Cross your fingers

We have had a few people come and look at our house so far. Not too bad. Yesterday I got a call from an agent saying she's be by between 6-7. So, I was frantically cleaning and trying to get Sydney ready to go before then. Then I get a call from another agent who wants to come by in 5 minutes. Hello, that isn't even enough time to hang up the phone! So, I'm even more frantic trying to get things to look a little decent. This past week I've been keeping the place spotless and yesterday I was just tired of cleaning and no one coming to look and wouldn't you know it, two peolpe wanted to come by. Anyway, I don't even think the lady that scheduled at 6 even came by which makes me really mad.

Well, we have gotten an offer. It was too low, so we countered really high and he came back a little higher, but it was still too low, so we countered again. Hopefully we hear back in a couple of days what his decision is and hopefully he accepts our offer. Then, we'll be home free. It would be so nice not to have to worry about selling our condo in time and to get some of our debt paid off. Oh, I can't wait to call up these credit card companies and tell them what I really think of them. I'll have some leverage on them. :)

So, Sydney has been quite interesting lately. She is a toddler I guess. She hasn't been sleeping very good lately. Every time a tooth comes in she will not sleep the whole night and then she gets used to us being up with her. So, the other night we had to train her to sleep again. Last night she did pretty good. She woke up a couple of times, but was able to get back to sleep.

She has also been getting really good at her temper tantrums. Oh boy. For example, yesterday as I was frantically cleaning I kept saying we were going to go bye bye soon. She didn't hear the "soon" part apparently and wanted to go outside NOW. She threw the biggest tantrum. Tears, runny nose, and all.

She is also becoming very hyperactive. I think this would be from Josh. She loves to jump all over the couch and our bed, loves to throw herself on top of us and Duncan, and slide across the floor. You'd have to see this to really her in action.

She is also learning to sing actual songs now. She likes Ring Around the Rosies and Twinkle Twinkle. She'll be playing in the other room and I'll hear her singing portions of these songs. So cute. She is fun at this age, but sometimes I do wish the stage where she just laid on the floor contently looking into space. :)

Ok, who took my baby?

I am constantly amazed at how much Sydney is growing up. That seems to be the only thing I talk about, but she is growing too fast. I tried to do a new hair style on her and she looked so cute and grown up. She definitely is not a baby anymore. She does some pretty cute things now. She has been talking non stop. She repeats words like crazy and is developing a pretty complex vocabulary (for her at least). I love when you ask her where something is like "Sydney, where are your shoes?" and she'll raise her hands up and shrug telling me she doesn't know. She is getting really obsessed with going outside. The hard thing is we don't have a backyard, so it's tricky to get outside. She goes up to the front door and slaps the door telling me she wants to go outside. She is still obsessed with anything round that looks like a ball. She'll yell "BALL!!" before I can even see anything and sure enough there is a ball. Ever since she recovered from that horrible flu she has been eating like crazy. Like, I can't give her enough food. She even ate some asparagus and pork tonight with us for dinner. She loves cheerios. She'll stuff a whole handful in her mouth. She's hilarious. She is starting to pick up on the word "no". She thinks it's funny if I get after her. She says "do!", her way of saying no. She has said it to Duncan a couple of times. Oh dear.

Anyway, we are getting nervous about how quickly the house is being done. Our sales rep said it shouldn't take more than three months to finish. I sure hope our condo sells quick. We've only had a couple of people look at it so far and one was just a drive-by looker. I guess this will be a real test of patience and faith.

On the Market

So, our condo is finally up on the market. We have a few minor things to finish, but probably nothing anyone will notice as they come to see our place. Here is the listing.

http://tarmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Tucson&PRGNAME=MLSPropertyDetail&ARGUMENTS=-N517941684,-N371518,-N,-A,-N18022383

Way exciting to see it up. I'll miss this place, but I am looking forward to our new home and the memories we will have there. One thing I'll probably be emotional about when we leave, is this is Sydney's first home. I was just reminiscing yesterday as I was walking up the stairs with her. I was holding her hand as she slowly took her steps up the stairs. I remember like it was yesterday when we arrived home from the hospital with her. She was snug in her carseat and I was emotional wondering what I was going to with this tiny baby. It was all overwhelming. Josh and I brought her in and laid her in her crib and all I could do was stare at this cute little thing in a huge crib. I guess I will have similar memories in our new house. ;)
I am posting some more pictures from this past weekend. We went up to Mesa for my Great Grandma's funeral. It was nice, but hard to say goodbye. I still can't believe she is not here. I loved the talks given at her service. I learned so much more about my Grandma. I realize now that I need to do some family history research. I want to learn more about my family members and their lives. It is interesting to connect their lives to my own and see the differences and similarities. My favorite story was how my Grandma and Grandpa met. My Grandma was playing tennis at a country club with some friends and I think my Grandpa worked there, not sure, but he went over to her and said very matter of factly, "The purpose of the game, Ms. Eklund, is to hit the ball over the net." I can totally see him saying that to her. They sure loved each other even after almost 69 years of marriage. I hope Josh and I last that long. :)

