Gamble everything for love

Round 33: November 2037 (Spring)

last update/next update

Kimberly Carmody is 66, Nick Moretti is 34, Sarah is 32, Thomas is 6, Ryan is 5 and Catherine is 3.
(Susannah is 27, Iris, Francesca and Zac are 3)

Narrated by Sarah Moretti

Nick and Ryan both have their birthdays in November, so we’ve been doing lots of celebrating around here lately.

The weekend of his birthday, Ryan invited his whole class to our house for a little party. There are only three other kids in his kindergarten class, thank goodness!

Still, seeing their parents came as well, it made for quite a full house.

Thomas didn’t even mind that he didn’t have any of his friends there, like I thought he might.

I think he kind of likes being the “big” one when Ryan has his friends over anyway.

The boys are so close in age that there’s not a huge difference between what they each like to do with their friends, so it makes play dates and parties easy.

I don’t think we’ve ever had so many little boys in the house at the same time. It made for some interesting displays of table manners.

I’m glad they could all come though. All of Ryan’s friends are really sweet kids.

They all had such a great time too, especially the birthday boy.

I'm so proud of Ryan, though I still can't quite believe he's 5 whole years old!


It doesn't seem like so long ago that I was pregnant with him.

Nick doesn’t like a huge fuss on his birthday, especially seeing it’s so soon after Ryan’s. But I don't usually pay attention to that and I like to make it a good day for him anyway.

This year, it was a weekend so Mama was able to stay home with the kids while Nick and I went out for breakfast with some friends.

It was our usual group, though I think this is the first time in a while we've all been out together. It was a fun morning.

To be honest, I still struggle with Josie at times but our outings usually go pretty smoothly these days.

I just keep my head down and ignore her if I think she's in one of her moods.

As long as Nick’s happy, I can deal with Josie for a couple of hours.

We all have at least a couple of kids now and we can’t seem to stop ourselves from talking about them, even when we finally get a break.

We’re all in the same boat now, at least, though Nick and I are probably the worst offenders.

Back at home, Mama had got the kids started making some birthday cards for Nick. The boys were keen to help Catherine out with making her card this year.

Nick loved the cards, of course. Catherine’s old enough to understand what a birthday actually is now, so she got such a kick out of making something for her dad.

She’ll be four in February, which coincidentally is the same month she starts pre-school. I don’t know what we’ll do with ourselves without a little one in the house.

But it’s happening, whether we like it or not! I took Catherine to her pre-school orientation, where she got to check out the classroom she’ll be in next year.

She also got to meet her future teacher, Mrs Gray, who is currently Ryan’s teacher and also taught Thomas before him.

Pamela is very sweet. The kids seem to really take to her quickly and she really helps them get settled in their new environments.

That’s going to be great for Catherine. She’s not shy but she gets nervous sometimes in new situations, so starting school will be huge for her.

I’m glad she’ll have some familiar faces around. Not only will she have her brothers looking out for her on the playground but her cousin Zac will be in her class too.

Catherine is already quite enamoured with Zac, so she was excited to see him there.

Francesca will also be in her class. Francesca is Nick’s little cousin but she and Catherine haven’t spent much time together before. She’s very shy but she and Catherine seemed to enjoy playing together for a little while.

We also met another little girl called Iris.

Catherine had never met her before but she almost suffocated her with her hug when we were leaving, so I suppose she likes her!

After we finished at the pre-school, Susannah and I headed to the park to catch up. I was dying to hear about how things were going with her and Daniel.

Very well, it would seem! Susannah started smiling the second I mentioned his name. They’ve been together 9 months now and it’s becoming a little more serious between them.

Not that they’re rushing into anything. Of course, Susannah doesn’t regret Zac but she does feel like she and Sam moved in together too soon.

She wants to keep things with Daniel at the dating level for a while longer, so she doesn’t make that mistake again.

Probably a smart move but secretly, I would love it if Susannah and I could be pregnant together. We sort of were with Zac and Catherine but by the time Susannah got pregnant, I was almost due.

Nick and I have such a great time with our kids and we’ve been so lucky with our family. It just makes sense to us to want to expand it.

In a perfect world, I’d have as many as 8 children but seeing we live in this world, four seems more sensible and within the realm of possibility.

Nick and I both want a fourth child. We’re absolutely positive on that. It’s just taken us until now to agree on a time frame for when to start trying.

If Nick had got his way, I’d be pregnant right now or we’d already have had a baby. We need a new house and Nick wanted to find a house, get a loan if we needed to and then buy. But I hated that idea. I don’t want to live with a huge mortgage hanging over my head and I could only imagine how big a mortgage we’d have with the six bedroom house we’d need.

Since I was promoted to partner though, money is less of an issue. Not that we’re rolling in cash or anything now but we’re a lot more comfortable.

Nick did want to start trying right away but I’d rather be settled in a new place before I get pregnant. I don’t want to be moving house while I’m big as said house or dealing with a newborn.

Mama is ready to move. She’s actually quite excited about it.

This house is so old. It was originally a two bedroom, which was turned into a four bedroom when Susannah and I came along and the extensions weren’t very well done. Mama’s looking forward to living somewhere a little better planned and I have to say, so am I!

We thought Thomas and Ryan might be a bit sad to leave this house behind but the possibility of having their very own rooms is definitely easing that pain.

I love how excited and positive they are about our move. They want to help pick out the house and we’ve promised to take them along when we go house hunting.

We’ve tentatively started to look at house listings and finding the kind of house we want will certainly be no easy feat.

Nick and I are trying not to get too discouraged and just focus on the fact that we *will* find our new home and hopefully Baby #4 will follow soon afterwards.

Extras:


I think Nick and Sarah might have some of the cutest kids ever!

Troy was a little late to the celebration! Almost half the cake is gone and he's still twirling his noisemaker around and shouting. I love Josie just completely ignoring him as well.

I promised more Francesca and here she is. It was kind of hard to drag her away from the activity table, even though she has one at home! I don't know what's going on with that dollhouse there. The male doll looks like he's about to take a tumble out of the house!

I love how Zac made a beeline for the most traditionally masculine toy in the room!

Notes:

• Title is from Gamble Everything For Love by Ben Lee.
• Nick and Sarah were like rabbits this round! I have not seen such crazy woohooing since Ben and Caterina. I played them for about four days and I think they woohooed like 9 or 10 times in those four days! It's like they kept going back to the bed, hoping I'd taken them off BC. No luck, Nick and Sarah...not yet, anyway!
• I am going to let them have a fourth but they'll need a new place first. Sarah is a Hoarder (via Apple Valley's money management styles) and I don't see her being willing to get pregnant before they're all settled. So I'm on the lookout for nice six bedroom houses. N99 is doing House Hunters this month and I might post up Nick and Sarah, even though I've already posted a family. I figure people can contribute or not. All together, they'll have almost $100,000 to play around with, once the house is sold and with Nick's bonus to account for. Not as bad as I thought it would be!
• Speaking of Nick's bonus, that would be this:

• 
• Couldn't have come at a better time, could it? And what I like about it is that the option that won is totally what Nick would do. Nick would never order a pre-emptive strike. I sometimes feel like he's too gentle for the military but this kind of chance card shows there's room for peacekeeper types too!