There is no doubt that Jillian is an "Island Princess"

Ladies and gentlemen, my niece, Jillian and my son, Aaron. She is an Island Princess, he is not.

Check out the other two new posts below...

Christmas 2008

3:15 am, December 18th...Left Kyle, TX
7:00 pm, December 18th...welcomed back to IL with an ice storm making the last 30 minutes take over an hour
9:30 am, December 19th...after spending the night at my brother's house we drove to my mom's house and slid right back down the hill of her driveway almost into a ditch. Canceled the visit to mom's and drove back to my brother's.
9:31 am, December 19th...Greg and I start asking ourselves "Why doesn't everyone just move to Texas?!"

Yes, it's no secret...we don't like the cold, ice and snow. But, we love seeing our family and we were glad we were able to see most of them on our visit. We had "jammy" Christmas fun at my mom's house in our pajams and got to hang around a lot with Tyler, Susan and the girls due to canceled plans. We were very disappointed we weren't able to go to Iowa on Sunday due to a blizzard and we had to leave Greg's mom's early due to another ice storm coming through the midwest. Seriously, Christmas in Texas next year!

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas 2008.

Jaedon's first drum set, ear plugs not included.
This picture gets harder every time!

Puzzled with Grandma Gloria.

Santa brought Aaron a big firetruack. Aaron calls it a "woo woo".

Happy New Year!

Thank you to my faithful 3 or 4 blog readers for hanging in there until I got back to the computer. I know you've been anxiously awaiting a new post :) 2008 has been another amazing year with blessing beyond our wildest dreams. We started the year not knowing what our next step was going to be and finished it moving into our new home. Thank you Lord!

This is how Aaron comes down the stairs most mornings, with an armful of his "chars" aka, cars.

He loves his "chars". He just saw the Disney Movie Cars. It was a lifesaver on the 16+ hour drive to Illinois and back. So, we decided to do his bedroom in a cars them. I painted the wall with the window seat and put up a sticker border and car picture. We were also finally able to put up the toy antique cars that Greg's grandfather collected.

This is the outside view of the house. Right now we are the only house on the street, so we have a nice little country view for a little while.

This is the view when you walk in the front door. This is the dining room which we will be using as a playroom for the forseeable future. I just painted the walls last weekend and haven't had time to do much decorating, but you get the idea!

The study where I will hopefully be giving voice lessons. It's mostly a "catchall" room right now as I await some bookshelves and a desk to put it together a little more.

The kitchen...

And the living room are one big room.

Moved in

We are finally moved in to our new house! It's been whirlwind week and a half. We love having much more space and seeing things of ours we haven't seen in a year. The community of Kyle seems very friendly and family-oriented. There are so many things to do here, we just haven't had time to do many of them! I love our backyard and being able to open it and let Aaron run around as he pleases. I love the front yard and our quiet road (we're the only house for now). Today it was about 70 degrees. After nap time I sat outside while Aaron road around on his tricycle.

We visited a church right down the road and enjoyed it. It's a smaller country type of church, but seems to have a good vision and purpose. We'll definately be visiting some others, but it was a good start.

We are still waiting for the cable company to get here to connect our phone, internet and cable. After finally using some "force" on the phone today, I finally was able to get them to schedule an appointment...for next week. Long story, don't want to get into it. But, I only have internet in the evening with Greg's broadband card borrowed from work.

Aaron is begging for my attention. I'll upload pictures when I have more time!  

Moving Day!

It's been a busy week and I haven't posted for a while. We are officially closing on the house this afternoon and moving first thing tomorrow!!! I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures and update once we have internet at the house. So, I'll be out of touch for a while. I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. I've had enough of this apartment and am so ready for a brand new house! The Lord has been so good to us this year, praise Him!

We had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving with Scott and Lana Presuhn. Again, thank the Lord for the Presuhns who are so kind and generous. At a very busy time of year for Scott, he is sacrificing his day off to help us move. Thank you is not enough!

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and I'll catch up soon!

Thank You!

Many thanks to my wonderful husband for retrieving all my files and making sure I can't accidently delete my blog again.

Oh MAN!

I was setting up a blog last night to use for my new Kindermusik families and I think I accidently erased my blog! I thought that I deleted the name for a kindermusik blog that I didn't want and I must have deleted the Geesaman Family blog! So, I guess I've lost all my past posts, but I guess and I move forward from here. Bare with me while I reconstruct. I guess it was time for a new look anyway. Well, here are some cute pictures of Aaron in the bathtub last night. He's getting into smiling for the camera...CHEESE!

Nearing the beginning...

We are almost at the end of the house build and the beginning of our life in Kyle, Tx! They were painting upstairs the day I took these, so I only have pics of the downstairs. All that's left is the finishes (flooring, appliances, fixtures). We're still hoping for the first week in December, although they haven't given us an exact date yet.Kitchen (duh!)
Right inside the front door looking at the dining room. I'm planning on sectioning off the open area with those cubby-type bookcases and using the area as a playroom.

I'd love to put a palm tree/bush in the front of the house. I've seen them around quite a bit.

