Well we've been here in our new house almost 2 months now! We're finally getting settled in....some pictures hung on the walls, almost all the boxes are emptied, or at least have been addressed in some manor.  The majority of the mess in the garage now is from large items that we no longer need that we brought with us from the old house- our old washer/dryer, microwave stand, and things of that nature.

Our backyard should be started in a couple weeks when it starts drying out more, and let me tell you, we cant WAIT for that! Right now, the gigantic pile of mud out our large back windows is really unattractive, and the water that pools around it is an attractant to the kids.... so, they've come in from outside covered in mud, and i do mean covered- from head to toe, dripping wet, with mud. 

I don't think we'll be able to get a garden started in time this year, but next year, look out!  We're having a beautiful garden with lots of good veggies, and tons of strawberry bushes and blueberries since the kids eat them like they are candy!  We've talked about a fruit tree or two.... we've got plenty of room for it now! Perhaps this year we'll be able to prep for next years garden ;)

We really love it here though.  We see lots of wildlife, as I may have already mentioned?  Lots of bluebirds, which I researched and they are Western Scrub Jays. A family of 4 deer have been wandering around the area in the evenings, and in fact last night I was doing dishes and I looked up and out the backdoor and one of the deer is about 10 feet from the backdoor!  

And so Kira, one of our cats, spends most of her time on our small 3x3 temporary deck out the back door. Since she's getting old, all she does is sleep out there all day, I think 2 moves in 4 months really stressed her out, and she's pretty high strung so I think this last move did her in, so now she just sleeps almost all the time on the back porch. So we've been feeding her on the back porch. So one night I was sitting on the couch, kids were in bed, Derek was in the office working. And I heard a commotion on the porch so I looked back, and I saw Kira, but all I could really see was her tail, and it was HUGE, so obviously something freaked her out. So I went to the door to inspect.

Sitting there staring her down was a big old raccoon!!!!! Now, I know those things are really cute, but that they are mean as can be! So I'm banging on the door trying to get it to go away and it just sits there, and i'm banging on the door trying to get Kira to go away so she doesnt get attacked, but she just sits there! It eventually it jumped down but just stood by the deck, so at that point I opened the door enough to stick my arm out and try to motion it away and hiss at it and yell at Kira to go away some more. Of course, both just sit there.  Finally the thing turns its back in defeat and wanders off, but it kept looking back at me. Kira was pretty jumpy the rest of the evening.

And now we don't feed the cats after dark unless we have to.

Other wildlife, someone across the field from us has a peacock that is often wandering around the backyard. Thats amusing as neither cats nor bird seem to really notice each other or care that the others are there.

Jadon had his 6th birthday, and when we were in the rental he'd talked about having a party in our new house.  We didn't think we'd be here in time though.  We were!  But since i'd been sick that first week, and Derek was tied up with his big work project for those first 2 weeks, we never had a chance to plan anything. So we had a late one a few weeks ago, and he was super excited :) 

Not last weekend but the weekend before, we made a trip up to Washington for 4 days. Derek's grandpa passed away, so we were going up for the celebration of life service. The kids did surprisingly well!  Considering we don't take that many overnight trips.  They had a hard time settling down to go to sleep the first night.  It didnt help that Avery took a huge nap on the way up, and that they sat immobile all day in the car so they didn't get to burn any energy off.  And it was on this trip that we learned of Derek's love of hotel toast! ;)

So i'm FINALLY getting around to getting my monthly menu back up!  I plan to start back in May, and i'm really excited, I found some new recipes on Pinterest that i'm excited to try.  We've been stuck in this horrible horrible rut since we moved out of our old house and away from the menu, and i'm so sick of food, and its no wonder Jadon always wants to eat out now!  It was hard at the rental because I had no space to cook, so I made easy things that cooked fast... a lot of boxed items. As a result, I've put on a couple pounds. It doesnt help that i've had to miss a lot of my exercise classes due to illness, moving, and Derek being busy with work and unable to be home in time. 

So i'm excited to finally be getting back into the swing of things and get back on track! 

House pix

Since those of you who don't/can't get out to see the house "growing up", I thought i'd post a few pictures.  The first few were taken over the weekend. They are of the kitchen/dining/living area- all one big room. They had just painted all the doors so the doors were all standing in the middle of the living room floor, so it was hard to get a good picture.  Actually, it was hard to get a GOOD picture of anything with my ipod.

