Update and new blog!!

Hello everyone!
I know it's been an incredibly long time since I posted anything here. Since my last post we've bought a house, moved in, had twins, survived the holiday season, and generally attempted to settle into this new normal. Because of the dramatic change of our life, and the trajectory of the next few years, I've decided to start a new blog. I've posted an introduction to myself there as well as what the new blog will be about. There will still be some posts about the girls and recipes and things, but in general, it will be about our new home!

Thanks to all of your for your support and I hope to see you over at Cottage 1910!

An Autumnal Christmas

I am going to be completely honest here. I WANT desperately to be the person starts Christmas shopping every year in August. I want to spend lots of time considering and searching for the perfect gift for each and every person on my list. Unfortunately, this usually doesn't happen. Summer is just so... hot. You can't think about Christmas time then! Then fall comes and there's football all Saturday that hinders me from hitting the malls and shops.

But this year is different. With the girls coming at the end of October/beginning of November, and the adventure that will follow, I don't imagine I'll be doing a lot of mall walking in November and December. So I have badgered our friends and family and I have gotten gift ideas from almost everyone on our current list (by almost, I'm calling out Greg and Blair!). We still have to wait for the name drawing at Thanksgiving for both sides of my family, but still, I'm excited about getting such an early start.

In this spirit, I want to showcase two sites that I have loved using the past few weeks when searching for gift giving inspiration. Of course there are the usual suspects: amazon.com for everything and etsy for the cute, artsy, homemade options. Both of these are great sites, but honestly, I get incredibly overwhelmed and rarely find items that I didn't go looking for. The newest site I found just today through another blog is Kate's Paperie. This site not only has beautiful stationary and paper products, but also just some fun stocking stuffers. The site has a "gift giving" tab that gives 7 categories of gift recipients to help focus your search. Another more eclectic site is Uncommon Goods . "Eclectic" does not even touch the massive variety you can find there. Just go.

How is your Christmas shopping going? Have you at least made your own list?

StarSearch: Pediatricians

I am on the quest for the perfect pediatrician. Today was my first step into the world, and I'm a bit excited. I have 2 meet and greets scheduled with two doctors at two different practices. Both are within 10 miles of the new house in Delaware, which is exciting, but neither have privileges at our delivering hospital. What does this mean? It means that they won't meet the babies until they're about a week old and the random pediatric person at St. Ann's will be the one checking and discharging the babies. Not a big deal to me, really, b/c I'd rather have the pediatrician(s) close by for the next few years than have one for the (hopefully) short hospital stay.

I have a fun list of questions for the meet and greets. Any input on the questions is wholly welcome!

1. Are you willing to support us with an alternate vaccination schedule?

2. Are you "twin friendly?" Meaning: will you do joint well visits? or at least make an attempt to schedule back-to-back appointments?

3. Do you have separate waiting rooms for well patients v. sick ones?

4. How likely are we to get same-day sick appointments? By what time of day do I need to call to get a same-day appointment?

5. Do the doctors in this practice rotate, or will we always see you for the well visits? (I realize sick visits are an entirely different animal)

6. What are your after-hours/weekend procedures? Are there charges for calling after hours?

7. How does this practice handle doctor vacations? Do you stagger them? What do you do around major holidays?

Now it really feels like we're in the home stretch! Dealing with the hospital post-birth plan (I don't really have a birth plan b/c there's no telling what's happening with twins. My OB at least knows I want as little intervention as possible), finding pediatricians, and getting excited to get the nursery established in the new house is making it all set in!

Neave is the Emily of 2015

We've gotten a bit of flack from various people about our name choice for Baby B. Ever since I went to Ireland in 2008, I've loved the name Niamh (pronounced Neave; rhymes with leave and weave) and Scott has, too. Long story short, when I visited a school outside of Dublin, I encountered a girl named Niamh, and found her name to be original and exciting.

Fast forward to now, and we want to name our 2nd girl the anglicanized version of Niamh. We realize that our daughter's name would never be pronounced correctly using the old Irish spelling, so we settled on the very British way--Neave. We continue to get feedback-- some of it not so nice.

I am proud to announce after some research today that in 2001, Niamh was ranked 6th in baby girl names in Ireland (it's currently ranked 18). To compare, in 2001, the 6th most popular name in the US was Sarah. SARAH. So, just realize that Neave ISN'T weird! It's the Irish equivalent of Sarah.

And we love it.

