration when June 7th comes. It will be a glorious day.

Its February!

So it is officially February and has been for a few days. :) I already have a case of spring fever. I just can't wait for the warm weather. Mark and I brought his bike in the house this last week and pimped it out with all the cool stuff he got for christmas. He now has a basket, headlight and taillight, lights on the tires, and a speedometer. He was so excited that he braved the cold and rode up to subway to pick us up dinner. Upon returning he was able to tell me the mileage and speed that he traveled. Oh yeah that is one sweet bike!

Claire is still growing. She isn't my baby baby anymore. Now she is a toddler, well more of a runner now days. She will just take off, I never knew little legs could move so fast. I was at Ulta the other day picking up some nail polish for my mom for her birthday. I sat her down to pay, the second her feet hit the floor she was off. Before I got to her she had two bottle of polish in her hands and was running to the back of the store. She threw the polish when she saw me getting close, probably in an attempt to look innocent. Luckily the bottle didn't break! I guess it must have been entertaining as all the other customers in the store were laughing. That girl keeps me busy. Her newest thing is to walk to the fridge point at it and say "MMMMMMMMMMMM" . That is to let me know that she wants food. I keep trying to get her to say eat, but she isn't interested in talking. She also is saying "AHHH" after taking a drink. I guess to let us know how much she is enjoying her beverage. I just don't find milk that refreshing, but Claire sure does.

We are going out to look at homes again tomorrow. I am excited to go look. I think it is good for us to look at a lot of different homes. That way we get an idea of what is out there and what we want. When we bought our first house, we only looked at 3 homes before we decided to make an offer on one. We just knew that was suppose to be our home. I did love our home, but there were things that also drove me crazy, like only have one drawer in the kitchen that actually opened. I didn't think to check to see if they drawers were for decoration only. So now I faithfully check all the drawers in every kitchen we look at. I am determined to get a kitchen with more than 1 drawer. I'll let you know how the house hunting goes.