Sunday, February 24, 2013

New House...this is a long read :)

As mentioned previously, Rob and I (and Aiden, B has no idea) are very excited that we are buying a new house.  Settlement is this week (what?!?!?!!) and it's all starting to really sink in and hit us.  It's been a crazy month.  In fact, I just realized today it was exactly one month ago on January 24th, that we we went to look at the house.

I'll back up a little bit...

Over the past few months Rob and I have been open to moving, although we have not really been crazily looking at houses.  We've only seen one other house, which was back in November.  We did end up putting in an offer, but it just wasn't meant to be.  After that happened, the holidays hit and things were a bit crazy, so we didn't have too much time to think about it.  After the holidays, Rob and I had a conversation about what our plan was- do we keep looking? do we feel like we need to move? can we inevitably stay where we are?  The truth is, we are very happy in this home, but we are realizing that as it is right now, it's not conducive to our growing family.  After that conversation we basically said that over the next year we would be open to moving if the right house came along.  But, we were not going to feel pressure to move somewhere.  It had to be the right house.  And if after a year, that didn't happen, then maybe we would look into finding ways to make this house that we love so much work for us.



About a week or two after that conversation, this house popped up on the market.

Rob looks at real estate every day.  He pays close attention to new listings, reduced listings, he's all over it.  It was a Wednesday afternoon and I randomly decided to just go on my phone and see if there was anything interesting.  I saw this house immediately and was drawn to the price and location.  It is a street that is literally 2 blocks from us, and one that we actually looked at a house on back before we bought our current house.



From the pictures I could tell it needed some work, but it didn't look terrible and had some things that we don't have in this house- half bath downstairs, front porch, garage, one more bedroom.  Rob was sleeping upstairs after working the night before and it was about time for him to get up anyway, so I immediately called him on his phone to wake him and I said, "there's a house you need to see, it listed today".  His response, "I already know which one you're talking about".

The next day we went to see it and the rest is history :)   We found out that there were 8 showings that day!  So, we quickly got our offer in the next morning and by the following evening, we found out that they had accepted our offer.



The past month has been busy, and we can't believe that in just a few days it will officially be ours!  Our plan is to take a little bit of time to do some work before moving in, but there are a lot of projects that will keep us busy for a long time in this house.  But, we're very excited.

We are going to be renting out our current house, so there are things we are trying to get done here as well.  The close location of the new house should make the whole process easier.

Things are about to get even crazier than they've been the past month, but did I mention we're excited?

This house has so much character, I'm looking forward to sharing everything with you!  So, stay tuned.



PS. it has one of my all time most coveted thing in an old home...pocket doors!!  Somehow, we failed to take a picture :)

Sunday, February 17, 2013

5 years...and some big news



Aiden turned 5 last week.  I can't believe he is 5 years old.  I know everyone says it, but it's true, time is going by so fast.  In the fall he'll be going off to kindergarten, and while I am super emotional about that, I am also a very proud Mama.  Aiden is a sweet boy, and watching him learn and grow over the past 5 years has been a blessing.  I am so excited to see how he does with his next journey in life.  He's so social and loves school, so I am eager to watch him blossom even more over the next year.

We celebrated with family last weekend, and of course I had to have somewhat of a theme, so I went with mustaches.





We decided to forgo the "friend" party this year and instead took Aiden and two of his best buddies bowling.  Aiden has been asking to go bowling for a long time now, and I think it lived up to all the anticipation.  They had a blast and Rob and I had so much fun with the 3 of them.  Doing things like this for Aiden bring me so much joy.  



It was a good birthday.

Unfortunately, we ended the week with the stomach bug.  Brady got it first and then Aiden and I followed.  Thankfully, Rob stayed healthy and was able to take care of the 3 of us.  Brady is still recovering, he hasn't bounced back as quickly as his big brother.

And now, for the big news...







Yup, that's our soon-to-be new house.  We're so excited.  More on that soon...