Our New Property

As many of you may know, we have spent the better part of the last three years looking for a new, bigger house. Every house we looked at we would say, "If we change this and this and this it would be perfect." After a while we figured we were

making so many changes we might as well build our own. So that is exactly what we are doing.

After spending a few months perfecting the floor plan we started trying to find property. The lot we found went up for sale the same day our floor plan was finally completed so we decided it was destiny ;-) We went to look at it and found a baseball in our yard so we kept it. Round Rawlings makes his way into many of our pictures.

These pictures were taken

shortly after our sold sign went up.

We're back!

Hi everyone. After more than a year away, I have decided to restart the blog. Rather than post a year's worth of pictures I will just update mostly with words and then start posting our construction pictures in the next post.

Addison is getting really big and remains really spirited. She tries very hard to do everything her big brother does and finds many ways to get into trouble that her brother never even imagined. She is the most interesting mixture of girly-

girl and tom-boy. Sometimes she is a princess and sometimes she's a hockey player. She likes to wear dresses, but won't wear dress shoes. Instead she wears her trusty pink Chucks with all of her dresses. She is talking up a storm and getting the hang of counting to 10. She desperately wants a bike, but is just too small. She recently decided she is afraid of everything that makes a loud noise (just in time for 4th of July fireworks) and taking baths.

James is also getting really big (grew 4 1/2 inches and 4 lbs in a year) and, for the most part, remains his steady, even-tempered self. He recently finished preschool and will start Kindergarten in the fall. He is already reading quite fluently and has an amazingly

innate ability to understand math. His preschool teacher said that he would be talking to the person next to him so she would ask him what she was talking about (to try to bust him not paying attention) and he would always know what was going on, but no one around him would have a clue. I'm assuming we will have similar problems in kindergarten.

Jam continues to LOVE everything sports. He plays hockey, soccer, t-ball, basketball, lacrosse, tennis, and recently started biking with his training wheels off.

Joel is still working at the MGH Negaunee clinic. He is very busy and loving every minute of it. His patients all love him and we see them everywhere we go. I can't remember the last time we were out and didn't see a patient. He, of course, still makes plenty of time for the kids and I. He balances his professional and private life beautifully.

He is still obsessed with biking, and recently bought his first full-suspension. He has already been in one mt. bike race this summer and has at least 3 more to go. Besides all of the above, he is going to help out as much as he can with the building of our new house.

I am also doing well, with the exception of some troubling head aches. I am still staying at home with the kids and enjoying getting to watch all the ways they

grow and change. I was going to do my first Ore 2 Shore this summer, but that probably won't be happening now. There is always next summer. I have been doing a lot of the coordination of everything for the new house and can't wait for Addison to have a bedroom and Joel to have a closet for all of his dress clothes (right now they are mostly in the basement or the pantry in the kitchen). I also made sure to include a nice comfy window seat for me :-)

So that is us. We are doing well and having fun. As I type, Addison is trying to crawl up into my lap because Joel started mowing the lawn outside. Oh the horror! Hopefully I will update again soon with some picks of the new house.