Abby has been doing amazingly well on the potty this month. She's only had one accident at school and a couple at home all month! Wow! We're so amazingly proud of her. And she's proud of herself too. She makes a big deal that she had "no accident" when she wakes up from her naps and when I pick her up from school.
And......this morning, for the first time ever, she woke up DRY! Yes, bone dry! Amazing! She had a diaper on (we still put her in diapers for naptimes), but it was completely dry. We were floored. She was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO proud of herself. And we were too!
In other news....
We've been packing all weekend. It feels like it will never end. Almost everything is in boxes in the garage. Our bed is the only thing that still needs to be taken apart. Peggy is holding out until the very last minute. Abby is sleeping on her mattress on the floor. And tomorrow we will be sleeping on the futon mattress on the floor. Funny because we slept on that futon mattress in our first few nights in this house.
The plan is to move everything in to a truck tomorrow night. We have 5 or 6 people coming over to help. Then we're closing Tuesday morning. Tuesday night we're taking the swingset trailer and the truck to the new house and unloading.
And wouldn't you know it, Abby got sick this weekend. She's had a cough all weekend. Today was especially bad. And of course she proceeded to give her cold to me, Peggy, Tom and Sally. Yes, we've all had scratchy throats all day. NOT the time I want to be sick. Argh....
It'll all be worth it just a couple of days from now when we're in our new house! (Assuming all goes well with our final walkthrough and financing!)
See you all on the other side!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Loading Up the Swingset
Moving is definitely a challenge. It's more of a challenge that it would normally be due to the way in which we're closing. We're closing on both houses on November 30th (Tuesday). But, we have to close on Buckley Meadows before we can buy the new house because we need some of the money from Buckley Meadows to buy the new house. So, what that means is that we have to have everything out of this house, go sign all the paperwork, and then move everything in to the new house. Ideally we'd have this magical, extremely large space to store everything for a day, but unfortunately that's just not going to happen.
So, we did the next best thing....got a few big trucks. Our plan was to take down the swingset the weekend before and load it on the back of one of Uncle Jim's big flatbed trailers. Then, the rest of the stuff we're going to load on to a 26 foot truck rental Monday night. We'll then leave that in the street while we go and close. Then Tuesday night, we'll move everything in both trailers into the new house. A pain the butt? Yes. Any other option? No.
Yesterday, Ryan, Dan Crinnion, and Dad came over. Tom (Peggy's dad) and Sally (Peggy's sister) were already here to help out with packing stuff. Tom and I took down some of the swingset (the rock climbing wall, slide, swings, ladders) on Friday. So, all we had left was the big tower. We weren't quite sure what to think, but we did know that the entire thing weighed about 700 pounds. We didn't want to take it entirely apart. Instead we were hoping to get just a few big pieces.
We started with half of the roof.
Then it was on to the other half of the roof. At this point, I think Abby started to realize what was going on. We've been loading up boxes for days, so she's starting to get the hang of it. We just keep telling her that we're taking everything to the new house. So when we asked her where we were taking the swingset, she said "new house." It was cute.
And the foreman just watched, thinking "Mommy, what's happening?"
"Seriously mama, what's going on??"
At this point we were trying to determine the best way to get it out of the backyard. We couldn't take it out of our gate because of the overhanging roof. So, we decided to go through Bob's yard.
Taking a break from her hard foreman job to play in the leaves.
"I play in the leaves for two seconds, and you take my swingset?!?"
At this point, she started to whine about her swingset. It was pretty funny. We quickly helped her realize that we were taking it to the new house though. That seemed to make it better.
Going over Bob's fence:
The fully loaded trailer. Yes, the entire swingset fit on there. Doesn't look so big all broken up! We also put a ton of other stuff on there to fill any nook and cranny that was left.
So, we did the next best thing....got a few big trucks. Our plan was to take down the swingset the weekend before and load it on the back of one of Uncle Jim's big flatbed trailers. Then, the rest of the stuff we're going to load on to a 26 foot truck rental Monday night. We'll then leave that in the street while we go and close. Then Tuesday night, we'll move everything in both trailers into the new house. A pain the butt? Yes. Any other option? No.
Yesterday, Ryan, Dan Crinnion, and Dad came over. Tom (Peggy's dad) and Sally (Peggy's sister) were already here to help out with packing stuff. Tom and I took down some of the swingset (the rock climbing wall, slide, swings, ladders) on Friday. So, all we had left was the big tower. We weren't quite sure what to think, but we did know that the entire thing weighed about 700 pounds. We didn't want to take it entirely apart. Instead we were hoping to get just a few big pieces.
