sorry guys...

We got our keys early (yay!) but not expecting to get them until this coming weekend means we weren't anywhere near prepared! SO, we are in now (still tons of painting and unpacking to do) but our internet is up as of this morning and I plan to start going through my emails this evening after the boys are in bed. If I owe you one, you'll have it by the end of the weekend!

any ideas what these two might want to be for Halloween?

They've had their costumes picked out for months now. I'm on the hunt for overalls and fake mustaches. Should be fun (Carlos doesn't want to be Bowser for some reason..I'm perplexed)


Sorry for the lack of posts...I don't expect to be able to update much between now and the move. Thanks to everyone for the congrats - we're beyond excited to get in and make it a home!

OK, so about Friday

We closed on our house :)

We've been in the process of getting pre-approved, house hunting and closing for what seems like ever but now, we are so, so, sosososososo close we can taste it. I was close to talking about it earlier but I didn't want to jinx us by sharing before it was a done deal. And as of Friday - it IS!

We've been actively searching since June (July?) It's been awhile. And in this market, with pre-approval, you'd think we'd have an easy time finding something! In typical fashion for us though, every step of the way we had to overcome some hurdles. We ended up making offers on THREE houses in total.

The first was beautiful, had a large yard and was less than 10 years old. Not in a "cookie cutter" neighborhood but nearby a nice new development that would provide lots of playmates for the boys. We made our offer, found out later the same day that the house was a mere 3 days from going into foreclosure (sad for the sellers but hot-damn! good for us!) prepared for a possible (but unlikely) counter-offer and basically, just felt fortunate that we had found such a great deal! Then, 2 days later, we found out the house had already *been* in foreclosure for a couple of days when we made our offer. And the bank hadn't yet decided when they would be considering offers on it. So, we were basically out of luck.

The second house, while in a nice neighborhood and already empty just felt not-quite-right to me. I had a feeling that maybe the sellers would be a pain to deal with. The house had been on the market for 18 months and they had an abnormally high deposit requirement. We liked the house and saw a lot of potential though so again, we made an offer. And the offer expired without them ever responding to it (and let me say here that it was a VERY reasonable offer...below asking, obviously, but not outrageously so. My former-real-estate agent dad assured us it was a fair offer) Your house is up for sale for 18 months and you don't even take the time to counter? Huh?

So finally. This house. This is the one I wanted to make an offer on from the beginning. An elementary school in the neighborhood. Quiet but still lots of young families and kids around. Walking distance to the town area (not a tiny quaint little walk-around town but people, there *is* a Starbucks within walking distance!) At the end of a street that ends in a cul-de-sac. A beautiful kitchen/dining area (that I will change eventually but it works great for now) Four bedrooms (my own office - FINALLY) all small but all perfectly adequate. A large family "hang" out area. It's perfect :) The owners though. They didn't want to let go. They fought us every step of the way (apparently, they were working under the delusion that this is a *seller's* market. Um. No.) And we weren't too keen on meeting them for closing. I won't get into too much detail but there were tears involved. Oh, and the title company's representative telling us something to the effect of "this was the first time ever that I thought the seller might not sign their papers" Lovely. But in the end, they did.

And now, they have till the end of the month to GET OUT. Because it's our now. And they're renting from us :) And we're busy making plans for decorating (little by little...starting with the boys' room so they have something cool and completely finished to welcome them) We haven't packed yet but basically, we never unpacked so we don't expect it will be too difficult!

Oh, and the house meets all of the boys' (OK, Jake's) requirements for a new house. There are indeed stairs.

So, as we take possession and start redecorating and moving in I'll share more pictures. This is just the front, taken from the realtor's site when the house was still listed. It's not listed anymore though. Cause we bought it :)

(Oh, and the digi goodies from scrapgirls and scrapartist)

one whole hand

and now this one's five. Five hit me much harder than three...this was the hardest birthday yet I think. Five is just big. His processing and logic, his verbal skills, his maturity (most of the time...ok, some of the time) and just size period. He's tall and strong. I just can't believe it's been Five whole years. Five years. Five. Crazy.

He started his day by watching his favorite lego-reenacting-german-metal video on youtube. C'mon, I know your 3 and 5 year olds no the lyrics to Rammstein, right?


Then it was a dentist appointment (yes, I'm the awesome mom that scheduled a dentist appointment on her son's birthday) where he told me to stay in the lobby...he could go in by himself :( He did amazing without me. I was a nervous wreck but he did fantastically well.

Then a trip to the grocery store to pick up the cake ingredients...he wanted "mamilla" cake with chocolate frosting (at least one tiny part of the day that affirmed that there's still a bit of little kid in him). Then Target to spend birthday money. Then lunch and home. Grandma and grandpa came over after dinner to sing and observe the annual blowing out of the candles.


It was a good day for young Jacob. Happy birthday to my big boy :)


Tomorrow, I'll share the story about last Friday...(I chose B - I did good!)