so I decided to put up a couple more videos just for fun. The first captures a noise that has become common in the past couple days and i'm not sure what to make of it. There is another noise he makes recently that some of you have been privilaged to hear, I would have caught it on video but the pitch is so high that it doesn't actually get captured by the camera's mic..... Just know that if you haven't heard his super squeal consider your ears blessed and if you have i hope you can still hear. The second video is a little older but captures a differnt side of Zao. Sure hes all fun and giggles but sometimes he just likes to sit down, turn the music up, and rock out.

So tonight was a big night. All weekend I've been tiring to get Zao to stand on his own for other people because he always seemed to do it only when I was watching. So tonight Kris just plops him down and he stands on his own. I always have to move away slowly and encourage him. Then he shifts his feet to keep his balance. As parents we could have called that his first steps but that would be cheap because it really wasn't intentional (or even steps). However the seeds were planted, so we set him down again and call him to us and bam he walks right over. It was only a few steps but it was exciting nonetheless. The great thing was that we were both there. I really don't know how one can catch these moments on 'film' because we never have the camera at the right time. After reading all that this is the video you get. The elusive 'standing without help.' Kris made me remove the audio because she didn't like her voice so you get the silent film verson. Enjoy!

We’ve had a very exciting couple of weeks here. Let me give you a little run down:

Thursday (the 24^th) – We officially listed our house.  The realtor was rather apologetic about her market analysis.  The market is declining rather quickly around here, which makes it almost impossible to get a confident estimate of what the house could sell for.  And a lot of houses are staying on the market for quite a long time, which we definitely cannot afford.  She basically said we'd be doing good to break even.

Friday – Got 2 calls for showings.  Cleaned/decluttered/organized until midnight.

Saturday – 1st showing (so we thought - they apparently couldn't come).  Cleaned like crazy except for the couple hours we were out of the house. Dean & Annie even took Zao for a few hrs so we could get the basement painted.

Sunday – First real showing. 

Monday – Furnace inspection.  Surprise! Our furnace is slowly leaking gas.  It won't kill us... yet (but could if it got worse over the next year or so), but has to be replaced before we can sell.  Quite a big, unexpected chunk of money.  Grr… I’ll spare you my bitter rant on that one.

Tuesday – The people that came Sunday came for a second showing and gave us an offer later that night.  HOLY COW!!!  I was totally not expecting that. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough for us to break even. It was actually a pretty rough night trying to figure out what could work and thinking about the million unknowns.

Wednesday – After a lot of debating, we gave a counter offer that would be enough to break even after the furnace fiasco. Less than an hour later, they accepted our offer. Can you believe t hat? The first people to even see the house!!!  I’m still in shock!

Unfortunately, this means we have to move out about a month earlier than we really wanted to, which will be interesting. I'm blaming the speed of the sale on Maurice. J We prayed about the selling process and everything Sunday morning before he left for work, and for some unknown reason, he actually prayed that the people that came to see the house that day would buy it!!! 

So we have no idea what we’re going to do from June 13 to mid-July when we wanted to move. So we haven’t even visited OU yet and don’t have an apartment lined up. 

We’ll get there.

Thankfully, we have some amazing family and friends who are willing to help us out during that time period. I’m trying to look at it as an opportunity to spend time to be with friends and family. Though I’ve had a few break downs along the way, I’m confident that we’ll be okay and everything will work out.

We’re so grateful that the process has gone smoothly (in a rough sort of wayJ) so far.

We took these pictures a couple weekends ago on our first long walk of the spring.  We walked to Notre Dame and around one of the little lakes there.  I'm looking forward to many more walks over the summer.

Zao is full of energy and can get around pretty quickly these days. I can tell walking is coming too quickly.  The other day he actually stood up on his own and balanced for a couple of seconds before sitting/falling back down.  You should have seen the look of pride/surprise on his face!  He also likes to follow me around the house.  And both of his bottom teeth are coming in now.

That's all for now.

God above all the world in motion,
God above all my hopes and fears,
Well I don't care what the world throws at me now,
It's gonna be alright!

Hear the sounds of the generations,
Making loud our freedom song,
All in all that the world will know Your name,
We're gonna be alright!

Cause I know my God saved the day,
And I know His word never fails,
And I know my God made a way for me,
Salvation is here.

We sang this song at church tonight and after an interesting week, I actually feel like it IS gonna be alright.

I started really stressing about the next step in life a couple of weeks ago.  I had a melt down one day and wasn't sure I was going to recover from it.  Moe got a grad school acceptance letter and I think it all slowly started sinking in. We really ARE going to move. And I really DON'T know how we're going to pay the bills and take care of Zao at the same time. And I'm pretty much NEVER going to be able to be the stay-at-home mom I've always imagined myself being.  We're looking at probably another 6 or so years of school for Maurice, which means it's largely up to me to support us.  And moving away from this area means moving away form our support network.  SCARY!!!

To make a long story short -- We'll be moving to Ohio!  I'm still nervous about it all (we'll be pretty much living on a $9000 stipend and student loans as far as we can tell)... But I'm also pretty excited, and I feel like it's the right decision for us.  As it turns out, we both got accepted by Ohio University (not to be confused with Ohio STATE University). Maurice will be going for a Masters of Philosophy, and I'll be going for a Masters of Social Work. Though we won't have much to live on, both of us received funding for tuition so we won't have to take out loans for that. Yay!

Did I mention that we've never actually been to OU?  We're kind of accepting this offer blindly and planning a trip out to visit after Moe graduates at the beginning of May.

So much to process.

So much to do.

Anyone want to buy a house? :)

isn't he absolutely beautiful?!! 

Congrats to Marika and Tom!!!  

Quinn Thomas was born Thursday, 3/20 at 4:37 am. He was 7lbs, 19.5 in.   

There were some minor concerns about infection, and he was transferred to a different hospital just to check things out but seems to be doing fine now.  We came up to MI to meet him this weekend, but probably won't get to see him until Sunday.  I will of course post pics as soon as we see him!  We are very excited to have a new nephew!

And Congrats to Ema and Nate!!! 

Nora Denise was born Tuesday night (7lbs 15oz, 21 inches).  See Nate's Xanga site for pics: http://weblog.xanga.com/nloucks