| Our New Home |
Well, yesterday we removed the subjects from the offer -- which means that the house is officially going to be ours on April 13th! Here are some photos from yesterday. By the way the building inspection went great -- the guy kept saying that everything was above average. Nice to hear.
Here we are at our new home.
When you come in the front door there is a little entry way and then the living room/dining room. This photo is looking towards the front of the house from the living room.
If you turn around and face the back of the house you'll see the dining area, and Lance too.
Going to your right through the doorway you'll enter the kitchen, my favorite room in the house.
Here I am in the kitchen.
This is a shot from the deck - which we are really looking forward to using.
This will be the guestroom/den. Note the wainscotting.
Downstairs this is what will be the office/artspace. The stairs are directly opposite the computer.
This is the nursery to be. It is directly behind where I was when I took the office/artspace photo.
This room, and photo of the room, requires the most imagination. This will be our room. It is the "rumpus room" currently and not closed off from the office/artspace area. We plan to just hang a curtain to separate it into a room -- instead of renovating and actually building it into a room -- which would really break up the current open feel of the basement. I figure our bed will be under the window (where the oppressive entertainment center is now).
Here's a shot of the garden, which I am very excited about. We'll see if anything happens there during this busy summer. Maybe I'll throw in some seeds and if we water them and they grow, great. If we neglect them and they die, that's okay too.
Not pictured is the bathroom upstairs - it's small so it was hard to get a good photo. A planned renovation is adding a basement bathroom as well as moving the laundry upstairs into our back entry way -- also not pictured.
Anyways there's the tour. I walked by the house to see if the sold sign was up, I guess I was a little too keen and they hadn't put it up yet. I can wait.
Hope you are well. I'm off to have a nap. And then I absolutely must do some art. You may recall that Friday is art day -- yeah, I've kind of been on a sabbatical from art day. Time to get back at it.
Aimee |
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| A funny thing |
It seems a funny thing to be excited about, but I am. I had a prenatal appointment today and got weighed for the first time in 6 weeks (no scale at home). Many entries back I wrote about how I've been trying to gain weight -- mostly due to my book about twins which encourages mothers of multiples to gain 24lbs by 24 weeks. Well this seemed like an impossible task to me. Seeing as I'd gained 8 between Dec 2 and Jan 9. Mom and I were guessing last night at how much weight I've gained, she guessed 12lbs since the last appointment. I thought that sounded pretty good.
The actual figure? 17.5lbs!!!! If you count gains and losses since the start of my pregnancy, this puts me at 23lbs of weight gain, and I'm 23.5 weeks along. Now to mothers of single babies this figure may sound too high -- but it's just right for twins and I am so relieved and happy about this. Never been happy about weight gain before. All that snacking (for the most part healthy) has been paying off.
Another cool thing is that I measured the same as a woman carrying one baby would at 30 weeks. So there. Some ammunition for those who say "you're so small for carrying twins". Not so.
The babies kick like crazy and Lance likes to feel them too. Sometimes they'll give him a good strong kick and he'll be so surprised. We call them the wigglers and Lance made a little song about them -- I love it. A couple students have had the chance to feel them kick and they really like that.
Any other news from the appointment... things seems to be going just fine. And finally I have been referred to the doctor that will be delivering these little ones. I've been waiting since December knowing that this referal would come but just being in the dark about when. His office will call me to set up an appointment.
On an interesting note. I am currently in possesion of my medical file. Now this may not be exciting to you, but I am very curious about what they're always writing down in their and find that unless I ask I'm only given a minimal amount of information. The nurse handed me my file and told me to bring it to my appointment with Dr Ward (my new doctor). I felt that she had given me some secret information. So I've read through it and learned a few things - my blood type: AB+, that I don't have any diseases that they checked me for... There was also a lot of stuff that was in mysterious doctor codes - I think I'll get Jenna to do some translating for me before I have to relinquish the file.
I just got off the phone with Cara! It was lovely. The neat thing about being pregnant is that when we are pregnant - her with Sarah awhile back and now me, we keep in better touch with each other. It's fun to talk with her about something that is new for me but that she has gone through before. I'm sure I'll load her down with questions about breastfeeding etc when the time gets closer.
Speaking of "the time". I thought I'd update you on a new "due date". On June 5th we will be 38 weeks which is full term for twins. So anytime in the first week of June would be a great time for these little ones to arrive -- please pray that they enjoy being in so much that they don't even think of trying to make a break for it sooner.
I'm getting sleepy but am debating staying up to catch lunch in the cafeteria, or going to sleep after a quick snack here. We're well stocked with food thanks to a recent Superstore trip. Actually, well stocked with food thanks to God's provision, Superstore was just a channel, God, the source.