Here i'm standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking towards the breakfast bar (and Jadon), and towards the back of the house, or what we refer to as the "wall of windows" since its mostly all windows.

And here i'm standing in the spot where the last picture was just looking, and now looking into the kitchen.

This picture i'm standing back in the middle of the kitchen looking more towards the middle of the living room.  We debated about the vaulted ceiling, since the kitchen is also vaulted, but we are so glad we went with the vault!  Its such a small vault, but it looks so nice :)

Here is the master bathroom cabinets, just installed today! There will be dual sinks... Derek and I are excited to have our own sinks!

And this is exciting.... my laundry room! :) I didn't get to see the cabinets personally, but Derek said the room and cabinets look huge now.  And, the corner cabinet is a lazy susan... a pleasant surprise!  Didn't realize it would be a lazy susan! Washer and dryer will go on the left of the cabinets.  I'm so excited to have INDOOR laundry facilities! I think my laundry will get done faster, because I won't put off going into the garage to freeze! Also, a utility sink will be in the cabinets also. Another thing i'm really excited for!

I cant wait to see the kitchen cabinets installed!  At the end of the kitchen cabinet there will be a desk, which will be home to my laptop, and will be my command center where i'll keep my day planner, my monthly meal planner, and everything else I need to help keep the family and house organized and running smoothly!

Beautiful

Our house is looking really beautiful!  I'm so happy with the plan we chose, and I can't wait to move in! Its so light and bright inside, i'm so happy with it!

This week the changes have been less obvious, but they are still happening rapidly.  The ceiling was textured and painted, the walls were textured and will be painted this week, exterior was painted and trim is in the process of being painted. Gutters were installed. Garage floor was poured.  Interior trim was installed and painted. Someone is ALWAYS at the house doing something, day and sometimes nightly too. It really is like extreme makeover!

So why is there a push to get the house done so quickly? Well for starters, because it can be done. Randy said any house can be built fast, and it does not affect the quality of the house.  Usually when a house is built, between each job, the house sits for weeks with nothing happening. For example, after foundation is laid, it sits for weeks. After walls go up, it sits for weeks, etc.  These weeks add up to months.  Randy just scheduled our house so that there was never any down time, and even sometimes crews were there at the same time.
Secondly, our lender, who has worked with our builder many times before, was pushing for a sooner closing date so we could get locked in at a low rate. (Funny thing is, the day after we locked in, it went up a half a point, so we saved a lot of money there!)
Thirdly, Randy has several other jobs lined up waiting!  Funny.... we talked to several other builders who said they hadn't built houses in years because the economy was so terrible.  Its because they aren't willing to build quality homes at lower costs.  They are more worried about making a pretty penny than just having the work.  That's why we like our builder.  He's not willing to raise his prices! :) And THAT is why he has work and the others don't.

This coming week pretty much everything will be finished, and I cant WAIT!!! :)
We spent a couple hours at the house yesterday measuring the windows for blinds, and talking with the landscaper who will be doing the front yard this week. We met our future neighbor, who dropped in to show her friend the house because she will be building a house right next to ours, and she loved our floor plan so much shes going to use our floor plan too.  Derek's a bit disappointed. He was really excited to have a house that probably no one in the world had. Obviously the floor plan was similar to someone else's but not with the changes we made.  Luckily Randy will be building her house also, and he told his designer to change the elevation of her house to look differently from ours.

Jadon's starting to get anxious about moving. We started taking him back to see his counselor a few weeks ago. His counselor said that Jadon is a hard one to get information from, but his session yesterday went really well and he gathered a lot of insight. Jadon really really REALLY hates this rental house, he's excited about the new house, but also confused about moving. He's also still having some underlying issues with the sickness stuff. I figured. Whenever a kid is not at school, thats the first thing he tells me about his day when I pick him up. Or the first thing he tells me is that a kid went home sick that day. Or he seems to be a little anxious when his teacher is out for a couple days. Oddly, he didn't have any problems when I was sick a couple weeks ago.
He really misses our old house, and doesn't understand why we had to move. Its all he ever knew. He's very sensitive to changes in his life. We are learning when something is bugging him, how he is acting.
The other night, he wouldn't stay in bed, and was crying about it, which is not normal unless somethings bugging him. So we went to talk to him. It was really sweet, he tried really hard to tell us what was going on in his little noggin that was bugging him, but he doesn't understand and therefore can't fully put into words.  So he told us that he had a lot of boxes in his head, and they all had question marks in them. So we talked to him about moving and the new house a little and how things will get back to normal again, then after that he said one of the boxes turned into an exclamation point. We were proud of him for trying to talk to us. That's the first time he's been able to tell us somewhat whats going on in his head.

