Love Thy Neighbor? No thanks

I've had some people asking me about our neighbor situation so I though instead of telling the story individually I would just type it out.  I will try and make this as short and not boring as possible.

Lloyd is our 80y.o. neighbor, actually he's not even our neighbor, he just owns the house his son lives in and goes to the house like 42 times a day.  Well Lloyds driveway is actually an easement and our house and one other house happen to sit on this easement as our driveway also; however, since its Lloyds "driveway" he is the one who has to maintain the easement and not anyone else, otherwise he would have never been able to have these other 2 houses built.  Our easement is gravel and after the rain and snow in 2009-2010 pot holes started to develop so Lloyd came over and asked us and the one other house on the easement if he had some rock brought in, would we be willing to pay $100 for the cost of the rock? No promblem, technically by law, we don't have to pay him anything, but why not, we use the driveway too.  

About a week later I see rock being dropped off in sections of the easement and I actually remember thinking to myself "thats not a lot of rock at all!"  Well, I leave for work and come home to find out that Lloyd had not rocked our "section" of the driveway.  Here is a picture to show what I'm talking about:

The red square is our land and B is our house.  The blue "A" at the bottom is Lloyds house and C is the other neighbors house.  The purple is where he put rock...as you can see, he skipped our section of the driveway.  

Well, I thought the reason he had not rocked our part was b/c we had not paid him yet (Thank goodness we didn't).  A few days later, Lloyd came and asked for our part of the money.  Ummm Old Man, you didn't rock our section.  His excuse was that there was asphalt on our section (there isn't) and rock would just slide off...yet he still wanted money.  NO, not gonna happen.

This was in early to mid 2010 and I just found out that he went and talked to our neighbors about how we still have not paid him (which is no surprise, Lloyd is always going over to the other neighbors house to talk about us)  He told our neighbor B that "I know Jeff would pay me, but its that wife of his that is preventing him from paying me the money for the rock; she chewed my ass one time"  

Ummmm....your darn right I chewed your ass.  I still plan on chewing your ass the next time you come over and ask us for more money.

Lloyds solution to all of this? He's going to put a "fence" up around his pond (see picture above) so we can't "use" it.  He had told us when we first moved in we could go fishing in his pond.  Hey douche-canoe, there arn't any fish in your so called "pond" anyway.  

I think the funny part in all of this is that anytime now, Lloyd will be putting down more rock from our winter this year....I'd like to see him come ask us for more money.

(I should also add as a side-story, that this is the man that tried to knock down branches of OUR tree on OUR property with a front loader.......yeah, we're really lucky to live here)

3 month pictures!

On Saturday we had Cecelia's 3 month pictures taken.  She won't actually be 3 months until the 22nd, but who cares about a few days, right?  I thought I would show off my sweet girl and some of my favorite pictures!

 She's getting so big!  I can't believe we went from this

To this

 She's growing up right before our eyes.  I'm happy, yet went it to slow down!

Transitioning

We've decided to make the transition from the swing into the crib.  Well, we never really decided, we actually had no choice.  We walked into this yesterday

this also happened to be her first time rolling over....figures

People  have been telling us to just lose the swaddle and buckle her in, well she won't sleep w/o the swaddle and even while there is a slit in the back of a swaddle to buckle her in, there would be no way she would put herself to sleep in the swing w/o us.  

Yes we rock her to sleep....accidental parenting.  

So, as of 9:15am on Friday the 18th of February, Cecelia started sleeping in her crib.  It is currently 9:50am and this is what I'm seeing

I'm seriously impressed

Now, lets not get ahead of ourselves, here.  This is ONE nap.  We still have THREE more naps to get through, and then bed time....holy crap.

I should also add, we're doing all of this without Cry It Out.  Yes, it works for some people, but its not for me or her.  

So here we are, now almost 45 min into sleepy time in the crib and I wonder...why didn't I try this before?

A trip to the park!

We've had some awesome weather lately! Windows down in the car and music playing loudly kind of awesome.  So what do we do on awesome days like today? Go to the park, of course!  Here are some pictures of our park time; which also happened to be Cecelia and Caleb's first park trip!

I would say our first day at the park was a success! Hopefully this beautiful weather keeps up and next time, Dad can come with us.

