Flanagan Clan

Here are a few pictures of the house. We took a whole bunch today, but since we’re still in the process of moving in, things are still a little messy, so I’m going to be very selective and only show you the least messy rooms. Once we’re truly settled in, we’ll post more pictures of some of the other rooms!!!

Patrick’s room. When Diane took this picture Patrick was taking a nap. He woke up, looked at her, and went back to sleep in his new big boy bed. Patrick’s room is quite large and could easily fit another bed or a bunk bed and a large dresser or two, making it quite suitable to hold 1-2 more children. Right now Patrick is enjoying it as a play room in addition to a place to sleep.

The other half of Patrick’s room, complete with his pack ‘n play, for when he doesn’t want to sleep in the big boy bed. I hope that Patrick will move completely to the big boy bed by the time the baby comes, so we can return the pack ‘n play to Grandma for when she has little visitors! The leapord print curtains, by the way, were left by the previous owner and will eventually be replaced at some point. The ceiling of this room is black, and will be painted white if I have time, and I’d like to add a baseball-themed wall border.

Andrew’s study and the guest bedroom, although lacking in a guest bed. We plan to paint this room a dark green at some point and add a bed as we have the means. For now it contains a filing cabinet and a work station for Andrew. This room has beautiful crown molding, which you unfortunately cannot see from the pictures. Again, the curtains belong to the old owners and will probably be changed out. Right now there are much more important things to worry about than ugly or strange looking curtains. We had originally thought about using this room for Patrick since it was a nice blue color, but since it was the smallest bedroom, it seemed to work better as a study/guest room.

The nursery, all ready for a new baby!

Another view of the nursery. Except for a few paint touchups, filling in old nail holes and hanging pictures, there’s very little that needs to be done to this room. If we ever have any girls, this will someday become the girls’ room and we’ll probably change the wall color at that point. Until we’re done having kids though, we plan to keep the same gender neutral ducky theme and baby blue walls, if the crib set lasts that long!

This is the reading room. The previous owners used it as a dining room, but since we do not own a formal dining set, we found it to be a much more comfortable den/sitting room. My parents gave us the foldout loveseat, which I once used as a bed in high school. We have also placed a Graco bassinet/miniature pack ‘n play in this room for the new baby, so I can have a place for the baby to sleep downstairs during the day. We need to get a small end table for the lamp, which is seen on the coffee table in this picture. At some point down the road it would be fun to add some pretty crown molding to this room, but for now it looks good the way it is!

Yesterday Diane and I went to pick up Chinese food at China Express, and we got an extra fortune cookie for Patrick. Here’s what his fortune was:

“A short stranger will soon come into your life, to your great benefit”.

Pretty funny, huh?

This whole past week has been a crazy time for us. On Friday afternoon, at 3 o’clock, we got the keys for the house! We looked everything over and then had my mom come to help us go over the carpets quickly with a steam cleaner, just to make sure that everything was super clean before we starting bringing over furniture.

On Saturday morning we disassembled furniture, dropped Patrick off with Grandma, sent Diane to the house to wait for our new appliances to be delivered, and finished packing up last minute items. We had three helpers come around 10 AM, and they began to help Andrew load the moving truck. From there on, most of the day was spent loading and unloading the truck, unpacking boxes, and trying to figure out where everything went. The house was a completely chaotic mess by the time the day was over, but at least Andrew and I had our bed put together! We tried to have Patrick sleep in his new big boy bed, but he was very confused and overwhelmed by the changes and began to scream his head off!

On Sunday we went to church. Patrick screamed when we tried to leave him in the nursery, so we ended up having him sit with us in the service. For the first time ever, he seemed to be happy to sit with us through the entire service. After church we went home, took a short nap, and then went over to the Kamke’s house for lunch. The Kamke’s are a family from our church (I went to high school with Brooke and Jon) who have two boys that are 3 and 4 years old. The Bankers, another family with 2 boys and an infant girl, were there, and Patrick had the best time playing with the four other little boys! Later, we went home, took another nap, and went back to church in the evening. Patrick actually went in the nursery for the evening service, and then had fun running around the church while we waited to hear the results of the vote we took after the service for the elder nominees.

Monday through Thursday were all spent unpacking boxes and trying to put things away. We figured out where to put all the furniture, unpacked and put almost everything away (although not very neatly!), cleaned out the old apartment, and figured out many different little odds and ends. It’s been a busy week. Andrew was gone pretty much all of Tuesday through Thursday, so I was fortunate to have Diane help me with everything. By Thursday night we had most of the boxes put away and the house was finally beginning to really look like a home. I still have a massive organizing job to do. Closets and drawers are filled with items that need to be organized. I am slowly lining drawers and shelves in the kitchen and bathrooms. Andrew has been busy getting the computers set up. We have several projects we’d like to do right away, like adding shelves to the desk area in the kitchen and adding a couple more shelves in a niche in the family room. I have found some pretty paint samples, and look forward to slowly painting the kitchen, master bedroom, master bath, kid’s bathroom, and Andrew’s study. I also want to repaint Patrick’s ceiling, which is black, and looks a little dark for a little boy’s room. Most of those projects will have to wait until after the baby is born, although Diane is going to paint the kid’s bathroom in the next few weeks and then decorate it with sea life and coral. That should be fun!

We are so thankful for this house. It’s really beginning to feel like home, and we are so happy to have a little place of our own for once. I can’t wait until we’re fully settled in!

Things are in disarray in our tiny apartment as we continue to pack things up for our big move on Saturday. On Tuesday we signed our life away as we were given document after document to complete the loan process. Now we’re just waiting for everything to go through the system, which will take until sometime on Friday. Depending on how quickly things go, we might get the keys as early as 5 PM, though normally it would take until 9 to get them. We’re very eager to finally move into this house that we’ve waited so long to find!

In the meantime, we’ve been very busy with all the other details that come with moving. Yesterday I set up water and garbage/recycling and Andrew changed our electric and gas account to the new address. Today I went to Walmart and bought everything that Patrick needs to sleep in his big boy bed, which he will be getting from Grandma and Grandpa. They still have half of a bunk bed that I slept on when I was in 6th grade! I also got some spray paint to paint some barstools that my mom is giving us. Diane graciously painted them for us today, since Andrew was away at work and breathing paint fumes is bad for the baby. This afternoon I did some more light packing. My mom and Diane will be over tomorrow to help me finish packing up the majority of the kitchen. We keep the apartment until the 30th, so there’s no rush to get everything out this weekend, thus giving us a little bit of flexibility!

Other than that, there’s really not too much new here!

This coming week is going to be crazy. We still have to finish packing the house, celebrate Father’s Day tomorrow, Andrew and I both have doctor’s appointments this week, we meet with the title company on Tuesday to work out closing details on the new house, on Friday we close, and on Saturday we have our big move. I’m a little concerned because we noticed that Patrick seems to be coming down with a cold, and I am afraid that it will only be a matter of time before we catch this new bug. Ironically enough, a couple days ago I was thinking how I might get through my third trimester without a cold, whereas when I was pregnant with Patrick I had a cold during each trimester, and I’ve had several in my first two trimesters this time around. I guess I thought too soon!

Today was interesting. Andrew and I went to buy appliances. Originally we had intended to buy our washer and dryer at Costco and a fridge at Sears. However, on the way to the Sears, we decided to stop by and see what Best Buy had to offer. We found a nice Whirlpool fridge for much less than the comparible Kenmore and Kitchenaids at Sears. They also had Whirlpool washer and dryers similar to Costco, for $100 more, but if you bought three Whirlpool appliances, they gave you a $150 discount in addition to the current sales on the washer and fridge. Plus, they added in a mail in rebate to reimburse delivery charges on all three appliances. With Costco we would have had to pick up and install the washer and dryer ourselves, which would have been a big hassle! While we were checking out it was so confusing because of all the discounts and rebates to consider, and at the end the sales associate also handed us two $50 gift cards, which really puzzled us. What we didn’t know the whole time was that there was yet another sale going on, where if you bought a washer and dryer together you got $100 back. It was a pleasant surprise, but we were definitely very confused when we saw her ringing the gift cards up! Now that we have those gift cards, we have a little extra money to spend on a vacuum cleaner. The one we have currently was an inexpensive Eureka we got from Target when we first got married, and it is starting to have all kinds of trouble after three years of fairly heavy use and three moves. I did some research today to see what would be a good replacement and I think we’re going to go with a new Dirt Devil that has some great reviews. I had originally thought about getting one of those expensive high end models, like a Dyson or Miele, but honestly, for so much less you can get a great vacuum that is going to work just as well as those fancy big name vacuums. And if it breaks several years down the road, you don’t feel so bad about having to replace it!

Tomorrow is Father’s Day and Patrick and I would like to wish my dad, Andrew’s dad, and Andrew a very happy Father’s Day. Thanks for all you do for us. We appreciate your dedication and hard work, and we love you lots!