On a different note, we signed him up for karate last month.  Poor kid, I didn't realize just how much of my lack of balance and coordination he got from me, but its pretty evident at karate. However, after 5 or 6 weeks of karate we are already noticing an improvement in his balance, so we are encouraged!  He is enjoying it too. I've heard a lot of positive things about karate, physically, mentally, emotionally. I think its good for him. Its teaching him to be quick, focused, strong, confident, etc. He has earned 4 stripes on his belt. We are working with him at home on everything as well. Practice makes perfect.

Avery is still the same. Nothing affects her!  I always sign her up for gymnastics at the beginning of the year for a few months through the college.  She LOVES it!  Its not my favorite... I hate driving all the way there, having to find a parking spot, then having to walk a mile to get to the building. Okay, i'm being dramatic, but its not the most convenient. Plus there's very little seating inside for the boys to sit and watch, and actually watching can be impossible sometimes.  But, Avery loves it, so that's why we do it. She's good too. She's much more agile than her brother.  Much more athletic. She has no problem doing everything that the teacher  says, and she has got some good listening skills!!  When I don't think she's listening, she is.  For example, the teacher will set up a little obstacle course thing on the floor, about 6 different things, and then show them what to do all at once. I don't expect a 3 year old to remember what to do for any of them, but she knows exactly what to do, so she was clearly paying attention!

Anyways, daylight savings begins in a month and Jadon's birthday is in a month. Very excited about both!  And very glad we will be in our new house for both! :)

2 weeks!!!

In 2 weeks we get to sign our lives over to our beautiful new home! Which means in 2 weeks and 1 day we will be moving into our beautiful new home! ..... but whose really counting? ;)

We are super super excited, but there's a ton of things that need to be done, here and there and everywhere!  The next 2 weeks will no doubt be busy ones, but i'm okay with that, considering the circumstances.

Tired...

If you asked me if I'm too excited about the house to sleep, the answer would be yes.

House update

Excitement is growing in the Loveless household!  We have a new closing date of...drum roll please................................................................................................................................

FEBRUARY 22nd!  Yes that is correct, 3 weeks from now!

Interior walls are being put up as I type. Siding is being put up as I type. The driveway and garage are being poured next week. The siding is being painted in the next couple days. After that, all that will be left will be trim work in the house, which may be done sooner and I just don't know it...carpets and flooring's  cabinets and counters, toilets and of course sinks and faucets, and painting the interior, and of course all the finishing touches like fixtures. Its really coming along, its amazing.  Every time we go is a huge change.

I have to admit, I was a little worried the second we submitted the plans, even after spending hour after hour analyzing the plans until we came up with what we thought was the best possible plan for us.  There were still things that worried me.  But now seeing it all come together, every time I go I love it more!  Its nice and bright, which was a HUGE deal for me.  I HAVE to have natural light. That's one thing I loved about our last house was all the natural light. And that is very important for me, especially in the winter months when I tend to get dragged down by the short, gray, dreary days.
In the new house, our plans called for basically our living/dining area to be a wall of windows, but its facing the west. Getting to go there in the middle of winter and see how it is, and there's lots of light coming in, even in the winter.

Another thing that I am really loving is the HUGE hallway!  Not long, but very wide!  Its so wide because the original plan was, as I think I mentioned a daylight basement plan, so the hallway was where the stairs were to be, so we took out the stairs and put in a huge storage closet area instead, but the hallway is really wide, and it is really great! Several people can walk through there at a time. The kids will be able to run around and play.....

We are really loving our builder as well.  He has been great.  He's not just out to make a fast buck, even though the house is going up fast. If he were out to make a fast buck, we would not been able to build, it would have been too expensive for us. He's a family man with 6 young kids, the youngest still an infant.

