You know you have boys when...

You end up in the ER because someone thought they were superman. Nicky jumped off the couch in a super fun game of "tiger in a cage" at Nana and PopPop's house, flew through the air, and collided with the coffee table. The coffee table won. Poor guy! It was pretty tragic, lots and lots of blood, a quick ride over to Methodist Sugar Land, and four hours later...five stitches and a Popsicle and we were on our way home. Little man will always be proud of the fact that he was the first Counts boy to get stitches. I am SURE he will not be the last, but he was the first! Ill post some pictures as soon as Jacob comes home from Albequerque (he has the camera attachment cord to my phone and yes that is the technical term :) )

Its Official...

Its official. The ten day option period for the buyers of our house has come and gone. The inspection is done, appraisal is done, papers signed, and now we wait and pack. They close on our house April 2nd. YAHOO!!!! When we put our house on the market we of course hoped it would go quickly but honestly I think we were surprised at how easily it all fell into place. We only showed the house a grand total of 7 times. The first three people to see the house had nice things to say, the fourth said he wanted to buy the house but had to wait a month to make sure his job in Houston was secure, the fifth gave us a low ball offer and then walked away when we countered, the sixth put an offer on another house, and the seventh bought it. We are absolutely positive that all our prayers were answered at every step along the way! We are so very thankful (especially in the current market) to be walking away with a fair price on our current house and great price on our new one. So now we pack up all those decorations we were using to "show" our house and get ready to make the big move. The pregnancy nesting hormones are certainly helping our entire family out in this whole process. Apparently when faced with stress right now the only "cure" is to cook, clean, or organize. This house is going to be ready to go in no time and our freezer is jam packed with ready to go meals during our transition from one house to another. Just another week and a half until we close on our new house and then the fun begins!!!

Andrew Gabriel

Here is our little man growing like a weed at 20 weeks. He weighs approximately 11 ounces and has all his fingers and toes. His toes were flying all about during this ultrasound. The whole family made it to this ultrasound. The boys couldn't have been prouder of their little brother. They were also very excited to confirm that he is indeed a he. Oh BOY is he a he :) I really should have taken a picture of myself at 20 weeks to go with all these shots of him...maybe I'll snap one this week instead. Here he is... Andrew Gabriel...


Love this one of him kicking himself in the nose. He was all scrunched up through the entire scan. Curtis says hes going to be JUST like him and be a snuggler. We couldn't make him sprawl out for anything. It does make me wonder about his little personality already. Curtis did the same thing in his ultrasound and still hates to be alone. His favorite place is as close to someone he loves a possible...sometimes too close. Nicholas was all sprawled out in his ultrasound. Arms and legs waiving all over the place. He has recently been a bit of a snuggler but definitely prefers his own space...curious is Curtis will be right about Andrews personality!LOVE those little toes!

We love you Andrew and are looking forward to seeing those toes in person in another 19 or so weeks!

ITS SOLD!!!!!

Its official. This is the sign in our new front yard...


as Curtis told his Papa, "Mommy was very excited about this" its true. I squealed in the car like a teenager running into Justin Beiber. We did our last walk through of the house last night to measure for blinds and curtains, match floor samples to our new stair case, and measure for the new appliances we are going to install. It was the first time we had been in the house since we knew it was going to be ours. It was so very exciting to walk around and dream of decorating and living in it. We close on February 29th...cool huh...yep its a leap year. Our first project is to have the sheet rock repairs done upstairs (remnants from before the roof was fixed and leaked into several ceilings upstairs and were never fixed) and paint the upstairs (every square inch of it...seriously...not an inch left un-painted...) so that we can have our new carpet installed upstairs. The next project we are going to tackle is new "wood" floors and paint downstairs. We will wait to actually move in until March 24th/25th weekend. And then the project list continues another few pages of minor things to make the house "ours" like replacing blinds and light fixtures. There are a few pictures of it as it is now on our shutterfly site thejjcountsfamily.shutterfly.com
Remember as you see these raw photos to look for all the potential underneath :) we can see it...can you???

St. Joseph: Pray for us!

So many updates on the house front. St. Joseph has been our best friend lately :) Lots of prayers sent his way during this buying and selling process. We officially have four days left in our option period with our new home in Sugar Land. Our inspection went really well (somewhat to our surprize) so we are thrilled with our new house and we can't wait to close on it. Our official close date is February 28th. We have some work to do before we move in so it won't be until mid to late March probably before we really move in. We are going to go there sometime this week to figure out which one of the laminate wood floor samples match the stair case wood. I will take some pictures while we are there so I can share them here. Its really a beautiful home and we feel so blessed to have found it!

Our home is showing well. We had a bit of a slow week as it was terrible weather all week here. We were almost getting bummed out...and then my phone was ringing off the hook for appointments this weekend. Thank you St. Joseph! We did have an offer on the house last weekend, less than two weeks on the market, but it was kind of a ridiculous offer. We countered by meeting them half way and they refused our offer. Not the right buyer for sure. We are eager for the right one to come along. Gods will be done!

Jacob was in Albuquerque all week and as I said before it rained all week...it was of a challenging week for the boys and I. Too many days inside the house and we were all clawing at the walls a bit. We went to mass this morning to celebrate St. Blaise's feast day and mass went SUPER long. Not going to lie and say my boys were perfect but we did make it without having to step out once and we were in the church for an hour and forty five minutes! I'll take that one as a win for sure. Tonight we picked up Jacob and then dropped him immediatly off for a pastoral council working retreat. It was a bit of an attention fight in the car as we were all dying to talk to Daddy! The boys and I went to Chick Fil A for dinner and by the time we got there Mommy was definitely in a grouchy mood (poor boys)! We ate our dinner and then I set them loose on the playground. I looked over to see Curtis boosting his little brother up each step of the climbing structure as Nicholas was just a bit too short to do it himself. They played so very nicely...and God put a few kiddos in there to contrast their sweet dispositions (read...wow...shockingly awful) and make me even more thankful for my sweet boys. We got in the car and Curtis had a lot to say about the sister and brother who were not playing nicely at all. "Why were they nice to everyone but each other Mommy? They are family!" Bad mood busted for sure. Thankful for my lovely boys who really are the best of friends. Yet another much neeeded reminder to live in this moment. Not the moment when we move, or start work on our house, or sell this house, this moment! The moment we are in and living and loving right this second. They grow too fast to let two months blow by being stressed about moving/selling/buying!