November 19

Daisy and I woke up this morning (at 8:00! Praise the Lord!) to find this:

That would be Caleb,"helping" Daddy make waffles for us. Yum. What a good husbando I have.

After breakfast, we all headed to the library to do a little Consumer Reports research, then to Lowe's to...

 purchase appliances! Right now it looks like we'll be closing on the new house sometime early to mid-December, but Lowe's was having a pretty unbeatable sale. We bought a beautiful refrigerator, as well as a really fantastic washer and dryer. Then, though we were perfectly happy with the great sale price, Chris happened to ask if they could give us an additional discount. And they did! They took an extra 10% off! All told, we got our appliances for nearly half their regular price. Lowe's will hold on to them until we have possession of the house, then deliver and install them for free. And if - heaven forbid - something were to go terribly awry with the home purchase, we can still return them and get all of our money back. Pretty sweet, huh?

Buying appliances definitely makes the whole thing seem a lot more real. That's both exciting, and terrifying because 1. we still have  no tenant for our current home and 2. the new home needs a lot of work. A LOT. But we're ready to take it on!

This girl is ready to take it on, too. I'm thinking she's going to grow up with a hammer in one hand and a tape measure in the other. She'll either end up a really skilled do-it-yourselfer, or the kind of girl who only buys brand-new things. Only time will tell.

I promise to love her either way.

After his nap, Caleb spent some time running around in the mid-November chill.

He thought he was pretty hot stuff when he sat on his ball.

But then...

Whoops! He didn't mind, though.

My loveys.

(Daisy's pants? Size 12 months. Thank goodness for bulky cloth diapers; otherwise, I'd be sewing darts into all her pants. Her legs are much longer than her waist is wide.)

My plan for the new home and the kids is this:

Daisy will do the cleaning, and Caleb can do the yard work.

He's already a pro at mowing the lawn.

I even got him to till my garden for me today!

They just need to get a little bit bigger, and then my ultimate goal of doing nothing but sitting on the couch and eating bon-bons will finally be realized. It's about time.