We are leaving some projects for the future for us to do in an effort to save some money.  For example, the back patio/porch, we are just having a small 3x3 pad- which is what he is required to do- put in for now, and then we are going to build a deck, and i'd like to put a post up on the end of the over hang on the back patio as it looks funny hanging over with nothing supporting it... IMO.  We plan to someday put some stonework on house as well, but not for a long while i'm guessing.... like on this house: Dovetail with bricks That is actually the color we are painting the exterior as well.  (I loooooove the color of the doors on that house too, but those doors were much too spendy for our budget, so we had to go with white doors.)

So there you have it!  We're in the process of picking out our lighting, which will be minimal. And then we will be picking our faucets, and after that I think most everything has been picked! Phew! What a whirlwind ride this has been!  Its still hard to imagine us living in the house.

Home progress

So the house is rapidly moving along!  All the exterior walls are up, and all the interior "bones" are up, so we were able to walk through the house and get a feel for how it actually will be.  Pretty much how I envisioned it after analyzing our plan for so long!  There are things here and there that are either bigger than we expected, like all of the windows (which is a good thing!), or smaller than we expected (like the kids bathroom) but not a huge deal and nothing we could really do anything about anyways without changing the floor plan and adding to the cost of it which we could not do. And really, how much time will they spend in there?  We got along fine in our previous TEENY bathrooms, so this will be just fine!

Did I mention the roof is up and the shingles also? Yeah, they are.  

The windows and exterior doors are in the garage and will be installed on tuesday. We just picked out our front door earlier this week and already its there!  The shower/tubs are sitting outside waiting to be installed this week too. Also the interior walls will get their "meat."

The electrician comes this week as well so we had to go mark any special places where we wanted plugs and cables installed. 

This past friday we went and picked out our cabinets. We went with cherry cabinets in a shaker style I guess is what its called? We then picked out all our flooring- carpets, vinyls, laminates. Countertops/backsplash.  Phew, it was exhausting but I think we are happy with our choices!  I know i'm definitely happy with the cherry cabinets because i've always thought they were beautiful, but we'll see how the rest looks once its put together. 

Our master bedroom closet is humongous. I didn't realize it would be so big, at least for us its huge. Considering we don't really have a ton of clothes or shoes, we are going to have a heck of a lot of extra storage space in our closet! And the floor plan we selected originally had a daylight basement with a set of stairs in the hallway, but obviously we did not need a daylight basement for this lot or the stairs, so in place of the stairs we made a giant storage closet.  I shouldn't have an issue with storage in this house like I did at our other house! Since the closet is not as wide as a set of stairs, this also made for a nice wide hallway as well. I LOVE how spacious the house feels! I can't wait to move in and feel the breathing room!

My only complaint is that right between our lot and the next lot is a street light, but looking out Jadon's bedroom window of the house the first thing you see is this big street light. Hopefully with some clever landscaping I can make it less noticeable- both from the street and from inside the house!

I am just beyond thrilled! This is such a dream come true for us! We always knew we wouldn't stay in our last house forever since it was such a tiny lot, but we never dreamed that we'd actually ever be able to sell it and make enough to afford to move somewhere bigger with a bigger lot. I'm so excited my kids will get to run and play in their own backyard and kick/throw a ball in it, have a slip n slide, a pool, a swing set, a playhouse, etc.  We would be able to fit it all in our lot now, and then some! And we will be able to have our families and friends come over and be able to fit comfortably inside our house for gatherings without being squished inside.  We will even be able to put the leaf in our table and have plenty of room! 

I can't wait to have you all over to see it when we move in! :)

Pix Post

Here's a long overdue picture post.  Just random pictures! 

A few weeks ago, Avery learned how to write her name.  This was the first time she wrote it.  She hasn't stopped since, and she has greatly improved!  And now I don't even have to tell her anymore what letters to write, she knows the letters in her name.  My little smarty pants :)

Avery got some lip gloss for Christmas from her Aunt Alayna, and we got that out a couple weeks ago, and boy did she have fun with that.  She had to keep applying it over and over to both our lips, and here we are showing off our glossy lips.

One morning Avery came out of her room with I think every piece of jewelry she owns on, as well as a flower in her hair and her sunglasses on.  She was very stylish.  I snapped several pictures (only posted 2 here though). My favorite is the 2nd one on here where her big brother tried to photo bomb.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love having both a boy and a girl? I get the best of both worlds!

Here is the foundation of our house!  This picture was taken on the 15th of this month. 