Here is our house so far. It actually has some more things done to it now, but I haven't been able to get pictures yet.


Sydney fast asleep.

Doesn't this picture make you feel like you're swinging too? :0

She loved the swings.

Going down the slide

I think she liked it.

Going through the tunnel. Not even scared at all. I used to play at this park when I was a little kid too. It was fun to be back there with Sydney.

Great Grandma Schmutz's casket

Sydney making a cutie face

Sydney and her Grandma

Sydney and her Grandpa. This is seconds before she past out sound asleep. She was sure tired and grumpy.

The Schmutz family. At least half of them.

I almost forgot to add this. I found a gray hair the other day! What the crap!

Lemons=Lemonade

Boy, how come when bad things happen they come all at once? I have been trying to keep it together, but sometimes it just gets to be too much. I keep thinking to myself, there are people who are having worse problems than you, but to me my problems are very real and painful.
Anyway, Sydney and I went up to St. George, UT this past weekend for my great-grandma's funeral. It was hard and not because it was for a funeral, but because I went up without Josh and Sydney was so hard. She just clung to me the whole time and cried if I moved away from her. It was so hard.
The funeral was nice, I missed most of the service because I had to take Sydney out as she was throwing a tantrum as the service started. My Grandma was a wonderful woman. She endured to the end. She suffered a lot of pain, but she is so much happier now. I looked at her face and could see that she was at peace and with her family.
On Easter Sunday we had to head back home and I was feeling kind of nauseous. About 30 minutes into the drive I felt so sick and made my dad pull over. I ended up throwing up in the car. I had the flu and had 10 more hours in the car to go. I was so determined to get home though so we continued, chills and all. About two hours left to go until home and Sydney started vomiting, several times. I had to hold her hand the rest of the way. She is still throwing up five days later. I felt better after three days. It is the absolute worst when she gets sick. I would take any sickness in order to keep her from getting sick. She won't eat and can't keep her milk down and it's a battle to get her to drink anything else. Get better Sydney.
The day after I found out my Grandma passed away, my mom called and said my other Great-Grandma had a stroke and it wasn't looking good for her. She was paralyzed on one side, her throat was paralyzed, causing pneumonia. She passed away two days ago. I was prepared for my other grandma to go, but not Grandma Gummy bear. We used to call her that because she always carried these giant purses with candy in them. There were always gummy bears in her purse. Not just a few, but a whole box of them. I have so many wonderful memories of her. It's hard to accept that she is not here anymore. It doesn't seem real. She was such a sweet, but sassy person. She would always brag about how people couldn't believe she had a 25 year old great granddaughter or a great great granddaughter. When we lived in California my grandparents would come out and visit us and take us to Disneyland. Mind you they were in their 70's riding on these rides with their great grand kids. They loved it. I visited them many times and Grandma would always make me feel special. She'd take me shopping to buy some new shoes or a new shirt. We'd go to the pool and sit out in the sun with our books and sip soda and eat cheese puffs. It was so fun. When I was younger she'd even take me mini golfing and to the arcades. She loved all of her grand kids. She only met Sydney a couple of times, but thought she was the best baby ever. I wish I could have gone to see her once more. I was planning on coming up in a couple of weeks to visit. I'll sure miss her.
So, my other stress is this condo. we just can't seem to finish it. Josh worked so hard on it while I was gone, but since I came home sick we haven't been able to do much. We really really need to sell this. Our house being built is moving way too fast. The other thing I'm worried about is I received an email from my supervisor at work saying they are changing the job I am doing at home to working at the school everyday, so I no longer will have a job. We were counting on my income in order to help with this new house. I feel upset about this. I worked so hard on this job and went above and beyond with it and now they change things around so that I can't have a job.
Anyway, I feel a little better about writing this all down. Maybe now I'll stop complaining and move on. I am putting some pics up here since I can't figure out the Richins website.