In other news, we've decided to not sell the house at this moment.  We loved what the Realtor had to say, but  now is just not our time (our words, not hers).  We decided that it was in our best interest to fix up the house we live in now and put it on the market in about 2 more years.  We went yesterday and purchased a new Stainless Steel stove and over the range Microwave.  It will be here Sunday and I am so excited!  

The next project will be the guest bathroom.  I will make sure I post before and after pictures of that when its complete, along with before and after pictures of the new kitchen appliances!  

I'm excited we decided to go this route- I think it will be in our best interest!

Somewhat Wordless Sunday

I don't really have much to say so I am going to bombard you with pictures.  You're welcome!

She's just so darn cute!  As you can see, she's starting to smile so much now! I'd say its about 50/50.  50% shes smiling and the other 50% shes less than amused and starts crying.  I'm trying to figure out a sure fire way to get her to smile...so far, no such luck.

What are some things you do to get your little one to smile?

More on this whole moving thing

As I told a friend of mine earlier, I have a Patron taste on a PBR budget. (We can afford more than PBR, and would actually never think of drinking it, we're more Bud Light type people- but you get what I'm saying).  Of course, I would love to live in a house like this

This house ^ is actually going for 1.2 million.  Its a nice house, but the inside is ever nicer...

But we're thinking these are more in our price range

   

Both of these houses are in our price range and in the subdivision I want to move into.  Plus, their in the city where Jeff works, and right next to my Sister and Brother in Law.  

The 2 story house is actually cheaper than the one story...we'll see whats up with that.  

I wish that when Jeff and I first looked into buying a home we would have waited.  Waited for this crappy economy to fall out so then we wouldn't have had to worry about selling our home.  

Hopefully we'll find someone to buy our house, and we'll be able to make a profit...

I hope this works out to our advantage

Jeff and I want to move.  We always knew that when you bought this house that we wouldn't be here forever. I LOVE LOVE LOVED this house when we first bought it.  Actually, it was just lust.  I loved the idea of having our own place but now I realize it wasn't this house that I loved...just the idea.

Jeff works in GC and I've always wanted to move there.  Its in the school district we both grew up in and if we live in GC he'll get to come home more while he's working.  We have a house that we both do like, but sometimes I can't help but think that maybe I just want to move so I can have some change.  If you don't know me, then you don't know how much I like to change things up.  You're probably thinking "uh..you just had a baby, isn't that change enough" the simple answer is, no.  

We're finally getting into a routine with Cecelia and when things become to "routine" for me, I get bored; hence the wanting to move.  I like to do things on a whim, so when I got this idea to move in my head last week, I was ready to pack up our stuff and take off that minute; but Jeff is planner and that would have totally thrown him way off.  It's actually crazy to think that Jeff is actually agreeing to this, so while he is, I'm having the Realtor come over and look at our house this week.  (It's always best to not have him stop and think otherwise he'll change his mind.)  

Enough with my rambling- Cecelia weighs 10lbs! My little chunk!  She had to go to the Dr. this week b/c of a mysterious rash.  The rash, we have come to find out, is a result of Cow's Milk Sensitivity.  So she's now on soy formula.  (yes, we stopped breastfeeding, but I won't say why b/c I shouldn't have to justify my reasoning for not breastfeeding.  As long as I'm feeding my kid, thats all that matters)  Her rash is better, so if it doesn't completely go away, we'll be making another trip back to the Dr.

I now leave you with my favorite picture of her to date

Epic Fail, Snowmageddon. Epic Fail

Well, Snowmageddon came and went.  All without anyone taking notice.  Now, I do have to say that I do not blame the Meteorologists.  This is not an exact Science, and if it was you wouldn't need them to give you the weather b/c we would already know, now wouldn't we?

Low pressure systems; any pressure system for that matter, are tricky little creatures.  Any and I mean any shift in the system can cause some crazy things to happen.  Just think, if this system would have stayed on more of an eastern track, even just moving a little more east, we would have gotten slammed

Warrenton, Mo.  

But instead, we got this

You can't tell by this picture, but our windshield cracked....stupid cold

Oh well. I'm ready for winter to be over.  I'm ready for some of my two favorite boys to be twinkies and play in the sun together.  The only thing that will make this picture better, is that this summer there will be a beautiful little girl in a bikini will her milk belly hanging out.

Speaking of warmer weather, Phil did not see his shadow today!  You know what that means!!!  I wonder if Phil knows how much we rely on him to come out of his hole.  He's a very important man.