Week off

Derek always takes this week off of work every summer.  Why this week?  Because its our anniversary week, that's why! :)
Tomorrow will be our 9th anniversary!

Saturday Jadon had his last counseling session! However, we are supposed to start preparing him for kindergarten by separating him from me frequently, so Gramma's, we will be calling upon you both for some babysitting in the next couple weeks!
Today we are going school shopping!  I already got Jadon's clothes for school, but this will be a trip for supplies, backpack, and shoes. And new shoes for Avery.... who says she wants pink shoes.

Monday we went to Enchanted Forest.  Had lots of fun, spent most of the day there, got the kids bracelets so they could ride the kiddie rides unlimited, and that they did! We were very proud of Jadon, who overcame his fear of going on 3 different rides, including the log ride, the roller coaster, and the frog hopper that had scared him in the past, and all by his choice, he went on them all!  The frog hopper he went on several times again with Avery, the log ride he had fun on I think, and now they take your picture coming down so we bought our picture (pretty amusing!) and the roller coaster will probably not be gone on again and cant blame him for that!  The roller coaster is pretty rickety, jerky.  No seat belts, I was his seat belt, and I hit my head on the side of the cage thing several times.  Its so jerky its not even fun.... it would be a lot more fun if it weren't jerking you all over the place.

Also this week we are working on teaching Avery to potty in the potty and wear underwear.  We went to the store and she got to pick out a pack of underwear.... she picked out Tinkerbell ones.  She LOVES wearing them, but suddenly she hates going to the bathroom in the potty.  We are pretty sure that its a power issue.... She likes to do things on HER terms. She doesn't like being told when to go to the bathroom, she wants to be able to pick and choose when she wants to go, and whether that's in a diaper or her underwear or the toilet.  So now when we tell her she needs to go sit on the potty she throws a huge fit. Which is funny, because 3 days ago, before we started  training, she had no problems going!  Also, like her brother was, she's scared to poop in the potty.  So she's holding it. Oy.

And, on the home-front, we were concerned with the few showings we've had, and since this is our first home sale we don't know whats "normal" so we asked our realtor and she is not concerned, and said every house is different, and gave us examples of many houses she's got listed right now that have had few showings and just sold, or some that have sold after just one showing, some that have sold after 1 month, etc, etc, etc. We just put our fliers in our front yard, and already those have been emptied and we printed more off.  We've seen a lot of  "drive-by's", and I know our house is in tip top shape, its nice and clean, and we just need to wait for the right people. God's teaching us patience, and i'm certainly getting the message! And i'm okay with it!
I don't know if I ever mentioned our plan?  We are leaning towards building a new house once we sell ours.  We've got a potential lot picked out. We can't buy it until we sell this though, so again, patience...... and we will know that if its still there and available when our house gets sold, then its ours, and if not, then it wasn't meant to be and God has other plans for us.
Being proactive though, we did meet with the seller of the property, and found out lots of useful information! He was really nice, answered all our questions, concerns, etc.  Our realtor set the appointment up for us and went for moral support.
We've been looking online at house plans. Figuring out what we want, what we don't want. Derek and I each made a list of 10 different things we want structurally in a new house, for example: big kitchen, dual vanity sinks in master bath, separate master suite from other bedrooms, etc.
Now I go to bed every night dreaming about our "new" home, and wake up every morning dreaming about it.  Instead of fretting about selling our house, I have dreams to focus on instead :)

Pinterest

Ya gotta love Pinterest!  EVERY time I get on it, I get sucked in!!!!!!!!  Its so horribly addicting!  But it can be addicting in a good way or a bad way, depending on how you use it!  I have found a lot of recipes and great ideas that I've used on it.... like the things i hang the kids artwork on in the stairway....inspired by pinterest.  And my menu board.... also pinterest inspired!  Tonight for dinner we are having some roasted red potatoes that are looking mighty tasty that I got the recipe from pinterest.
But, I've also seen people who use it for pointless reasons..... I wont name names! ;) But dont worry, I dont think anyone who reads here is guilty of this.  I know only intelligent people read my blog ;)