Science and Nature Museum

We love Austin because there is so much to do. Today we went to the Austin Science and Nature Museum. They have some rescue animals, a pond and a huge sand pit with dinosaur bones to "uncover". We enjoyed going to this today with our friends Addy and Cooper. And, 81 degrees in November is great, too!

Halloween

Aaron caught on quick to the concept and loved that everyone gave him candy.
Aaron and Daddy getting ready to visit our first house.

My little monkey.

Thank You Mortgage Crisis!

We received some great news from our salesman this morning. In response to the mortgage news as of late, KB homes has drastically lowered the prices of their new home builds. This will end up saving us quite a bit on our monthly payment and over the life of our loan. This makes us very happy as we are planning on doing IVF next summer, and extra money will come in very handy (when does it not?!).

We had our pre-drywall orientation yesterday and everything looks great. They are trying to get the house done before Thanksgiving, but we'll see about that.

Birthday Bash!

Happy birthday Aaron! Yesterday, my little boy turned 2! We miss everyone very much and wish we could have had you all here to celebrate with us.

We had a fun-filled day starting with a visit to the Dinoland exhibit at Zilker Park Botanical Gardens. They have a maze of trails through beautiful gardens and right now have an exhibit of life-size dinosaurs. We heard lots of "roars" from Aaron this day! Actually, right now he's pointing to the pictures saying, "roar!".

After the dinosaurs we went and had lunch at the park, fed the pigeons and played on the playground. Right now he's pointing the elephant on his shirt and making his trumpeting sound.

Lana Preshun came over to help celebrate and open gifts everyone sent. Sorry I didn't get a picture of you, Lana! But, she was kind enough to take this one :) And, kind enough to give us a very noisy toy that we'll be sure to bring to her house next time we visit!

I made him a "roar" cake and he couldn't wait to dive into it.

More progress

They are speeding along. The windows and exterior doors are in and most of siding is up. I can finally start imagining what it will look like. Looks like we could be in the week after Thanksgiving!

Dinosaur teeth

We must be doing something right when Aaron cares about the oral hygeine of his dinosaurs! We've been talking a lot about dinosaurs in preparation for our birthday trip to the Dinoland Exhibit that is here in Austin.

These dinosaurs came in handy today to calm Aaron down after he took quite a tumble getting out of the van. Even though I was holding his hand he still managed to twist around and wack the back of his head on the door. It didn't break the skin, but did leave quite a bump. After finally settling down from that incident, I (stupidly) said "Please, Aaron, no more big falls today!". And, of course, not two seconds later (we were in the mall) he trips on a chair and takes a header to a big planter cutting his lip with his tooth. Thankfully my little hard head recovered and was able to take a nice long nap.

Framing!!!

They started the framing on our house Tuesday, and this picture was taken on Wednesday! It should be ready for drywall in about 3 weeks. We'll go and take a tour before that happens to check out the placement of everything before it's set in...well, drywall.

Big Boy Bed

I knew it would happen eventually, I was just hoping to hold it off a few more months. But, Aaron had other plans when he climbed right out of his crib when I put him down for a nap Sunday afternoon. I think it was that Curious George episode he watched right before...gave him bad ideas. He knew enough to not come out of his room, but I heard him playing (very quietly) with his train table. When I put him back in the crib, of course, he climbed right back out. I did make him stay in his room for about an hour before he could come out. He seemed to be having a lot of fun playing in his dark quiet room. I, however, was not ready to engage in a power struggle of staying in bed, and definately was not ready to give up my...I mean his...afternoon nap time.

So, after giving up on the nap, Greg and I foraged through the storage unit looking for the toddler bed conversion stuff. I was dreading bed time that evening, which is probably why I put it off until an our past his usual time. Side note: how do kids have more energy when they've skipped a nap? But, bed time actually went okay. I think he was a little confused on what he was supposed to do. He got out of bed a couple of times and tried to play in his room, but scurried right back into bed when I told him to. He did finally fall asleep, but woke up screaming on the floor about 12:00 am. As you can see from the picture, the side rails are fairly useless when the child sleeps in the middle of the bed. I decided to give it another try, but I might have to invest in some more side rails. I really felt like a bad mom when nothing in the world could console him except his favorite TV show. What happened to my little baby who just needed some cuddles and soft singing? After a little Spider Patch, he did go back to sleep, but woke up early at 6:40. Fortunately, nap time went really well this afternoon, no falling out at all. So, I guess my little boy is making yet another transition into a big boy. 3 more weeks until his 2nd birthday!

Capitol Tour

After living in Austin for 3 months, we finally took a day to visit the capitol building and grounds. It's a very interesting place and a great way to spend the day with the family. The capitol grounds are in the heart of downtown, so it was a fun walk up the historic streets of Austin, as well. This is a picture of the rotunda. We saw portraits of important Texas battles and important Texas people, like Davy Crockett :)

Aaron and Greg in front of the capitol building. Aaron was more interested in the cars and trucks driving by.

After our tour of the capitol, we sat down for a relaxing picnic in the connected park.

As we walked back to our car, there was some sort of street fair going on on 6th Street. This is the party street of Austin and is often blocked off for fairs, etc. There were also lots of people in town for the UT game and still many people left from the hurricane.

