Our House (so far)

Okay, finally the story of our new house. We went house-hunting at the end of October and knew that we'd be moving at the end of November (Russell's new job started December 1), so it was important to find something quickly. Well, the best laid plans don't always turn out like you'd think. During our house-hunting trip we looked at so many online listings and visited just about everything that looked promising. We decided that the location of the house (ie: neighborhood amenities and proximity to family) plus the actual floor plan and features of the house were the most important thing. We narrowed our search and after MUCH looking and discussing we made our choice. We found a neighborhood that we loved and a house that fit the bill. It was new construction, slated to be completed the end of November, perfect, right?? Well, by the time we'd finally made our decision they'd already sold it. (In fact, the sold it to another relocating family an hour after our second visit.) This was a major blow to us because it was already Thursday night (of our week long trip) and because we had taken such an "intellectual" approach to our hunt we had talked ourselves out of everything else we'd seen. By the time we made our decision we had already determined that our previous second and third choices were no longer viable options for us. We finally decided that we really liked the neighborhood and the builder, so we switched our game plan and decided to build from scratch. We chose a floor plan (that we actually liked even better) and our salesman worked some magic to get us an amazing lot (without the lot premium!) and extra buyer incentives. The end result is going to be an amazing house that we will absolutely love on a lot that is fantastic in a neighborhood that is awesome. We had hoped that we'd be able to be in sometime in January, but now it's looking like mid to late February. (We still relocated to Houston for Russell to start work, but we're living with Gigi and Grandpa (Russell's mom and step dad) until our house is done.)

Here's what our lot looked like when we left town after our house-hunting trip

Partial form boards set for the foundation
Prepped for foundation

Finally - sunny skies and cement!!!

Our first family picture in front of the "house"

Framing begins

Framing continues

(As of 1/10/10) It really looks like a house!!!

Another view

Josh - 9 months

Josh turned 9 months on the 6th (my how time has flown!!!) He enjoyed celebrating his first Christmas and loves his new toys. He has 3 teeth (the third one just broke through) and is close to getting another one. He's doing pretty well with the teething, except at night when you can tell it's bothering him and he's waking up much more frequently crying. Hopefully we can get these next few in quickly and without much pain and frustration. He loves to eat and will pretty much gobble up anything we give him. He's becoming less and less interested in nursing, but we're committed to keep at it!! He has just started pulling up when you give him fingers to grab and is starting to try to pull up on furniture and toys. He's not crawling yet, but that's probably not far away. He bounces like crazy when you put him down and you can tell that he's just itching to go somewhere. Gone are the days of knowing he'll be in the same place I put him when I walk away for a minute. He has definitely found his voice and babbles all the time. I've heard him saying dadadada and mamamamam, but neither of them are with real meaning yet. We go to the doctor on Monday and will get the official stats at that appointment. (UPDATED 1/11/10: Weight 19 lbs. 10 oz., Length 27 1/2 inches)

My 2 crazy monkeys

Such a sweetheart!

Gotta love those baby blues!!

A New Beginning

2010 is off to a running start and I'm considering this a time for new beginnings. It's been a crazy few months for the Wiggins family and I'm not going to try to catch up on everything that I've missed on the blog. If time allows I'll go back and document some things in more detail, but for now I'm giving myself permission to just start where we are and move forward. In the past 2 months we've: listed our house for sale, gone househunting, begun the home-building process, hosted our last Thanksgiving in Louisiana, said goodbye to friends, moved to Houston, Russell started a new position at work, Josh turned 8 months old, both boys were sick with RSV, celebrated the life and passing of Papaw (Russell's grandfather), celebrated Christmas with LOTS of family, cheered the Red Raiders on to victory in the Alamo Bowl and now we're trying to settle back into some sort of normal. We're hopeful that 2010 is going to be a GREAT year!!!

Christmas card pics

If we'd actually gotten around to getting Christmas cards made this year, these are the pictures of the boys that we would have used. I think they turned out pretty cute (but of course, I have pretty cute subjects to work with!)

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Josh - 8 months

Josh turned 7 months old!

I'm a little behind in my postings (it's not like I have anything else going on right now), but better late than never. Josh turned 7 months on the 6th. He's such a great baby and is really entering a fun stage. He finally got his first tooth and is well on the way to his second. He LOVES his big brother and making faces for the camera. He started eating vegetables (we started with sweet potatoes - which he loves) in addition to his oatmeal and we'll be adding more every few days. No doctor's appointment this month, but when I weighed him he was 18.6 lbs!!!

Halloween 2009

Halloween was spent in Houston this year on our house hunting trip. The boys dressed up and we went to "Pumpkin Patch" at Bammel. It was lots of fun and they were so cute!!! Drew loved wearing his new boots and hat (thanks Gigi and Grandpa). Josh wasn't too sure about the whole costume thing, but he was a pretty good sport.

Such a cutie pie! Boo!!!

Our little cowboy and Josh (before his costume)
Drew the Cowboy and Josh the bear

Howdy partner

A cuddly teddy bear