She always gets her way, one way or the other

Yesterday, Cort took Helen to the grocery store with him.

Upon arrival, she got down on her hands and knees on the floor of the grocery store. Cort told her to get up. This led to arguing, because of course she questioned why. He told her that the floor was dirty, and finally gave her an ultimatum requiring her to get up.

So she complied. Sort of. She crouched down with her hands poised about an inch from the floor. "Can I do this then?" she asked. Cort told her no. She asked why--again--and he told her because he said so.

So she stood up. But then she bent over and placed her hands on her knees. "Can I do this then?" she asked. Cort, exasperated, said sure.

And she proceeded to walk this way the entire time they were in the grocery store.

The good and the bad

One of the really cool things about having a big family is that you have enough people to do things like split up into teams and have a 3-on-3 soccer game.

One of the down sides is that as your kids get older, they become harder to defend are more likely to cause you injury.

This "small" bruise on my leg is a result of trying to block Charlie's shots.

Ch-ch-changes

Since this little blog is a chronicle (sort of) of what is going on with our family, I thought I should mention a couple of recent big changes.

First, last month, Cort took a new job as a partner at the law firm of Jones Walker. This wasn't something he was really looking to do, but a former colleague heads the Houston office and approached him. Ultimately, we decided it was a good career move for him and a good thing for our family.

The best things about his new job are (1) he is back downtown and therefore closer to home (we've even had a lunch date too!) and (2) he is back to receiving a regular income (his old income wasn't bad, it just wasn't consistent - and we aren't that great at budgeting without a clear picture of what is coming in every month).

The worst thing about his new job is that he is no longer near the grocery store we use for online orders and pickup. I tried going back to regular grocery shopping, but I am not a fan. I'll just find time myself to drive over to pick them up from now on. It's a small price to pay for having him back close by.

Second, possibly bigger news, is that as of this afternoon, we are the proud owners of a new house! Again, not something we were really planning on, and we certainly weren't planning on owning two houses ever again, but here we are.

When we found out we were having a second set of twins, we decided to build our current house. It is big, brand new, and very nice. It was supposed to be forever. But somehow, we are not in love. Several months ago, we started discussing the possibility of moving eventually.

As anyone in Houston knows, that's the first step to becoming addicted to har.com. One day on a whim, I suggested that we go look at a particular house that had been on the market for awhile (but the price had recently been lowered).

The house is a ranch style and needs some updating, but that was what we were looking for. We had decided that we really don't like new houses -- we would rather take an older house with some character, and remodel it to our liking.

So we went to look, and we really liked it. Original hardwood floors in most of the house. Lots of light. Over 3000 square feet and move-in ready if need be, but still with a lot of good "bones" to remodel and make it a really neat place. It's just west of the Heights, but still very close to downtown, which is one of our criteria. Best of all, it is on a 24,000 square foot lot--which is almost unheard of in inner city Houston.

But we decided it wasn't the right timing for us, and said no.

About a month later, the sellers came back to us with the proposition that they lease the house back. That opened up the door to us buying it as an investment property, with the idea that we would move in at a later date. So we did it. We closed today.

So now comes the fun part. We are planning what we can do. We know we will build on a new master suite. The original rooms can be divided to allow each of the kids their own room if they want it (currently, two of them do, two of them don't). We're going to put in a pool! We're searching online and learning more about the mid-century modern (doesn't that sound better than "ranch"?) style -- apparently, mid-century modern is the new bungalow, or so a friend told me.

We're still not moving for a little while, but it's fun planning the possibilities!


Here's the new house!

Wordless Wednesday

Kids can embarrass you in so many ways

Cort took my car to San Antonio last week and discovered that my car was making a bunch of noise while turning and was driving really rough. So we took it in to the dealership this morning. Cort drove it there and the service guy took it around the block to see what was going on, while I waited in the other car with Will and Helen.

I was so glad that it was Cort and not me dealing with the service department, because he was the one who got to be embarrassed when the guy returned and informed him that the only thing "wrong" with my car was that one of the kids had put it in four wheel drive while we weren't looking.