Like I said, Avery is constantly writing her name now......even in pretzels. 

This sweet little face was beginning to remind me of Tow Mater (see next picture).  His two top teeth are loose, and while the one adult tooth has already started growing in front of the baby tooth, the other one was not, and it was growing properly.  However, that tooth kept getting looser as the adult tooth was pushing it out, and as it pushed it, it started to stick out and down farther and farther.   To be continued..........

So this picture was taken yesterday of the house and all the walls, internally and externally are now up!

Wearing her sleeping mask.  She insists on wearing it most nights.  Such a personality she is!

We've had the weirdest weather lately!  Its been cold!  Mid-upper 20's and low 30's, but never warmer, and the fog never clears.  Its been going on this way for like a week.  And for many of those days we've had some freezing fog.  Except the freezing fog only affects this particular area, and then once you get out of that  "zone" it clears and its dry. So this is pretty much what yesterday looked like, and today at our house.  On our way home from dropping Jadon at school, the street was empty, I slowed down and snapped a picture because its so weird to me.  Its very slick.  I couldn't figure out why they hadn't cancelled school, and then once I got out of that pocket, it was pretty clear, and by the time I got to Jadon's school, the road was dry. I really have enjoyed the pretty white though!  Its given us some different scenery.  

And today when I picked Jadon up from school, I noticed a hole in his mouth. His tooth finally came out! It got knocked out while he was playing basketball at recess.  Now if we could only get the other one to come out!  Then we will have 4 lost teeth already.  

I have to say, I think nothing is cuter than kindergardeners with missing teeth.  Those grins with the missing teeth just make them seem so innocent and cute.  I couldn't wait to get a holey smile of Jadon! 

This week we picked out our front door and interior doors for the house.  And later this week we are going to pick out our cabinets, counters, back splash, carpets, and all other flooring. (deep breaths.........) that's a lot of decisions to make but i'm so glad because we are getting to move in a month earlier than planned!
I cant wait.  I cannot wait!  I CANT WAIT!!!!!!!

It's Official!

We're buying a house!  And there it is in the picture below!

No no no, not the back of that yellow house on the left of the picture. That's someone else's house.
Do you not see the house??????  You don't?????  Oh, well you will in April when we move in!  For now you just have to envision a house there, because that's where our house will be!  You are looking at our lot, and this Friday they will begin excavating!

We couldn't be more excited with how things have worked out! :)

So our lot is .39 acres, its mostly flat, and its on a culdesac which will be PERFECT for the kids to ride their bikes in! Our house will be a single story, with 3 bedrooms and an office, and INDOOR laundry!!!!  Something we didn't have at our old house, and we don't have in the rental now either, so i'm sooooooo excited!  No more freezing my tush off every time I need to throw in some laundry!  The main living area, dining, kitchen will be a nice, big open room!
And best of all, the kids will have a TON of room to run around and play outside in the backyard!
We can hardly wait!  April can't come fast enough!  Usually I want time to slow down, but not so right now! Derek's going to continue to be super busy with work as they move closer to his "go live" at the hospital, and now that we are "settled" here, I've got the kids signed up for lessons again, so hopefully that will help time to go faster!

I'll be posting pictures of the progress along the way, as I can hardly contain my excitement! :)

Well here we are

We are all moved and the house is no longer our house. We closed thursday the 25th.  The last couple weeks have been incredibly stressful and rough for me, emotionally.  Apparently I was quite emotionally attached to my first house, and I knew I was, but I didn't realize just how much until it came time to actually start moving.

So our realtor has a rental house, and she's been working tirelessly most of the summer to try to get it back up to par after the previous tenants destroyed it.  She said we could move in there. Even though it is small (998sqft), only has 1 bathroom, Avery's room is about 7x7ft, and the kitchen is much smaller than what I had before!  Unfortunately, we've had a lot of things go wrong since being here.  Things like the faucet in the bathroom leaking and draining slowly, and the toilet suddenly started leaking out the bottom at the floor, a lot.  Luckily, Brenda gets it taken care of pronto, and we ended up with a brand new faucet and a brand new toilet! My dryer wont hook up to the outlet in the garage either, so Derek had to buy a special cable, and I should have my dryer hooked up tonight.

