two more days until we move in!

Max started Physical Therapy about 2 weeks ago with Michael Workman. We meet at different parks that have terrain that suits PT. basically PT without Max knowing it which is GREAT! We REALLY like Michael a LOT and he was so great with Max. He loved playing soccer with Michael and walking up and down the hills at the park, going up and down the slide, up and down little steps. You name it - it was covered - and if Max showed any sign of being over it Michael would just move on to another type of play so that Max never got bored. I'm SO glad we found him. Here is his website:
http://www.professionaltherapies.com/

On Mother's Day we went to the Grand America Hotel for the most extravegant buffet I have ever seen! I took photos but I have so many photos to share I'll just list what I remember:
Crab legs, shrimp, oysters, crepes, omelets, waffles, bananas foster made to order, chocolate fountain with marshmallows and fruit, carving stations of turkey, steak and  salmon, asian dishes, sushi, bacon, sausage, cesar salad bar, lox, 15 different cakes, an entire wall dedicated to a candy bar, blintzes, fruit parfait in martini glasses, Mud pie, eggs benedict, and on and on. Since I've been playing the Game On Diet for the past 2 weeks I had very little of this - but must say I felt GREAT saying NO to all that sugar and fat and animal product. I've had my share of it since moving to Utah and my body felt worn down. But this place was incredible!!!! The hotel looks like it's from Europe. Gorgeous. Here is my Mother in law, My sister-in-law Sandy and her husband Chris and their three kids Stephen, Tim and Sean and of course the three of us just outside in the courtyard.

Wow - the sun came out! It's a festivus miracle! We ran over to Red Butte Gardens and played with Max and his soccer ball out on a flat area of grass. It was fun until he fell on the cement and scraped his nose - hard to see it here but clearly he recovered! ( we got tickets to see Pink Martini at their outdoor stage in July! Cannot wait to see them live again! )

jerry boght me these gorgeous Tulips for Mother's Day. LOVE them! He also bought me a necklace that hasn't arrived yet - I cannot WAIT to get it and wear it! Here is a sneak peek. Love Tiny Devotions

ok folks the moment we had been waiting for! We got to sign the Escrow papers and PICK UP THE KEYS TO OUR NEW HOUSE! Here is the past owner Tracy - handing me the KEY!

I bought this Jade plant for Jerry as a house warming gift. It is the first thing I put in the new house when I picked up the keys. Its in the kitchen at the window you can see it when you come in the front door. I wanted to buy him one of these because he had one in Los Angeles that he basically brought back from close to death and it grew to be a gorgeous plant. He really liked it so much. We gave it to one of his friends before we moved since we flew to Utah and put everything in storage - plants weren't an option. So here is a new start with a new plant.

The first week with the house keys we hired painters to paint the upstairs bedrooms. This one will be Max's room. It used to be the color that you see in the closet. Now it's a soft green color - we are keeping the closet blue - we took off the doors to the closet ( they were broken ) and replacing them with some fabric instead that hangs from a poll inside the closet. Haven't found the fabric or drapes yet....

This is the Master bedroom. yep - One wall is BLUE! It's called Venezuelan Sea. I LOVE that color. Especially up against our bedding which is rust and off white. Something about reds and blues together make me so happy - I wanted the entire room that color - but Jerry was afraid he would feel suffocated by blue! So we compromised.

Ok this is the office and you cannot tell what color it is from this photo. The paint color is London Fog. It's a very pale grey. And it's the most soothing room upstairs. I might sleep in there! Jerry picked the color and I'm so glad he did! I would have painted it all DARK BLUE!

The room where we will watch tv has a very odd shape to fit a sofa in. What I mean is - we don't want any furniture in the middle of the room right now while Max is still needing room to play so we want our sofa to be up against a wall. The one the last owners had in the room was bigger than the wall length so it stuck out right in front of about 3 inches of the backdoor - so you had to sort of move your hand around the back side of the couch to get to the door handle. We looked HIGH AND LOW for a couch that wouldn't do that. Guess what? Unless we custom make it - they all are that length. Boo. So we opted for smaller furniture for now. a love seat and chair. The Soho Collection from Gallerie Z is just what we were looking for. We picked this in a dark gray color. It will arrive in 6-8 weeks. The photo above is the sofa and chair I found and fell in love with. When he gets older we will consider putting a larger sofa in the middle of the room - but for now? We will snuggle on the love seat!

One of the amazing events for me with this new house is going to Anthropologie to pick out light switch face plates and little door knobs for the closets. Yes - amazing. I LOVE anthropologie. Clothing and home furnishing. This was my first experience looking through their amazing collection of doorknobs and it was divine! Above are my choices for the Master bedroom.

Same design but different hue for the Office

One choice for the hallway closet

Another choice for the hallway - I'm going to try both ans see which looks better. And below is the light switch face plate for Max's room. He doesn't have closet doors - But when I was at anthropologie I was dreaming of having 16 different closet doors and all the door knobs we could have through out the house. Yep. Obsessing!

 

So the rooms are painted - the carpets were all professionally cleaned yesterday - the professional cleaners come to clean the entire house and then....we move in! We are still scheduling the movers because the weather is TERRIBLE this week and we are waiting to find a window of sunshine or at least a window when it's not raining so that when we ( the movers I mean ) take everything we own out of storage and load it into the moving truck they aren't drenched - our things aren't drenched and it's a better situation all around. My parents fly in this Friday to help with Max and to help unpack and figure out where everything goes. YAY FOR PARENTS! Can't wait to see them. 

We are SO SO SO Excited to move. The other day I went over to the new house and put Max in the stroller and walked from the house up to the post office, then over to the library and then to whole foods and home. It was a 4 mile walk and was SO PRETTY! I rarely walked around our neighborhood in LA. It was safe - but just not pretty, trash, dog poop, lots of traffic, yuck. I didn't see ONE piece of trash, Not one pile of dog poop, not even in the grass along the pretty sidewalk! The view of the mountains was incredible! YAY for pretty neighborhoods that I feel inspired to walk in with my son! Plus Whole foods is only half a mile from home. So is Super Target, World Market, Home Depot and other places that I can get to easily. And from our street you would think we live in the country. No signs of these businesses. It's quiet and peaceful. I'm pinching myself.

And Just one more thing about Max - we started him in Speech therapy and I might have mentioned it before but didn't have a link about the therapist. Here it is. Her name is Monica Ferguson. Marty my mother-in-law found her for us. Max loves her and yes - I already talked about it so I will check in as we have more sessions with her and let you know how things go.

And if you want to hear some amazing news - a family we met here is adopting a child in Europe right now who has Down syndrome. A lot of families are doing this - it tugs at my heart. If you want to read about it she is posting about her journey at this website. Kareen's Journey Home.