Moved on; in a new process

So last week was a little nuts, and I never got around to updating what happened with the house situation.

The House from before is no longer an option for us. The sellers didn't agree to make some of the remedies we considered non-negotiable (uh, mold in the basement!) Plus, our architect friend suggested getting out of it.

The same day we were back at the original house taking pictures for our architect friend, our realtor suggested seeing a few other homes. Well, we found a 2nd place we liked! It's significantly more expensive than the previous house, but it's bigger and nicer. There are more decorative things to do at some point (1st on the list: get rid of the granny wallpaper!!), but the house is in better condition.

We had our home inspection this past Saturday, and there are a few things for these sellers to fix, like new roofing shingles and a new hot water heater. But we're very confident in success this time around!

This house has great landscaping, so I'm reading up on gardening. I'm getting excited about plantings and I'm making some plans for the way I want to do our yard! It will be a busy and wonderful spring! :)

I really should stop loving this house

This is really going to just be a quick status update without much practical advice included.

We heard from the sellers yesterday. We have a list of 11 items of the 18ish that we requested that they are willing to fix for us. Now the difficult decision making really kicks in. Are these 11 enough?

Some of our larger requests, they aren't doing, except to offer us $1,000 to go towards the issues. One of our largest concerns is the damp basement and all the trouble that entails. Our home inspector considered it a major concern and suggested having a basement professional investigate the issues. The sellers had a contractor come in, and their contractor really says there isn't much to be done. His recommendation is to install a dehumidifier and do some basic tuck-pointing as needed. So I started feeling good about the situation again. It seemed like things would work out.

However, I am a lucky girl who has a resource many people don't-- an architect friend who, in the past, has worked with how to remedy old building problems. So I call him, sent him a copy of the inspection report and thought all would be ok. Turns out he thinks there are more issues than are mentioned on the inspection report. So this afternoon, Scott and I are returning with our Realtor to take some more pictures of the spaces he is concerned with so we can get a better idea of what to expect with this house.

I'll keep ya posted on how things progress from here!

Perimeter drains, exhaust fans, and handrails

As I mentioned last week, we're in the process of (hopefully) buying our first home. I'll skip the more boring details (I wrote a REALLY long post on Friday that was just way too boring, so I deleted it) of actually finding a house that we like, no, love, and making an offer and I'll go straight to the home inspection part.

This is the part of first-time home buying I didn't really know about. We all see the shows were people walk through lovely houses and find the one that just feels right to them. Then the prospective buyers make an offer, sometimes they go back and forth with the seller a time or two, and then they're "in contract." That's the easy part my friends. Today I'm just going to give a small hint into the world of being in contract on an older home.

The House (how I will now refer to the place Scott and I are in contract on) was built in 1920. The previous owners have done a beautiful job renovating the kitchen and maintaining/restoring the old, mostly original woodwork and windows. However, as is the case with all old houses, there are a few questions that popped up even as we made an offer, such as, "how long will this furnace last?," "Will this old piping still work?," "What's going on with the basement and foundation?"

So b/c of these questions, and just because it's smart, we got a home inspection (and a furnace inspection, and a radon evaluation). I would HIGHLY recommend a home inspection to anyone looking to purchase a home whether old or new. We learned so much about the house and home maintenance that even if we end up not getting this house, we're much more prepared for another process in the future.

A home inspection consists of having a qualified home inspector come to the home and visually evaluate all areas of the house. Usually you walk through with the person and they explain the issues they see, and many times give recommendations on how it should be handled (i.e., have a certified basement specialist come see this; You can do this yourself with some $6 caulk from Home Depot). Then you get The Report.

Another note for first timers: inspections cost money. And you don't get that back if the house falls through or if there are major issues. The home inspection, with termite and wood destroying insect included, cost us $360. Then we will add money for the furnace and radon inspections as they happen. More info on these guys later!

Our home inspection report is 30 pages long if that tells you anything about our house. We then waded through the report with our realtor to make a list of all the things that we are going to ask the seller to fix before we buy the house. We have roughly 29 items which need to be addressed at some point. Some of these we will expect the seller to repair; others, Scott and I can do them at a later date. Our next step is to submit this list to the sellers and then negotiate again on which items they MUST do. We do have a few non-negotiable fixes that we will pull out of the contract on the house if they are not remedied.

So please keep thinking and praying for us as we discuss things with the sellers and hopefully get a house to move into before these girls are born!