Update

Well....here we are, October 15th....homeless....still. But we DO finally have an approval letter and a new closing date that should actually stick. Sort of, the approval letter gave us a closing date of November 3, but our contract expires on October 31. So right now we are waiting to see if we will close on the 31st or have to do one final contract extension. But we have started cleaning the house a bit. Levi spent 3 hours scrubbing the master bathroom shower, it was pretty nasty. I still don't think it's clean. And we've been scrubbing walls and baseboards and chair rails to prepare for painting. And after we paint we will refinish the floors and we will be ready to move in. We will all live in the same place again!!! A place that doesn't belong to someone else!! I'm pretty stoked :)

So close I can taste it

We heard from our realtor last week and HUD approved the variance to pay for our closing costs (YAY!) We are now waiting for final approval from the bank, we've been told it should be some time this week. I sure hope so, my family needs a home. I'm running into little issues here and there (my drivers license expired yesterday and I can't renew it because I don't have an address) but I think that this whole "living with our parents for a month: thing is going to save us a good bit of money. It's still just a little weird, though, that I am living with his parents and he is living with mine!
We went by the house today and took some measurements for paint, while we were there we made a super deal with the current owner on the pool they have in the backyard. I'm so so so excited about having a little above ground pool to cool off and splash around in once we get the house. I also think it will really help our little man settle into the whole new house thing...I mean what 3 year old wouldn't be stoked about a backyard pool?!?
Well, here's hoping that we'll be settled in soon and I can start posting about all my fun projects!

Skinned knees

Bear go his first skinned knee yesterday. The left one and bless his heart. It's so sad to see the first time they get hurt like that because it's so confusing for them. He took it like a little man though. As soon as I picked him up and gave him a little snuggle he was fine and asking to be put back down so he could run again. Welcome to boyhood, little one.

Leaving Home

Tomorrow we are leaving our first home. I am heartbroken. I am surprised at how much this is tugging at my heart, I wanted to move and I'm thrilled that we are. But when I look at my empty rooms and think of all of the memories that this house holds I can't imagine getting in my car and driving away from them.

This has been my family's home. It is first house that Levi and I bought. It is the only place my boys have ever lived. In this house there have been more good days than bad ones. There has been more love and more laughter and singing than there have been tears. There have been first words and first fights and first steps. There have been broken dreams and new dreams and realized dreams.

These are the flowers that I grew from seeds. When they bloomed I was almost as proud of them and the other two little lives I grew from seeds :)

This is where our cat, Pig, is buried. She was the first pet I ever lost and Lou loved her fiercely.

This is the sink where both of my boys had their first baths.

This is our living room. It has seen parties and sword fights and baseball games and Christmas trees so tall we had to put a chair on the kitchen table to put the topper on them. It is where Squish had his febrile seizure on our 5th wedding anniversary.  It's where Bear first fought back and busted his big brothers lip.

This is the dining room. It is where Bear took his first steps. It's where I was when I thought I might be going into labor with Squish.

This is the window that I let Squish pee out of when I'm feeling silly and lazy (and redneck, let's be honest)

These are the hardwood floors that My husband, my brother and my father laid by hand so Squish wouldn't have to learn to crawl on dirty carpet.

This is where Squish was potty trained. And where Bear has even pooped a few times :) 

This is where my boys took their first big boy baths and their first bath together.

This is Squish's room. It's where he slept in a big boy bed for the very first time. It's where Bear first said "Mommy." It's where Squish first talked to Jesus.

This is our nursery. It's where we brought our boys home to. My mom and I slept in the floor for the first few nights after we brought Squish home. It's where Lou and I slept the first few weeks after we brought Squish home before we moved him into our room. It's where Squish took his first steps and where Lou used to read the cookie monster book to him.

This is the tree that one of my oldest friends painted on the wall for me.

This is where I have rocked two different boys to sleep over the past three years. It's the corner where my mom found mushrooms growing and replaced the carpet. This corner has seen me at naptime and bedtime and countless hours in the middle of countless nights. It's where I nursed Bear for the very last time.

This is our master bedroom. It's where I was when I knew for sure that I was going into labor with Squish. It's where my boys slept for several months in the cradle that my father built for me when I was born. It's where we made Squish :) 

This is where Lou and my Dad patched the ceiling after Lou fell through it while putting some boxes in the attic.

I should have rotated this, but this is our master bath. This is where I was when I found out that I was pregnant with Squish...and a few years later where I found out I was pregnant with Bear.

This is the back deck where my boys play and swim (usually naked:) It's where Lou and I go in the summertime after we put the boys to bed. It's where we will go one last time tonight and have a glass of wine and talk about everything that has been in this house and everything that will be in the next one.

The story of us

So we first found this house in November of 2010.  I was talking to the lady who lives there and she was telling me that it was going into short sale and that the price would drop by 25% each month, bottoming out at 90k. So we thought "Let's just offer the bank 90k now. Maybe they'll just take that and avoid the process." The bank has never once wanted to avoid any kind of process. They wanted an appraisal of the house before they decided on the offer. The appraisal was finally done on Christmas Eve. Two weeks later we heard back from them. They countered at full asking price. We raised our offer by 10k, they countered at full asking price. So we walked. We then went through several rounds of house hunting in several different cities. Each one was more depressing than the last. On one particular trip we had 9 houses to see and each neighborhood was so bad we never once got out of the car to go into a house. So we returned the search to our original city and finally landed on putting in a new offer on the original house. This was at the beginning of June.  By this time the house had been turned over to HUD and the bank wanted to accept our offer but had to apply for a variance from HUD. We were supposed to hear something in 2-3 weeks. Seven weeks later they countered AGAIN at full price. We had another house inspected and almost pulled our offer on the original home but the inspection came back with at least 25k in repairs to make the house livable, not to mention the TONS of cosmetic work it needed. So we decided to blow out of our price range by about 10k and throw one last Hail Mary at our original house. Since the process has been going on for so long HUD decided they needed a current appraisal. I was irritated about this because I knew it would just delay the process, which I had lost patience with long ago. But after about 3 weeks we heard back from our agent saying that the bank will now accept $109,750 which is 15k LESS than our last Hail Mary offer. So "YAY" for that appraisal I was irritated with. The new contract is signed and going to the owner today. Then on to the bank and hopefully they weren't kidding about accepting that price. We're hoping to close August 25. Nobody is hoping that date is correct more than me. Levi is going to stay here with a friend of ours because he starts back to work in a couple of weeks and the boys and I are going 3 hours south to stay with my in-laws. I am dreading this a bit, not because of the in-laws. Because of the location. There is really not much at all to do in the town where they live, and I'm not looking forward to not having my hubby around during the week. I'm also not looking forward to doing the single mom thing and Isaac really doesn't do super great when he doesn't have a lot of activities going on. We will miss all of our play date pals and usual activities. I hope we still like each other at the end of this!!

The Inaugural Post



So this is blog #2 for me. It is to keep track of what has (so far) been a nine month long process to secure this house.

She's not much to look at right now, but once I get some twigs and feathers in her, she'll be a lovely little nest for our family.