We started with half of the roof.
Then it was on to the other half of the roof. At this point, I think Abby started to realize what was going on. We've been loading up boxes for days, so she's starting to get the hang of it. We just keep telling her that we're taking everything to the new house. So when we asked her where we were taking the swingset, she said "new house." It was cute.
And the foreman just watched, thinking "Mommy, what's happening?"
"Seriously mama, what's going on??"
At this point we were trying to determine the best way to get it out of the backyard. We couldn't take it out of our gate because of the overhanging roof. So, we decided to go through Bob's yard.
Taking a break from her hard foreman job to play in the leaves.
"I play in the leaves for two seconds, and you take my swingset?!?"
At this point, she started to whine about her swingset. It was pretty funny. We quickly helped her realize that we were taking it to the new house though. That seemed to make it better.
Going over Bob's fence:
The fully loaded trailer. Yes, the entire swingset fit on there. Doesn't look so big all broken up! We also put a ton of other stuff on there to fill any nook and cranny that was left.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Selling the House
Sorry to all of you out there, but this past month has been quite a whirlwind. So, let's back up a few weeks.
A couple of days before Halloween, our realtor called us and told us that she had some clients that want to put an offer on the house. They had been to our open house a couple weeks before. But, they hadn't seemed to show any interest until all of the sudden they wanted to write an offer! We were SOOOO excited. But, not too excited.
You see, we had been here before. At this point our house had been on the market for about 85 days. We already had two offers a couple weeks before. The first one was almost $20,000 less than our asking price. On a $140,000 house, that's a big difference. We negotiated, which was a stressful and awful process, over the course of a couple days. But, the highest they could afford was $127,000. SERIOUSLY!?!? Why are you looking at a house that is nowhere near your price range?
In the process of all of this, we got another offer. Our realtor called us to tell us there was an offer coming, but didn't know how much. Again, we were sooo excited! We were planning on counteroffering the crappy offer that night. We were hoping this was our saving grace. The offer was $139,000. Hooray, right? Nope. They wanted to lease-to-own. Seriously?? Argh. And the best part? The lady went bankrupt a year ago. Yeah, like she'd be able to get a loan to buy this house in 15 months. ARGH!
This was all in mid october. We had already been so close several other times. In september, one couple came through twice and said they were going to write an offer. So, we waited all weekend for the phone to ring. No offer. Then they decided they wanted to come through again on Monday. GREAT! We thought, this was it! So, we waited for the phone to ring again. And we waited some more. Surely if they come through three times, they're going to write an offer, right? Well, their realtor didn't call ours back for two weeks. Apparently they picked a different house.
There was another lady in early September who came through on a friday. She told our realtor that she wanted to bring her parents through. Surely a good sign, right? Well, she decided she wanted to come through ours and a couple other houses on labor day. She apparently called our realtor to get the showing set up. But our realtor didn't get the message until that night. By that point it was too late, they just bypassed our house. ARGH!
So, we just waited. We started talking about when we were going to take the house off the market. If you take it off the market for 60 days, then your "days on market" number resets. So, we were planning on taking it off the market in late november and go back on in early February. Yes, right before the baby is due to arrive. Certainly not ideal. Knowing the crazyness that the last month has been since we went under contract, words cannot describe how happy we are that we're doing this now, and not with a new baby. We can't even imagine having to show the house with a new baby.
The offer on Halloween came at just the right time. Sometimes it's funny the way things work out. Let me explain.
We looked at new houses a lot in august. But as soon as we realized that we weren't going to sell as quickly as we thought we would, we stopped looking. We didn't want to fall in love with a house and not be able to buy. But, we kept looking at houses online the entire time we were on the market. So, when we went under contract, we started looking right away. We were worried, because our buyers wanted to close on November 30th (less than a month away)!
By this point, we had narrowed down our house search to just a few. We had already decided we wanted to be in the fenton area. The biggest problem we were running in to is that we wanted a newer house with a large backyard. There were very few newer houses that had a big backyard. Most of them just had a deck or small patio, and that was about it. That just wasn't acceptable for us. Our requirement was a backyard as big or bigger than our current one. I can't tell you how many houses we walked through or looked at pictures of that were immediately disqualified due to the backyard. It was quite frustrating!