After our visit downtown we couldn't resist making the drive down to Kyle to see the start on our home. It's somewhat encouraging to see houses in the area that were not there 2 weeks ago. We talked with our sales guy and we were "told" the end of November was still what they were shooting for. They would like to have a closing before the end of their fiscal year, which is the end of November. I would love to get in as soon as possible also, but I also want a house that's going to stay together! After checking this out, we found an awesome Mexcian place in town, which I'm sure we'll visit much more in the future.

Haircut

The curly mohawk was cute for a while, but we decided to go ahead and give Aaron his first (at-home) hair-cut today! He did really well with the buzzer, but didn't let me use the scissors. And yes...I did save some to scrapbook!
Before...

Before...

After...

Another visit to Zilker

My friend, Janessa, and I took 5 kids to Zilker park today (Aaron, her two and two children she is watching for a neighbor). It has cooked down quite a bit here (for a while anyway). Today is in the upper 70s and it was a perfect day to enjoy the park, walk along the creek watching all the dogs who jump in and swim, and have a picnic. Aaron is sleeping away right now as I steal a few minutes for a quick update. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so no cute pics of this one.

It's been interesting to see and hear about all the evacuees from Ike that are making their temporary home in Austin. Most of the power is out in Houston and Galveston sounds like it may never be the same again. We read about 5,000 people are staying in Austin until power is restored in the area. So, at the parks we see lots of families hanging out with their dogs and know they are evacuees. As far as Austin and the hurricane, it passed right by us, we didn't even get a drop of rain! It sounds like that happens quite a bit as hurricanes come by, but it was an exciting couple of days wondering what it might be like to be in a hurricane. But, hopefully we won't ever have to find out!

In house news...the building has officially (finally) started! We are the proud almost owners of some plumbing and foundation form boards. We will be going down for a pre-construction orientation next week. We are excited to see some progress and look forward to moving in soon!

They arrest people for this!

I just got back from Walgreens and they paid me $6.80 for unloading all this from them!

Chex Mix on sale for .99 with $1.00 off coupon http://www.chex.com/Snacks/fantasyfootball/, free after coupon.

Colgate on sale for 2.99 with B1G1 coupon from Walgreens add (you can find this in the store) combined with 2 $1.50 here http://www.colgate.com/app/ColgateTotal/US/EN/Total-Advanced/Home.cvsp, free after coupons.

Visine on sale for 3.99 with $2 Walgreens Super Saver coupon (from booklet you can find in store) and $2 coupon you can find on http://www.couponcravings.com/. You'll need to scroll down and find the post about Visine. free after coupons.

And the best...Robitussin on sale for $3.99 with $3 coupon https://j.ovm1.net/wch1/Robitussinstandalone/default.aspx?c=1373&p=ROB06019&s=01Get 3 Robitussin (the regular, not the Max), use 3 of these coupons and you'll receive $10 in Register Rewards to use on you next purchase. This should be $3.20 or so with tax out of pocket.

The Robitussin coupon is great because you can print as many as you want. It takes you to a you computer's print screen. You can make the number of copies as many as you'd like. So, go and make money at Walgreens! This deal is good for the entire month! If we get a bad cold this winter, we'll be set. But, I'll plan on giving some of these away to friends or a shelter.

I'm having a good time getting these deals and so far have saved about 25% on our grocery budget. I'm hoping to save another %25 next month.

Labor Day Cookout

We've been enjoying going to local parks and cooking on the grills for outings lately. So, that' s what we did on Labor Day. Here are Greg and Aaron waiting for their hot dogs and hamburgers. Aaron ate only watermelon. I think he could probably eat an entire watermelon himself!

House update...We had a slight set-back when we had to switch lots (again). For some reason they couldn't do the covered patio. So, we were moved to a different lot, which is actually an even better lot. It's a little bigger and on a smaller culdesac (only 6 other housed in the street). The back lots around the circle part of the culdesac are not going to be developed, so there will be a large green area and paved place for us to hang out and play. I was told they are starting the plumbing at the end of this week and will hopefully have the foundation poured by the end of next week. That will put us a week behind our original time-line. Hopefully I can get a completion date soon, so we can look forward to an end to this apartment! I would love to be in by Thanksgiving, but early December seems more realistic.

I've found a couple of possibilities on places to hold Kindermusik classes in Kyle starting in January. I'm working with a woman with an established program in Austin and her experience has been very helpful in this process. I'm meeting with a church in Kyle, which is very close to our house, tomorrow evening. Hopefully that will work out, but we'll see!

For right now we are enjoying a lot of free time and looking forward to our new home and finally getting settled!

Playing in the Rain

We went to the park and had a cookout in beautiful weather, then it dumped on us on the way home. We waited in the car for a while, then made a dash for it. But, I couldn't resist letting Aaron play in the rain.
And, my CVS raid for this week...spent $3.75 out of pocket and earned $5.00 in Extra Care Bucks. It would have been just over a dollar oop, but we needed ice! In an effort to save as much money as possible for IVF, I've gotten into couponing and checking the adds for sales. My goal is to cut our grocery budget in half...we'll see!