I'll admit that I felt really depressed last week.  It was a hard pill to swallow, plus I was at the old house every day cleaning and getting the last of our things out, and rounding up the cats to bring over, so it didn't make it any easier seeing the house every day, and then leaving it to come here to the rental.  In fact, typically whenever I was at the old house I was sobbing.  The kids were always asking me "mommy, why are you sad?"  Jadon would sometimes say "i'm going to miss this house" and I'd wonder what the heck we were doing selling our beloved house!  But then we'd come back to the rental (which has a fenced big backyard) and the kids would immediately go outside and play and play and play, and I know we made the right decision to sell. After all, our biggest motivation for selling was to find a house with a bigger yard for the kids.

So now that I haven't been back to the house anymore, things are getting better.  We are adjusting to life here, although I have no desire to cook anything or be in this kitchen at all!  This town smells to high heaven, and I miss N. Albany and cant wait to get back!
The kids had no problem at all adjusting.  A little surprising to me, I expected some minor problems at least. The cats?  Well, Our black kitty had no problem adjusting.  She seemed to figure it out right away, even had no problem with being in the carrier and in the car, and almost seemed to like it!
The other 2 disappeared for several days and I thought for sure they were gone, but then they showed up last night and were back again this morning for breakfast!  I'm not sure where they went or what they were doing?

Now if we could only find a new house to buy!

October tomorrow?!

The last couple weeks have been super busy! And now today is the last day of September already!

Yesterday we did The Color Run in Portland!  That was an experience!  We decided to take the kids with us, they were free and hopefully they would see that fitness/being healthy= fun!  We jogged some, but walked most of it because of the kids. Pictures will follow eventually, but possibly not until my yearly slideshow! (Yikes!)

I'm not even sure what to say!  The next few weeks will be busy as well!  Next weekend we will celebrate Avery's 3rd birthday! :*(  (I should probably get on that!) The following weekend we have a birthday party to go to, and then the weekend after that we are moving!  Where?  We don't know yet!  We've been inquiring about some rentals, but we are needing a month to month rental and most places are 6 mo or 1 year leases.  SO, that makes things complicating.
On the house front, we've met with a few builders and we are feeling like building might not be whats in store for us. For one thing, the lot we are looking at, we could potentially get cheap, but since we'd need to put a daylight basement in, it would be a more expensive build, so that would cancel out the cheap cost of the lot, which would make the price too high for us most likely!  The last builder we spoke with, we talked to at the lot as well as at our house, and he was very thorough and honest about what kinds of expenses a build on that lot would entail.  We haven't 100% ruled it out yet, but our goals have shifted towards looking at already built houses now..... and finding ourselves a place to rent in the meantime!
I'd like to just say, this is very hard for me.  I HATE change for one thing, and knowing i'm leaving the comfort of my own home for good to go to a rental (that we don't even know where yet) for a house that we don't even know when we'll find....it scares me. I like the familiarity of our life. I like the routine of our life. I don't do well with spontaneity, and flying by the seat or your pants, or unplanned things, and that's kind-of how this feels to me. I'm anticipating a lot more migraines this month, a lot of sleepless nights, and a lot more heart palpitations!

On a lighter note, my baby girl will be 3 in a week! How is that possible!?  She requested a Strawberry Shortcake cake, and I make all my kids birthday cakes.  And even though they don't look very good most of the time- after all  i'm a mom, not a professional cake decorator and I've never had cake decorating classes- I make them with a special ingredient that no bakeries can make them with- Love!  So I found a Strawberry Shortcake cake to make Avery, and I ordered the topper, and the rest doesn't look too terribly difficult.  I thought about attempting to make my own marshmallow fondant since it apparently tastes a heck of a lot better than the premade Wilton stuff. We'll see.  I don't know if I will have the time to do that. We haven't even talked about what we are doing for her birthday yet!  AAHH!  I feel so behind!

So here's a picture of the cake:
The cake itself and the stripes will be easy.... the flowers.... i'm not sure. I'll have to research!  But she will LOVE it!  And she gets to keep the set on top to play with afterwards.

I was noticing the other day how much Strawberry Shortcake had a makeover since when I was a kid!

Sold

We got an offer on our house! It was for a bit lower than our asking price, but its a solid offer, and its enough for us, and neither Derek nor I, nor our agent feel that we should counter offer at all.  We'd be crazy if we thought that someone would make an offer on our house for the original price unless there was competition.
So, we accepted the offer!