On our first day out looking with our realtor since selling the house, we looked at three houses. The third one was just PERFECT! 14 Misty Lou. We love everything about it. It sits on an acre. Four bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms. 2200 square feet. The house is 26 years old. It's in a great school district, Rockwood, and is less than half a mile from the elementary school. Two car garage. Two wood burning fireplaces. Granite in the kitchen. Finished basement with a fifth bedroom. When you throw in the HUGE yard, it's just plain perfect. Everything we wanted. We even wrote the riding lawnmower they had in the shed in to the contract! So, I'm going from a push (reel) mower to a riding lawnmower. Quite an adjustment. But, one I'm ok with making!
Before our second walkthrough, I talked to some of the neighbors up the street. One was bringing baked goods to the other. They seemed to nice! They really wanted us to buy because they were hoping for more little kids in the neighborhood (the lady had a three year old and a baby). She even told me that she'd bake for us if we bought! Hah, seem like nice neighbors.
So back to "the way things work out." This house had been on the market since June. But, they were way overpriced then. They cut the price four different times, between $10,000 and $15,000 each time. So, if we had sold our house right away in august or september, this house wouldn't have even been in our portfolio to look at because it was out of our price range.
You may be thinking "well, there's plenty of other houses out there." The problem is that in our online portfolio (setup by the realtor, shows all houses that meet your criteria), we were down to just one house.....this one. So, if we didn't buy this one, we probably would've had to wait until the spring to buy. We were so specific in what we wanted, that this was all that was left. Luckily for us, it's everything we ever wanted and then some.
We put in an offer just two days after we got the contract on our house. After some negotiation, we finally reached an agreement. That set off a whirlwind of events. We had so much to do in so little time. There were three inspections to get done on this house, two on the new house. I had to finish up a bunch of small projects to get our house to pass inspections. I had to get all of our loan stuff setup. It was CRAZY. On top of all of that, I was still teaching. Oh, and then there's STUCO. We had a really big event (a quarter auction) that I was in charge of during all of the crazyness.
To reward you for reading all of that, here's a couple of pictures. I'm sure there will be more soon.
So, to sum up the house selling experience: FRUSTRATING! We just felt like we never had any luck....until Halloween that is. But, then we realized just how lucky we were. Our dream house was cheap enough because we waited so long.
The one good thing about all of the showings we had?....I learned how to clean a house very quickly and efficiently!
We're closing in just over a week. It's coming so fast! Posting may be light until we can get in and settled to the new house.
A couple of days before Halloween, our realtor called us and told us that she had some clients that want to put an offer on the house. They had been to our open house a couple weeks before. But, they hadn't seemed to show any interest until all of the sudden they wanted to write an offer! We were SOOOO excited. But, not too excited.
You see, we had been here before. At this point our house had been on the market for about 85 days. We already had two offers a couple weeks before. The first one was almost $20,000 less than our asking price. On a $140,000 house, that's a big difference. We negotiated, which was a stressful and awful process, over the course of a couple days. But, the highest they could afford was $127,000. SERIOUSLY!?!? Why are you looking at a house that is nowhere near your price range?
In the process of all of this, we got another offer. Our realtor called us to tell us there was an offer coming, but didn't know how much. Again, we were sooo excited! We were planning on counteroffering the crappy offer that night. We were hoping this was our saving grace. The offer was $139,000. Hooray, right? Nope. They wanted to lease-to-own. Seriously?? Argh. And the best part? The lady went bankrupt a year ago. Yeah, like she'd be able to get a loan to buy this house in 15 months. ARGH!
This was all in mid october. We had already been so close several other times. In september, one couple came through twice and said they were going to write an offer. So, we waited all weekend for the phone to ring. No offer. Then they decided they wanted to come through again on Monday. GREAT! We thought, this was it! So, we waited for the phone to ring again. And we waited some more. Surely if they come through three times, they're going to write an offer, right? Well, their realtor didn't call ours back for two weeks. Apparently they picked a different house.
There was another lady in early September who came through on a friday. She told our realtor that she wanted to bring her parents through. Surely a good sign, right? Well, she decided she wanted to come through ours and a couple other houses on labor day. She apparently called our realtor to get the showing set up. But our realtor didn't get the message until that night. By that point it was too late, they just bypassed our house. ARGH!
So, we just waited. We started talking about when we were going to take the house off the market. If you take it off the market for 60 days, then your "days on market" number resets. So, we were planning on taking it off the market in late november and go back on in early February. Yes, right before the baby is due to arrive. Certainly not ideal. Knowing the crazyness that the last month has been since we went under contract, words cannot describe how happy we are that we're doing this now, and not with a new baby. We can't even imagine having to show the house with a new baby.
The offer on Halloween came at just the right time. Sometimes it's funny the way things work out. Let me explain.
