Exciting Week so Far

Perpetual motion - I guess that's our biggest family descriptor this week. What chaos!

The Twin Terrors are full of spunk - as in owly, really grouchy spunk, as they gnaw on their fingers way in the back of their mouths. Along with owliness comes not sleeping great, being tumbly, and creating more reasons for owliness. Oh well, the molars have to pop out eventually, right?

In the Grant department, guess who has started to coo and smile? At about 1:30 this morning, as I was finally getting ready for bed, Grant was the sweetest little boy ever. Those big eyes - and smiles so wide he had deep dimples on both sides! I had to stay up for another hour because he was too cute to put to sleep.

In housing news, we received an offer on our house - the house that DH has been slaving over. Are we nuts, you ask? Quite possibly, I say. Very well could be.

Here's the scoop. Since we first decided to build a Parade of Homes house, DH and I both agreed that we had to keep in mind that it might generate some more business for him (that's the main goal, anyway). Ultimately, we'd agreed that there's always the chance someone might want to buy it from us, and if we received a good offer, we'd take it and enjoy the equity that would come straight out of the project. In other words, get into the project, but don't set your heart on anything until we actually move in. Well, I'm glad we haven't ordered change-of-address labels yet.

The offer is contingent on the sale of the buyers' house, but I know their realtor well and she's a mover and a shaker. If anyone can sell a house, she's the gal. The timing is really nice for us for some peace of mind. With me not working for so long and with nothing huge lined up work-wise yet, it's daunting to think of moving into a big and beautiful house and having to budget so tightly in order to survive on one income. My workload may very well change in the near future, but in case it doesn't, I appreciate the out. When the decided to start building, though, work was flowing and there was no sign of lost funding or anything like that on the client end, and once you start building, it's not like you can just pull out until the wife finds more work.

That's not to say we'll remain apartment dwellers for long, however. We've had a backup plan for what ifs re: the Parade House, and once the chaos of the Parade is done, we'll start with that route. And no, we're not building another home from scratch. We miss DH too much and I think he misses his sanity, too much.

There is another builder in town who we greatly respect - he builds beautiful spec homes, but charges way too little for them. How more people haven't realized this is beyond me - he's truly one of the best-kept construction secrets around. Anyway, we'll likely have his guys put up the shell, then DH would spend a couple months finishing it to make it more custom for our preferences. Our lease is up in August, so the timing for moving might be just right. We have to get out of here before I'm completely bald from ripping hair after hair out.

On to career updates - I'm starting a new editing project. Thanks to a referral from my sister-in-law-in-law, I've lined up a new gig through some of her colleagues and I get to start soon. Which means the girls can go back to daycare! And since I'll be working from home, I'm going to see how it goes to keep Grant here with me for a while. I'm not sure how much work the project entails just yet, but it's for a good client that I've worked with in the past. And it's work I'm quite familiar with, so I'm really looking forward to it. Thanks, Angie!

In terms of happenings with the in-laws, DH's brother is getting married on April 19. This means DH's sister who lives in Idaho will be coming home for a couple weeks, and is bringing her fiance and her pre-teen daughter. I've only seen them twice - the first time at my own wedding - so I look forward to some time spent getting to know them a little better. (This also means that I will miss out on the long-awaited Mothers of Multiples convention here in Fargo that so many of my friends get to go to - tip one for me, girls!) Along with the wedding comes all the typical wedding stuff- bachelor/ette parties, rehearsal, groom's dinner, etc. The bridal shower is already done, so that's good. Bad timing for us, but a fun celebration anyway.

For the next 5 weeks, it will be sheer chaos for us. After the Parade of Homes is done, we can breathe again. Does this mean normalcy might be in sight? I'm not counting on it until it happens, if it ever does. But things are moving nonetheless, and it is kind of exciting.