We have a building inspection scheduled for the house tomorrow -- I'll be sure to take pictures and post them for you. I'm also planning to be a measuring maniac -- measuring everything in sight. How big do curtains need to be. How big is that wall in the dining room. How will our bed fit along that wall... I'm excited.
Our good friends Pete and Jenna have also bought a house. Their possession date is in the middle of March I think. Very exciting times for them as they will now be moving out of a cramped apartment into a lovely new home. In my opinion the best thing is that Jenna will now have the kitchen she deserves. Jenna loves to cook and bake and has been making do with a tiny apartment kitchen for years. I'm so glad for this new blessing for her.
Update on the snow - it did snow quite a long time yesterday and as a result the ground is now white. It is snowing now too. I'm glad and enjoying looking out our windows. I'll try to get on the picture posting as per moms request.
Okay, I'm going to check out what lunch is and head back for a nap if it doesn't suit me.
Hope you guys are doing well
Oh yes, and welcome to Tanya (friend from Abbotsford/Central Heights days) and Rhonda (new reader via the Abarbalog, pregnant with TWINS too!)
See you later.
Aimee (and the wigglers who have been wiggling as I write) |
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| Snow |
| Hi everyone, just a very quick entry to say that is snowing here. Finally. It snowed some yesterday too. But now, looking out my office window, I see that the flakes are bigger and I hope that it will snow and snow. I love snow. |
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| Praise Thanks & News |
Thanks so much guys for your kind words and prayers for me yesterday. By all reports the class went very well. Whose reports you might ask. Well, mine, Lance's and some students. I absolutely loved teaching last night. I so enjoyed sharing some of my knowledge about art with the students (about 22 are taking the class). Art is so important to me and it was so fun to get to teach the students. We looked at lots of slides - which went well after Lance adjusted the projector to do the art works justice. Had lots of discussion. Lance said he just loved seeing me up there and that he was grinning the whole time watching me teach. He said it was because I was in my element. Wow. Who knew that it would go so well. I'm praising God for this. I'm also planning to get working on my next lecture very soon so I can be more relaxed heading into next class. Ahh.
Here's my most recent picture. This is me and the twins, today at 22 weeks. I'm still feeling really good. Though noticing that I'm not getting enough rest at night. I wake up often. Sometimes because I have to go to the bathroom, and other times I just wake up. I'm thinking that a solution to the hours of sleep not adding up to enough would be to go to bed earlier. That way, even if I wake up every couple hours at least I'll add a couple more hours of sleep on at the beginning of the night. I'm napping everyday so that helps me make it through. Still trying to eat a lot. Enjoying smoothies like crazy. And a special treat - brownies. Atkins has a sugar free brownie mix that I doctor up to taste really good. This time I added over a quarter cup cocao and a quarter cup applesauce - this helps mask the fake overly sweet taste that comes from the amount of artificial sweetner they use. Anyways, with strawberries and walnuts, what a treat! Grapefruits continue to be a hit, a nice breakfast with a piece of peanut butter toast.
We've got some big news that I haven't really mentioned yet. Lance and I have been house hunting. Those of you who read mom's blog will be aware of this. We're coming to the end of our three year living in the dorms committment, and we are ready to move on. Not desperate, just ready. So in late fall we began keeping our eye on the house market. We have learned a lot of things: first, you can't expect to find a nice house for the great price your friends paid when they bought theirs 4.5 years ago, second, when the bank says, "if you could just find some way to increase your income that would be good", you know you're going to need some help, third, winter isn't really a good time to look for houses -- there has been pretty much zero in our price range. After plenty of searching we can across a house that might work, but needed some renos, especially in the basement. The same day we viewed that house our realtor convinced us to take a look at a new condo development. We were both dead set against condos - no yard!!! Anyways, we walked in and breathed a sigh of relief, they're brand new and no work needs to be done. They're fresh and clean. A large living space with high ceilings and a lovely bright kitchen upstairs and three bedrooms downstairs, private entrance and a little deck. Anyways, it took me a long time to actually consider a condo as a possibility - but it was beginning to look like our only possibility other than renting. To shorten up this already long story, we came to the point where we prayed that God would direct us by bringing a suitable house on the market soon unless he wanted us to get the condo. The price on the condos was set to rise by $7000 on the first of March, and there were only a couple left so we were feeling the time pressure. On Friday Lance's dad discovered a house that had just come on the market. It was a great location, a short walk from CLBI, and from the outside was immaculate. We scheduled a viewing for Saturday - with the thought that we'd likely make an offer on the condo that day. We weren't very hopeful about the house...
