nothing much new

A few of you have asked how things are going with the house. So far, we're just playing a waiting game. We have it listed with Matt's mom now. We were spending too much time, energy, and money trying to market it ourselves and it's hard to get the exposure you get when you list is, so we went ahead and listed it w/ her. We've actually had quite a lot of people looking at it, but either they have a house to sell and aren't ready to make any offers or they are looking for a little bit bigger of a yard.
I'm sure it will sell, but it will take longer than usual. It's just not a great time for real estate. Matt's mom is doing an Open House on Sunday, so hopefully that will bring in some perspective buyers.

Nothing much else is new. Ally will turn 5 next Friday. I can't believe my baby is going to be 5!!! It's just crazy how fast time has flown by ! She is loving preschool and doing so well! She's starting to recognize small words in books and starting to figure out how to write small words. Tonight, she drew a picture of Frosty The Snowman and wrote "FRSTY"all by herself. She forgot the "O", but I couldn't believe she did that by herself. She's so smart! :)

Tommy is doing really well, too. He's very easy to please. He loves spending 1 on 1 time w/ me while Ally is in school, but on the other hand, he misses her terribly. He asks me all the time when we are going to get ally. He's my little helper. Always willing to take care of little chores for me. He's doing better with talking. He has had some speech issues, but he's getting better. We may consider seeing a speech therapist if he hasn't improved more by his birthday in December. He's communicating, which is good, but he's subsituting certain letters for others. To some extent that's normal, but there are certain letters that they consider red flags at age 3 and Tommy switches all those letters. I'm sure in time he will learn, but if he's still making those substitutions at 3, I would rather get him checked out. He's a very smart little boy. Very mechanical like his daddy. He loves to see how things come apart and go back together.

Matt's been busy at work. He really likes it there. In November, he will have been in this "new" position for 1 year, although, he trained for the first 6 months of it so he's really only been on his own for about 5 months. He's the "go to" guy, so he's enjoying the step up.

I am still taking orders for a home shopping channel. It's been great. I can work for an hour here and there, which is perfect. I usually work when the kids are sleeping, so it is just enough to have a little extra money for "fun" stuff.
I have also opened up my own Amazon.com Marketplace. The merchant name is Christmastoyshop if you ever get a chance to check it out. It's been good. I spend a lot of time and energy shopping for good prices/sales/coupons, etc and put my items on there. Our basement looks like a toy warehouse (lol) but it is organized and stacked nicely. Matt has a UPS account at work, so we can ship things at an incredible discount, which helps. It's been pretty good for us so far. I was originally thinking of only doing this during the holidays, but I'm considering doing this full time even after the holidays.

Other than that, nothing is new. Just keeping up w/ the kids and trying to keep the house clean for showings. We'll keep you all updated!