Photo Dump

I am so very very far behind on blogging, that I am doing a quick "make sure everything gets in" photo dump.  I went back today and blogged about November and December of 2012, that's how far behind I am.  So, here are months worth of pictures (some may be duplicates from previous posts?).

 Ethan is getting into superheroes.  We got this shirt for him at Goodwill, and if you see him wearing it, you know that I just did laundry.  He always wants to wear this and his Green Lantern underwear.

 Ethan started taking pictures, so I have a  memory card full of random pictures, but some are good enough to keep.

 Grandma came to stay with us as we got settled into normal life after moving and hospital.  It was great to have a second set of hands to deep clean the house, and keep normal things running as I deep cleaned.

 Children's museum.

 Training for Ragnar.

 Ethan took gymnastics for a few months.

 We got a big rain, and made the most of it.

 They get so silly!

 2nd trip to the dentist.

 St. Patrick's Day dinner

 and popcorn.

 Learning to cut with the big kids in preschool.

 "I look like Nana."

 Frosting!

 I helped a little with the Blue and Gold Banquet, so I brought Ethan with me.  He also got to attend a bike derby that I did an obstacle course for.

 I organized an Easter Egg Hunt.

 Easter gifts.

 Nursery!  Benton does great.

 ENT follow up appointment where we found out Benton did not need a tube in his other ear-yay!

 Comtrans company picnic.

 Library story time.

 Enchanted Island Amusement Park.

 Carlee picking up Ethan in a hug.

 Jumping into a pillow pile.

 First play date of the summer.

 More museum.

House Hunt

For my records, and for anyone who cares about details and wasn't receiving the play by play through the whole process.  Thanks to the many people who put up with my constant ramblings about this (Lisa, Jessica, Heather...)

In December of 2011, we decided to try and buy a new house.  Prices were crazy low, so we figured we should take advantage of that.  Little did we know what a challenge it would be to buy a house.  At that point almost every house we saw was a short sale.  We made offers on 6, at or above asking price within 24 hours, before we even had an offer accepted (because there were so many investors with cash).  While we waited for the bank to process that offer, we continued looking at houses and putting in offers with no luck.

Then, our friends/neighbors told us they wanted to short sale their house.  They bought a new house, put their's up for sale, and accepted our offer.  That way we didn't have to play the game of trying to get an offer accepted and they knew their buyer wasn't going to walk.

Our offer on the other short sale was accepted except the bank was requiring the seller to contribute more money.  He didn't want to, and we didn't want to cover the amount either, especially considering we liked our neighbor's house better and the short sale would require some fixing up.  So, we turned down that deal, and that house never sold.

While we waited for our friend's home, we continued looking at other houses, but rarely, if ever, put offers on any, because none compared to the deal we were going to get.  After 4-6 months, the bank denied the short sale, but our friends and their realtor thought they could still get it through.  We started looking more at other homes.

The market was still crazy competitive with cash offers, and we missed out on a lot of houses we like because of that.

While I was in New York, I noticed a house we had looked wanted to see but the listing agent told us it  was going under contract.  It had been over a week and was still listed as Active, so we looked into it.  They said they had several offers, but discussed a price they would accept from us.  Mike went and saw it, fell in love, and after a lot of fancy foot work, and help from my dad, got an offer accepted on that house.  It was an approved short sale, so it should have been a quick close.  We waited, and waited, and waited.  In January, my loan officer told me the title company was getting very different information than we were.  We looked into it, and that day it had been sold at auction!  Without them telling us!  Mike was especially heartbroken over this house, and it only sold for $7000 more than we were going to pay for it (and we had a friend who could have gotten it for us at auction had we known).

The same day, or day before, we found out about that house, I saw a listing for another house that I thought looked great.  We put an offer on it, and amazingly (and with more help from Dad), our offer was accepted!  The seller needed a 30 day close to give their tenants time to move out, so we didn't move super fast.  We had back and forth during our inspection period about financing and repairs and ceiling fans, but it all worked out and we finally got a new house!  Prices had gone up by about 33% since we started looking, but we still paid about half of the price per square foot that we did on our other house.

As we waited to close, I listed our hold home for sale for about 2 weeks on Zillow, but the market was just not up to where we needed it to be, so I listed it for rent.  I interviewed tenants and found some that we were happy with.

Then, Benton went into the hospital.  From the hospital, I finalized the contract with the tenants (thanks Lisa for helping me finish checking references).  Our closing on the house got delayed by like 2 days because of missing paperwork, etc., but we didn't want to delay too much because we had the ward set to move us and our tenants needed to move in ASAP.  So, the title company sent someone to the hospital, and that is where we signed on the house.  My friends had finished packing my house, the ward moved us on Saturday, more friends helped me clean the old house, a sweet girl from the ward came over and watched Benton so I could unpack without worrying about him getting into more mischief (like knocking a door over on his stitched up head), our renters moved in a week after we moved out, and we started a new chapter!

Here are pictures from shortly after we moved in (things are better arranged and decorated now).

Backyard (our toys are arranged better now and we have artificial grass.  We had this fence put in the day before we moved in.

 Guest room/Office.  Our friends from church not only moved our stuff, but they got all of our furniture and appliances assembled!  It was amazing!  Between taking care of all of Benton's meds, and having to take him to the ER on moving day twice (door fell on him and IV clogged), this was a great blessing.

 Hall to guest room at the end, nursery next to that, and bathroom  (on the left by cabinets).

 Entryway.

 Great room.

 I love love love having the big flat island, especially since our kitchen chairs fit at it.  That is where we do most of our eating.

 Basement bathroom.

 This is a formal dining room by the front door, but we will not use it for that.  This next year it will be a preschool room, and someday I hope it will be a piano/sitting room.

 Basement bedroom.

 That's right, I said basement!  If you don't live in AZ, you may not realize that this is a very hard to come by feature where I live.  We LOVE the basement.  It is cooler, and it gives us a separate play area.  Quiet!  Sanity!  Toys (pretty much) banned from our living area!

 Mountain of unpacked boxes.

 Upstairs bathroom.

 This is after we had started unpacking, but we had a huge mountain in the great room.

 Mike epoxied the garage floor two days after we moved in.  All of the garage stuff was in the side yard.  It was perfect timing because we had a 3 day weekend, and Tuesday morning it rained (he got the shelves put up and everything in before the rain).

And, just for fun, here's the old house: