A Sweet Place

Well, it's time for the grand reveal! Sort of. These are mostly pictures of the house prior to us purchasing it. It has been way too disorganized to take pictures of it since we moved in. As soon as we get everything settled the way we want it (and painted, re-carpeted, new furniture in, curtains hung, etc.), I will post the new pics. Here is the house a couple of days after we moved in, following our little blizzard here in Lewisburg. The movers left our house about 2:00pm and at 3:00pm the snow started falling. When I left the house at 4:00pm to go pick up Noah from the babysitter's, I got stuck. Jeremy had to come get me and it took us an hour and a half to travel approximately 5 miles to pick him up. It didn't stop until we had about 20 inches on the ground! Here is what the house must look like under warmer conditions. :)

This is the living room off of the kitchen. Nice open layout.

Kitchen of course.

Master bedroom.

Master bath. Can't see the jacuzzi tub with cool glass door though.

Backyard. (Minus swingset.)

Not pictured is the dining room, front living room, powder room, three bedrooms, and guest bathroom. We have many plans and a lot of work cut out for us. We did a ton while our parents were here, including Jeremy's mom painting the guest bath, and his dad doing lots of electrical work. Now we have painters coming in for the next 2 weeks to repaint almost every surface (everything is dirty, scuffed, poorly painted, etc.) and we're having the three extra bedrooms re-carpeted. Yikes. Soon, we will have a comfortable, liveable house! And maybe someday the snow will melt, but not this week. Wind chill is in the single digits!

Can't wait to post 'before and after' pictures!

Merry Christmas 2009

The Barclays had a wonderful, crazy, white Christmas this year! In all my years in Texas, I'm not sure we ever had a true white Christmas. (Of course, we left this year and I think they got one in Dallas!) But Noah's first Christmas was covered by the remainders of the 20 inches of snow we got the week before.

My parents and brother braved the "Storm of the Century" to drive from Paris, TX to visit us for Christmas. It took them a little longer than anticipated but they arrived safely two days later and stayed with us December 20-24. Jeremy's parents flew up and stayed with us December 26-31. Having just moved into the new house, there was much to do and we worked everyone to death unpacking, cleaning, organizing, and baby-bouncing. :) More to come about the move-in later! It was so good to be with family again and we miss them dearly! Somehow I did not take enough pictures! I sadly did not get any of Noah with my family.

Noah had a great first Christmas and was blessed with many books and toys. Some of them are being put away until he gets tired of his current favorites. For his birthday, we will just request clothes. :) His favorite things seem to be the My Pal Scout dog, Busy Ball Popper, and Leap Frog Spin and Sing Alphabet Zoo. It's interesting to see what holds his attention and how accurate my predictions were in choosing what he would like!

Presents, presents, presents! We are very blessed!

My mom and I made a big Christmas dinner and Noah got to eat almost everything we made: turkey, sweet potato and apples, green beans, and cranberry sauce.

Happy boy.

Posing with Mamaw and Papaw in our snowy backyard.

Showing his Sooner pride.

Yes, he has been eating carrots. Hence the orange nose.

Playing patty cake with Mamaw. Jeremy's mom and I made a second Christmas dinner which turned out well and Noah enjoyed most of that one too :)

Christmas morning. I believe he's doing his Prancer impersonation.

"I know I'm on Santa's Nice List."

I pray that you all had a joyous Christmas and were as blessed as our family was this year! We wish that "The God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace..." in 2010!

All I Want For Christmas...

...is my Two Front Teeth! Mimi discovered Noah's first tooth on December 23 and for Christmas today, I found I believe the second one right next to it. Bottom front teeth, first one was just left of center. Sorry, no pics. We really can't get even a decent glimpse of them, but you sure can feel the sharp little things!

More posting to come one of these days...when I have my house in order and my sanity back!!

Happy Holidays from the Barclays!

Photos courtesy of Stephanie Judy of Lewisburg. :) Taken outside the Greenbrier Hotel.

P.S. I am not posting any pics of the new house yet because I am paranoid. I want to make sure that it is off the real estate websites before I post them. I will take some before we move in and post them as soon as possible!

Eight Months Old

As you can see, pictures have not been easy to capture lately.

On December 1, I took Noah to meet his new pediatrician, Dr. Ryan. He got his wonderful H1N1 vaccine too! What concerned me was that he has only gained about 4 ounces in the last 6 weeks and has fallen into the 5th percentile on weight. The doctor wasn't too concerned and told me not to worry, that we would just watch it. He weighed in at exactly 16 pounds.

Until recently, Noah has been all about the daddy. I guess we have entered the separation anxiety stage because he has become quite the Mommy's boy lately. He still loves to play and laugh with Daddy but if I hand him off and walk away, you would think I had abandoned him forever. I'm trying not to play into it too much and know that it will pass before I know it. One day, I'll be begging for hugs! :)

Noah and his babysitter are getting along great these days and I am enjoying my two mornings to myself. I can't imagine how I'll get anything done once I have a whole (larger) house to take care of! We are working on him being content to play by himself for a while.

He continues to be very friendly and flirts with anyone he sees. He looks confused when strangers do not acknowledge him. I don't understand it either, seeing as how he is the cutest boy I've ever seen. Noah is starting to pull up on all fours and rock a bit, and sometimes drags himself forward by putting his hands together and pulling. I'm sure the crawling will begin just in time to explore his new house! Still no teeth! He is currently recovering from his first cold. Since finger foods are still a little difficult to coordinate (he can't figure out how to get the Cheerio or puff from his fist to his mouth), I bought him some Baby Mum Mum bars after a friend told me about them. They are so cool and funny to watch him eat.

Our New Hometown

While out driving around today, we saw a couple of interesting sights. Jeremy snapped pics with his phone so that I could share them with the world at large.

There was a gang of five deer hanging out at the entrance to our soon-to-be neighborhood. And they weren't afraid of us stopping to look at them at all. I'm guessing someone feeds them there regularly because they were looking at us like, "This show ain't free. Where's the grub?" Too cool. (Oh yeah, sometimes we drive by our new house just for fun...)

This guy was parked outside the furntiture store we visited today. What else can I say?

....Welcome to West Virginia?

The Weekend Review

Friday night Jeremy and I attended the doctors' Christmas party sponsored by the hospital. We had a good time getting dressed up and hanging out with some fun people while Noah hung out at his babysitter's house for a couple of hours.

Here is Noah dressed in his bear suit giving his best "What you talkin' 'bout?" look. Shortly after going to bed Friday night, he woke up with his first snotty nose, which has turned into his first cold. Sucking green snot from his nose is one of those joys of parenthood that we are enjoying right now. :)

We awoke saturday morning to a gorgeous, wintery fairyland! Probably four or five inches of powdery snow, the likes of which we rarely see in Texas. So much prettier here. It really looks like Christmas here now!

this is our family snow picture. Some lady insisted capturing my morning beauty. :) And yes, we are the parents who took our sickly baby out in the snow. He is no worse for it.

We've been pretty busy, had a couple of great meals (I LOVE Sunday brunch buffet at Blackwell's!), and I went to a baby shower today while Noah napped with Daddy. In less than 2 weeks we'll be moving into our house and our parents will start arriving for Christmas! We are so excited!