We looked at new houses a lot in august. But as soon as we realized that we weren't going to sell as quickly as we thought we would, we stopped looking. We didn't want to fall in love with a house and not be able to buy. But, we kept looking at houses online the entire time we were on the market. So, when we went under contract, we started looking right away. We were worried, because our buyers wanted to close on November 30th (less than a month away)!
By this point, we had narrowed down our house search to just a few. We had already decided we wanted to be in the fenton area. The biggest problem we were running in to is that we wanted a newer house with a large backyard. There were very few newer houses that had a big backyard. Most of them just had a deck or small patio, and that was about it. That just wasn't acceptable for us. Our requirement was a backyard as big or bigger than our current one. I can't tell you how many houses we walked through or looked at pictures of that were immediately disqualified due to the backyard. It was quite frustrating!
On our first day out looking with our realtor since selling the house, we looked at three houses. The third one was just PERFECT! 14 Misty Lou. We love everything about it. It sits on an acre. Four bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms. 2200 square feet. The house is 26 years old. It's in a great school district, Rockwood, and is less than half a mile from the elementary school. Two car garage. Two wood burning fireplaces. Granite in the kitchen. Finished basement with a fifth bedroom. When you throw in the HUGE yard, it's just plain perfect. Everything we wanted. We even wrote the riding lawnmower they had in the shed in to the contract! So, I'm going from a push (reel) mower to a riding lawnmower. Quite an adjustment. But, one I'm ok with making!
Before our second walkthrough, I talked to some of the neighbors up the street. One was bringing baked goods to the other. They seemed to nice! They really wanted us to buy because they were hoping for more little kids in the neighborhood (the lady had a three year old and a baby). She even told me that she'd bake for us if we bought! Hah, seem like nice neighbors.
So back to "the way things work out." This house had been on the market since June. But, they were way overpriced then. They cut the price four different times, between $10,000 and $15,000 each time. So, if we had sold our house right away in august or september, this house wouldn't have even been in our portfolio to look at because it was out of our price range.
You may be thinking "well, there's plenty of other houses out there." The problem is that in our online portfolio (setup by the realtor, shows all houses that meet your criteria), we were down to just one house.....this one. So, if we didn't buy this one, we probably would've had to wait until the spring to buy. We were so specific in what we wanted, that this was all that was left. Luckily for us, it's everything we ever wanted and then some.
We put in an offer just two days after we got the contract on our house. After some negotiation, we finally reached an agreement. That set off a whirlwind of events. We had so much to do in so little time. There were three inspections to get done on this house, two on the new house. I had to finish up a bunch of small projects to get our house to pass inspections. I had to get all of our loan stuff setup. It was CRAZY. On top of all of that, I was still teaching. Oh, and then there's STUCO. We had a really big event (a quarter auction) that I was in charge of during all of the crazyness.
To reward you for reading all of that, here's a couple of pictures. I'm sure there will be more soon.
So, to sum up the house selling experience: FRUSTRATING! We just felt like we never had any luck....until Halloween that is. But, then we realized just how lucky we were. Our dream house was cheap enough because we waited so long.The one good thing about all of the showings we had?....I learned how to clean a house very quickly and efficiently!
We're closing in just over a week. It's coming so fast! Posting may be light until we can get in and settled to the new house.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Happy Halloween!
Abby was Dorothy this year. She loved her dress that Grams made her. Abby keeps referring to it as her princess dress, I don't think Dorothy was a princess but whatever I'm just glad she liked the dress.
First time trying it on... kinda looks like a munchkin.
Thursday night was the Halloween party at daycare. Yes, she smiles like this all the time.
Friday night Dave carved our pumpkin, I scooped out the guts and Abby was unimpressed by the whole processes. She didn't like touching the guts. The seeds were the only part she liked.
She didn't even want to hold up the smile.... so weird.
She did like talking to the pumpkin after it was carved. Everyday she ask the pumpkin "how you?"... pause.... "good".... "okay".... "byebye".
She's a funny girl. However we forgot to light the pumpkin on Halloween. Oops.
This photo cracks me up. If you the viewers at home knew what was going on at our house this day, it was nuts. We were really living in the land of Oz with strange things happening all day. Starting with a showing at 9am, at 8:40 we heard a "thunk" and our under cabinet lighting turned off. Thankfully the AC adapter had just fallen out and the "thunk" was it landing in the cabinet. Abby was a crab all day long too many parties and not enough napping. This might be our Christmas picture. It's just too funny.
There is a whole series of pictures that go with this. Abby really didn't understand why she was pointing this at Daddy's knee but went with it. Too funny.
Happy Halloween.
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