Well we arrived at the house and walked around the yard first. Lovely. A raised garden for veggies in the back, a fruit (apple?) tree, a strawberry patch, fully fenced (chain link, no maintenance). The house has a brand new large deck/veranda overlooking the backyard. There's a brandnew insulated double garage (our Hyndai accent would take up a quarter of the space in there). Then we went inside. This house was owned by the hipest seniors ever. Every room is a unique yet beautiful colour. The kitchen is a sagey green with love bluish greeny tile work - a new fridge, stove and A DISHWASHER! The living/dining room is a warm pale yellow and very bright due to the large windows. The bathroom has lovely white, bright yellow and bright blue tile work - kind of a French provencial style. The bedroom has white wainscotting (a personal favorite) and bright blue walls. The basement is fully finished with a small bedroom and an office area, laundary area and rumpus room - which we were considering turning into a bedroom for us.
At this point I must mention Lance's folks. They've come with us to every showing and have been so helpful as we sorted through needs and wants. They are also making this whole thing possible by investing in this house with us (since we couldn't follow the banks advice and increase our income, in fact it's decreasing as I won't be working anymore come June, well, not working for money that is)
After taking a good look at everything Lance and I didn't even need to talk. We knew that God had answered our prayers and brought a beautiful house, in our price range, to us. We went to the real estate office and placed and offer. Not two hours later, just enough time to phone a couple people asking them to pray that our offer would be accepted if this was to be our home, we got a call from our realtor -- THEY ACCEPTED OUR OFFER!!! So now there are a few details to work out, but once those are done, we'll be moving into our new place in mid April!!!
Here's two photos of the house, I forgot to take photos of the inside, and the photo of the back isn't grate but if you try hard you can see the veranda.
For those of you who know Camrose the house is on 50th Ave, 4 blocks west of Grace Lutheran Church.
Here you can see the garden, garage, a bit of the veranda and back of the house. I'm fond of the white with green trim and the burgundy doors (which I actually wish were red, but I'm not going to be picky.
So there you have it, our most recent news. The plan is to still have Lance working at CLBI. We love being involved there. Exactly what his job will look like is yet to be determined. We are very excited about the future. Thanks for your prayers.
Aimee |
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| Prayers for productivity |
Tonight I teach the first of 5 night classes (all Monday nights) of a course called "Art and Soul: the intersection of Christianity and visual arts". By the title perhaps you can tell that the subject matter is extremely broad and can't possibly be fit into five 2.5hr classes. It'll be an introduction to many concepts.
Anyways I'm very excited about it, and apprehensive. I have a tonne of work to get done today. Lance has offered to help with photocopying the reading package and help get my syllabus ready. I am grateful. I need to finalize and type my lecture notes and prepare powerpoint slideshows of images to illustrate the lectures. This is probably the most time consuming thing - I'm hoping to find enough images on the internet, but may need to take some photos from art books, and hopefully the quality will be okay. We'll see.
I've got to keep this post short, but wanted to ask for prayers. I believe in a God who answers even prayers for a procrastinator who should've had this stuff done awhile ago. So please pray for me as I make it through today.
Oh yeah. Tonight's topic is "What is Art" - shouldn't have trouble finding material there. And there is also a studio type part of each class. Tonight I'm teaching about making good photographs and their assignment involves capturing life as it is with a camera.
Thanks so much guys.
I have much more to write which will have to wait for tomorrow.
Aimee |
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| Why not blog |
Okay a little post.
Today I am delighted about strawberries being $2.50 at Superstore, I bought three packages. Also delighted about the daffodils I bought myself. I went to Superstore for groceries and came home with pieces of springtime.
Knocking. Tonight there have been nine knocks on my door. Yes, this is unusual. When major events involving students are happening we get a major increase in knocks. Tonight there was a coffeehouse/concert for which students needed to get into the kitchen (3 knocks, borrowing keys, returning keys then borrowing them again). A student needed to borrow my electric mixer for the cake frosting (1 knock). The boys needed to get into the kitchen to do some prep for the party they are throwing for the girls on Saturday (5 knocks, one to ask if I'd be able to let them in later, one borrowing keys, one returning keys, one asking if I had fridge/freezer keys, one returning fridge/freezer keys). It's 10:45pm now, and not too late for a couple more knocks. Lance is out tonight - so I, the growing pregnant woman who has a nest of pillows to support her on the couch, had to un-nest many times. Oh well.
Lost. We have become highly interested in the show Lost. I say highly interested because I don't want to admit to addiction. We've been renting disc from the first season and overall quite enjoy it. I am easily scared so it's sometimes quite tense for me. I like how there is a mix of character driven and plot driven episodes.
Lance just got back -- which means it's time for smoothies (with the fresh strawberries) and Lost.
Hope you are all well.
Aimee |
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| Hooray |
| Lance felt the babies kick for the first time this morning! |
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posted by Aimee at 