Anyways, just a quick post because I just saw a quote on Pinterest that I thought was really great, and a great reminder and motivator!  This summer has been really tough being motivated to work out, not sure why! I always feel good after I go and once i'm there, but just going is hard.  I know its so important though for my health, and I have totally seen the benefits of regular exercise.  In sept. it will be a year since I started going to toning class with my mother-in-law. Last sept or oct i had written in my journal my weight, and I was surprised to see that it was around 8 pounds more than what I currently weigh! I guess I didn't realize i'd lost more weight.
I haven't lost any weight in the last several months, i'm pretty stuck at this weight, but really i'm not concerned with losing anymore.  I'm totally happy where i'm at!  I've far exceeded my goal weight, and i've tossed all the clothes that I once wore that I had kept when I was heavier in hopes of one day wearing again, except they ended up being much too big.
Someday maybe i'll feel brave enough to announce my current weight and my old weight.... right now, not even my husband knows.  I'm still sensitive about it, and now looking back at my old weight, I gasp at what it was. Thank God i'm tall, otherwise I would have looked like quite a cow!

Anyways, here's the quote I saw on Pinterest.... hope it helps to motivate you all too!

"The pain of being overweight is far worse than the pain of working out."

So true!

The Open House

Yesterday was the realtors open house, and it went well!  14 realtors came and all of them had nothing but positive comments to say about the house, but there were a few negative comments regarding the neighborhood in the fact that there are a lot of rentals here, and there's been a few foreclosures and there's a short sale down the street.  They thought that the house was priced appropriately, but that with the neighborhood having so many rentals and the foreclosures/short sale, it might drive the price down some.
So, overall, it was good and bad news I guess.  Pretty much what we were expecting to hear, so it wasn't a surprise at all.
We may have to consider lowering our price a tad if we haven't had any interest in a month.  Which is fine, we have a small amount of wiggle room, but its still disappointing. (Thanks a lot neighborhood!!!!!!!)

My motivation is the kids.  They desperately need outdoor space that they can call their "own".... they need a place to dig and run, and have a swing set.  They both LOVE the outdoors, and while yes we do have a park 100 feet away, its not always possible or practical for me to drop everything and go to the park whenever they want to play outside.  Sometimes i'm in the middle of making dinner and they want to go play, its nice to just send them outside to play in the backyard.  As it is right now, they have no where to dig or run because of cat poop or the space is too small.  Sometimes in the evenings we go in the front yard as a family and they love that because there's a tiny bit more more room and we throw the Frisbee or play catch.

Anyways, its only been a week and a half!  Feels like its been at least a month and a half though!  Phew!

Next week Derek and I will celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary!  9 years already!  Where has the time gone!? I sure do love him :)

1 Week

The house has been on the market for 1 week tomorrow evening.  So if you've been wondering where i've been, i've been keeping the house spotless, and trying to occupy the kids and spend more time with them since the last month has been spent on nothing but house preparations.  The poor kids have been bored stiff, and it was beginning to show in their attitudes in a BIG way!  They missed their parents and were becoming bored and stir crazy.

Anyways, so we had 2 showings so far.  Less than we thought, but I think we were both preparing for a massive herd of showings.  The first showing was a couple, and they thought the house was lovely, but they were looking for a bigger back yard.  Cant blame them!  So are we! ;)
Today we had the second showing which was apparently investors looking for a rental property who liked the house but are more interested in a single story.

So, we continue to wait for the right people. This week our realtor will be having an open house for other realtors to come and look at the house.  She does this rather than have open houses for potential buyers since in all her many years of selling houses, having open houses for buyers rarely sold houses, and it was usually the neighbors who wanted to snoop. Instead, she has an open house for other realtors, and has drawings for giftcards to draw them in, and food, so then the realtors can go to their clients and say "hey, I have a house to show you that I think you're really going to like!"
So, i'm hoping this will bring in more showings!  We've had really really positive comments by the previous realtors.

So,  i'll leave you with that!  I hope that really really really quickly I can post in the title "SOLD!"