Mr. Frog

I am trying to catch up my posts, I have been slacking lately since we have been so busy. I am taking the day to relax and I must say it is SO NICE! I am sitting here on the couch on the computer and catching up on my Day's reruns and I cant remember the last time that I did this! It is great!

Here are some pictures of Connor in his froggy robe after his bath the other night which was a gift from Connors Aunt Hillary. Thanks Aunt Hillary, we are just now able to fit in it and the arms are still a little long. Dont I look adorable, though?

Drought...

Even the Cypress trees are dying!
At least the crepe myrtle is blooming!
Pretty Flower!

Last night we went over to the new house to set out stakes for the new fence that will be built next week. As you can see from the pictures we dont have much of a lawn, only brown crunchy dormant grass. It has been so HOT here lately in Mid Tenn, we have broken many records in temps and we have had about a month of triple digit temperatures.

We think we are really going to enjoy our new neighborhood. Every time we go, we meet another set of neighbors! They have all been very nice and welcoming! I am getting excited because there are some girls on both sides of us that will make great babysitters soon! Yahoo!

Cheer Up Daddy!

We had a rough weekend here at the Thompson household. To start on Thursday night Connor started vomiting in his sleep right after I put him to bed. I thought that he had just eaten to much so I picked him up, changed him and the sheets and put him back to bed. I left and turned on the monitor and heard him 5 minutes later doing it all over again. It turns out he contracted a virus at Betty's (his sitter) house from another little boy about his same age. I found this out when I called her to let her know that he wouldnt be coming over the next day and she told me that Connor was trying to drink out of his sippy cup a couple of days before. Well, luckily it didnt last too long for little Connor! However, Brad came down with it on Sunday morning at 3:00 am and it lasted all night, and all day. To make matters even more interesting we had an Open House scheduled for Sunday also, plus we were expecting a visit from Grannie, Poppa, and An Am and her new boyfriend Pete. Brad insisted that he felt OK and he thought things were getting better so we told Brads parent to come on for the visit since they were already on their way. They ended up only staying for a few hours since Brad was still feeling bad. Sorry guys!!! We hate that you all came all this way for just a short trip! We will see you again soon!

The rest of the day consisted of me cleaning and getting ready to leave the house to go to my parents before the Open House started. Poor Brad stayed quarantined upstairs while Connor and I played with Nonna and Grandy downstairs. Needless to say, by the end of the day Connor and I were pooped! Brad started to feel better that evening and went back to work on Monday! The strange thing about all of this is that I have been cleaning it all up, plus I am around Connor more and I have YET to get it. I pray that I DONT after seeing Brad battle the virus. I guess it is harder on adults than infants- whew! The one GOOD thing that came out of the weekend is that we had a showing on Saturday that went very well, and our Open House was a success with 5 families showing up. Everyone liked the house and 3 of the families were very interested. One of the families has called our realtor to say that they will probably want a second showing on Saturday morning!! Yaahhh! I hope we get a couple of offers soon! I cant believe we are set to close on the new house the Friday after next!

Here are some pictures of Connor trying to cheer his Daddy up since he gave him the sickness! This is the lil' Chipper Braves uniform that Brad got him at the Braves game a couple of months ago. Doesn't he look adorable! Connor is already showing signs of being a star baseball player. He LOVES when we play ball with him!! He is working on his curve right now, Ha! not really...

Stay tuned for some pictures of Connor in another teams gear, Nonna and Grandy leave this week for Yankee Stadium and I am sure there will be something in the suitcase for Connor when they get back!

Sailor enters the world!

Our good friends since childhood, Nikki and Joe had their baby girl Sailor on Wednesday! I thought I would help Heather in spreading the news, since Nikki and Joe have their hands full now! We are so excited for them to experience parenthood! They will be wonderful parents to their new baby girl! Congrats, you guys!!! I will pray for you this week, there are so many new things to learn at first! You all are about to experience more joy than you ever thought you possible! Happy Birthday Sailor!!

Hugs and Kisses to my Ducky! XXOO

House Update

I wanted to give everyone an update on what has been going on with the house this week. As you all know we were very excited that we got our first offer on Monday. Just to recap, we counter offered because the price they offered was low and they wanted a sale contigency for their home in Memphis among other things. Well, they rejected our offer. Their realtor said they decided to go with the new construction home that they had been looking at. Apparently they needed more time to sell their house, which I dont blame them because we are in the same situation trying to sell ours in a slow market. However, we dont have a sale contigency so we are going to have 2 houses soon! I just got a call that we have a showing tomorrow at noon and we have another open house planned for Sunday. Keep your fingers crossed that the perfect buyer will come along soon! Thanks for the prayers everyone!

Things are starting to fall into place...

After a week of nothing by worry and STRESS, I think things might be starting to fall into place. The past week has been a whirlwind of decisions about what we should do about the house that we have a contract on and our existing home. The news hasn't made us feel much better about a already bad situation with the housing market! Every time I turn around, I am hearing how bad it is and that it is going to get worse. Almost every financial expert I have heard has advised people not to sell now, if you can possibly help it. We were seriously considering trying to get out of our contract with the new house because of the mortgage downfall and due to the fact that we might be paying "twice" the house payment for a while until we sell our house. Yesterday at noon, we officially decided that we were going to back out of the contract using the inspection contingency. However, late in the afternoon several things changed and we actually got an OFFER late last night. We countered because it was a little lower than we were wanting, plus they want a sale contingency, which was my biggest fear all along. The couple is relocating from Memphis so that makes us a little hesitant because we don't know that market very well. Please pray for us that we will reach an agreement! It would make all of this much more settling if we knew that we had a contract on OUR house!!! We are at a little less than 3 weeks from our closing! Time is sure moving quickly! I guess I will spend the rest of my day- guess... PACKING!

