A house full of character

When Daniel and I were deciding on which house to buy we of course poured over 100's of houses before making a decision. We liked a lot of things about older houses. An older house often has a lot of character that you just can't replicate in a newer house without paying big time for it. But, ultimately we settled on building our own house so that we could add our personal tastes and touches to it and so we wouldn't have to do all the renovating and fixing up that an older house might require. I'm still happy with the decision to not buy a fixer upper....I can't see when we would have found the time. But I know that in building our new house we gave up some of the character...we have all taupe walls for one...our house blends in with every house in the neighborhood for two(I think this town has some sort of mission to camouflage all of the new houses...there's no other explanation for all of the earthy toned matching houses)...and for three we stayed very neutral to make reselling easy if need be. So our house maybe doesn't have as much character as I would like, or does it?....lately I've seen more character in this house than I could have ever imagined. My kids are the craziest characters.

Ahhh my sweet little Ashley. Sometimes she really makes me think there's a 40 year-old woman in that 5 year-old body. She says some of the craziest stuff and never ceases to amaze Daniel and I. We can't help but feel like she gets some of her "spunk" from the two of us. One thing about Ash is she seems to believe that she has quite a bit of leverage in any given situation/argument. Daily I hear phrases that start with "if you don't"....and end with "then I will not have ANY fun today!"..or "then I won't care about you anymore!". It can be quite amusing...to me anyway...of course to her it's no laughing matter. But I admit, if it's been a long day it can really rub me the wrong way. The other day Ash said to Daniel "You have two options...you can make me something I like for dinner...or I can starve". What kind of 5 year-old says that?! And finally, a few days ago we were visiting Daniel's office as a family and when heading to the car I realized we left a binky in his office so I headed back to get it. Ash asked Daniel where I was and he said I'd be right back and she quickly replied "you don't know what you're talking about!" I would chalk it up to just throwing out random "adult phrases" to sound grown up...but they always make sense when she says them...so yes we're scared of when she becomes a teenager.

Anyone who knows Holly knows she's a loveable little character. She too likes to shout crazy stuff like "HEY DON'T COME IN HERE" when she's in a public bathroom stall. Or if she doesn't like what I'm saying she yells "HEY STOP TALKING TO ME"...or "HEY DONT YOU SAY THAT TO ME". I'm not sure why but she kind of reminds me of Harry Caray. I think it's because she starts a lot of sentences with a very loud HEY. I love the scenes from SNL where will ferrell impersonates Harry Caray. I remember riding in the car with my dad as a kid and hearing Harry Caray over the radio. CUBS WIN! I also remember watching this on snl with some friends in high school...you'll have to cut and paste the link to see this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hObBw7ZAWDo
or there's this one...which is pretty funny too.


Finally the twins are very interesting characters. Henry thinks pretty much every animal is called a "Goggie"(dog)...and says that and then makes a barking sound. Henry also does not care for shoes but Max loves them. Henry never feels bad about taking Max's binky, blankie, or drink while Max is drinking even if Henry already has his own. When he takes Max's stuff Max says a very sweet "Heeeey". Maybe he's a little Harry Caray too.