So, pending an inspection and an appraisal, we will have to be out of our house by Oct. 25th.  Yikes! We are worried about both of those.  I'm worried about the inspection.  Apparently they will spend 4 hours inspecting every square inch of your house, and some even mark off things as petty as "a light switch plate is crooked." What if there has been something seriously wrong with the house all along that we've had no idea about????  Or one thing that really scares me is mold!  Seems like there is so much potential for mold to grow in a house, in ANY house.....

Anyways.  Derek's really worried about the appraisal.  If the appraisal comes back lower than the asking price, then the deal's off, and the house is off the market until  ???  That would be horrifying, that would mean we'd be here for a very long time.

Adding to the stress, we've got like 6 or 7 builders that we will be "interviewing," and trying to coordinate times to do this, and the meetings will be lengthy as there is a lot to discuss.  Most of them appear to only have times during the week to meet, meaning we cant do the meetings on the weekends, which would have been ideal.

On top of that, we'll have to move most of our stuff to storage if everything goes well with the appraisal and inspection, and find a temporary place to live. Derek's work is picking up, and Jadon starts kindergarten next week.
I had planned to enroll each of the kids in one extracurricular activity this session, but will now be holding off until things settle down!  Too much crazy busyness for this family!!!  We like our calmness!!
But, I guess we asked for this!  And we have to go through this if we want to move.

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 :)

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!"

Almost Ready!

The house is almost ready!  Basically it just needs a good head to toe cleaning, and then it will be ready to list! We are more than ready! The last few weeks have been tiring, stressful, exhausting.... Safety Town in the middle of it all did not help OUR timeline, but that's okay because we're going by God's timeline.

Now that its just about done, we're getting really excited. I have a good feeling that we're going to sell quick.  Except now i'll be totally disappointed if we don't.

Last weekend we looked at several houses again, without the kids. A few that we'd already looked at (WITH the kids) that we wanted to revisit and look at better without them, and a new one that was just listed.  The ones we'd already looked at were scratched off our list of potentials.  The new listing was an older house.  It was in good shape for being older, had good bones.  But the kitchen and bathrooms needed immediate work.  And it did smell a bit like cigarette smoke. Other than those things, it was well cared for on the inside. Just needed updating.  Outside it had power lines from the house and the surrounding houses meet up in the backyard, which was an eyesore, and one was quite low and almost touchable from the back deck.  I was not comfortable with that.

Really, there is not much at all out there that meets our criteria.  And even if we were being a bit picky, we are wanting this to be the last house we buy, so we have a right to be picky.

So, now we are looking into building a house!!  And this is most likely the route we will go.  This way we will be able to customize a house plan how we want it to fit our needs/wants, and find a lot that is more what we are looking for. We are QUITE excited! :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
More to come on that soon!


Next time I post, mostly likely will be when the house is on the market! Wahoo!

Avery Park

Took Jadon to Avery Park this weekend for a little bit. Most of the toys on the playground at the bottom part of Avery Park were a little too old and advanced for him, so really he could only play on the swing. After a bit, we decided to walk to the top part of the park where the small playground and train and dinosaur bones are. We let Jadon walk by himself, but it took us a long time to get there! He was so distracted by everything..... a dog playing in the distance. He stopped and pointed to the dog and said "Puh Puh" (puppy). Melts my heart everytime I hear him "talk"!
Also, he was a little afraid of the big leaves and sticks on the ground. We dont have any big trees that leave sticks or leaves in our yard or around our house, so they were foreign to him. Also, we were able to walk a good part of the park in the shade of those big trees, but every once in awhile we would get to a clearing where the shade would end and the sun would be shining brightly on the ground. Poor little guy was afraid to walk on the sunny parts! It took quite a bit of convincing, and even a little nudging to get him to walk on the sunny areas.
Once at the top of the park, we went in the train- he wasnt really interested in the train yet. Then we went to the playground area, and he got to swing some more, and also got to play on a this little mini teeter totter thing. He liked that! Then daddy put him down the slide.... his face was one of complete worry, though it happened so fast he didnt have time to even think about it.
Anyways, it was fun! Makes me wish we had a bigger yard that he could run around in, and trees that he could seek shelter under from the hot sun. Hopefully someday we will be able to have a home with a little more space (indoors and outdoors!) For now, we are just happy to own a nice home and have a roof over our heads, and shelter from the hot/cold weather!