English Garden Tea Room

Our entire family has been very busy lately! I am so excited to announce that my Mom's dreams of owning and operating a Tea House are finally becoming a reality! As most of you know, my Aunt Linda moved here last year from New York and they have been working on plans to open a Tea House together! Aunt Linda owned a very successful antique business and has also helped a friend by working at her Tea House in NY. As you can imagine this is right up both of their allies! My Mom will do the baking, which is her passion and my Aunt Linda will make the Tea House look beautiful with her gift of decorating and knowledge of antiques, among many other things! I am so excited for them both, since they have lived such a long distance apart for most of their lives and now they get to share this opportunity together! My only regret is that it will be so far away from where I live, that I wont get to help out as much as I would like to.

After looking for the perfect house for almost a year, they FINALLY found this one and it is all falling into place! The house is downtown Gallatin and is already zoned commercial, which is a HUGE deal because that was going to be a long, tedious process to go through if not. Also, there was another piece of land next to it that they bought along with it for their parking lot. How perfect! The house is also extremely rare as it is a New Orleans shotgun style house believed to have been built around 1886 & moved to the current location around 1930. I haven't actually seen the house myself, but as I am told it doesn't need any work done to it all. There is a spiral staircase that is really pretty from the pictures!

I will keep you posted on the opening of the English Garden. Right now it is planned for mid October! Please pray that everything will go smoothly for their closing on Monday and that God will bless the English Garden!

Oops, Busted!!!

Today I went in to check on Connor because I heard him stirring from his nap. This is what I found! I quietly tip toed out of the room to go and get my camera so I could show him this picture one day! Last week, we went in to check on him because we heard him screaming and we found him lying in there with his mobile on top of him! Now I guess we know how it got there... Just look at that smile! I think he knows he got caught doing something!

How did I get here?

Ok, Ok, Connor isnt walking or pulling up quite yet. However he proved to us last night that he was very strong! Daddy stood him up next to the couch and he was able to stand there on his own for quite a while before getting off balance and toppling down. Connor is still not making any attempts to crawl, but as soon as he figures out how to pull up on things he is going to be into everything! He is one curious little boy!!

Happy 1st Birthday to my pal Hayden!

I hope you have a great 1st birthday!! I hope I get to play with you soon, ole buddy!

I LOVE shoes!

Mommy's Boy!

These pictures were made right before Connor's bath. I love that time with him because he is so happy! As soon as we enter the doorway to the bathroom, his face lights up because he knows that "bathtime" is ahead! He truly treasures that time and I know that I always will!

The trials of moving, teething, and sleepless nights...

For the two weeks we have been struggling with trying to pack for our move, get Connor back on a sleeping schedule, and the pains of caring for an infant that is teething. It has been exhausting, however we are making some progress with Connor at nap times and bedtime. I have started to lay him down to cry it out for his naps because he wont let me rock him to sleep like he used to. He fights sleep so badly, and he is getting to the age where he knows how to manipulate the situation. So I have decided that it is only going to get harder as he gets older, plus getting no sleep and trying to work is beginning to get the best of me. He is doing well and only cries for about 10 minutes tops at nap times! YAHOO! Today he set a new record, 2 minutes and he was snoring away!!!! I think that God is beginning to answer my prayers on this one. At bedtime, he will only cry for about 3o minutes, which is great progress! The past few nights have been rough because Connor has been running a temperature of 101 due to teething. However, despite this still NO TEETH yet. I am sure they will start popping up soon! Last night we decided that since he was feeling better and didn't have a temp. we would try letting him cry himself to sleep. After several visits to his room checking on him and turning him over he fell asleep on his own after only an hour!!! This was better than I had expected. He slept till 10:00 am this morning, which was wonderful because we both caught up on some much needed sleep!! I can only hope that this will get better and we will have him sleeping through the night very soon!!!

Packing is a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it!

As you can see Connor has been very busy the past few days packing away some of his things. Bye bye doggy, I will see ya again at my new house! The last few pics are of Connor relaxing after a hard day (just like a man...) in his big boy recliner. He already fits the part quite well, dont you think?

Happy Birthday Pops!

WE HOPE YOU HAD A WONDERFUL DAY, POPS! WE LOVE YOU!!!

Connor's GIANT Glowworm

On Sunday we held an open house to try and get some more buyers to see our house. Since we had to leave the house for the day, we went to Lebanon to visit Nonna, Grandy, Uncle Brett, and Aunt Hillary. When we arrived Connor had a huge present to open. No, there was no special occasion. They just wanted to spoil him since he was the only grandson and nephew on the Neal side. Here are some pictures of Connor on his giant glowworm (as we call it). He loved chewing on its antenna's! Thanks you guys, Connor loves you!