House Photos

Well, here it is... our house! Keep in mind not everything has a place yet, nothing is really hung on the walls, and we are still missing several pieces of furniture. But, you can get the idea. I realize I didn't put any photos of the outside, but I think most of you saw them from the realtor's site. I'll add some later. Also missing are photos of the study, kids' rooms, and bathrooms.

This is our bedroom -new bedding we bought before the move. Just started hanging curtains after this photo. The room is much longer than we thought! Now I also have 2 new Ikea lamps to add to it.

View from the study area - living room and kitchen - the rest of the kitchen is behind the big blank wall. We bought a server to put there, and have to wait until Monday for our large floor rug to come in.

Door to back patio

Our new table!! We went those 2 months without one, then the order fell through, so we went out Saturday, picked this out, and had it delivered a few hours later. LOVE IT! The windows go to the back patio.

The door leads to our bedroom.

Archway leads to dining room (which will be another living room)

Pantry on the right, other door goes to laundry then garage.

Playroom - thanks to our IKEA shopping day Monday, I found curtains, table, rug, easel, and a few other things that aren't up yet.

The dining room will become another living/sitting room. We have a green love seat and grey/green checked arm chair on order. Wow, that sounds ugly, but I promise it's very cool! Then we just need curtains, small tables, and that room should be good! The front door is right to the left of the room.


Our last photo at our old home

Mia messing with her Molly!

Day 3...

...of waking up in our new home, and for the first time, it's starting to feel like my new home. Today I woke up in my bed (not on the couch), and there was coffee waiting for me. Yesterday was a very productive day, and except for the study and a few other boxes, we are almost unpacked. Here are the highlights from yesterday:
1) Ok, so this was a low light. Marc found out our table, which we've waited for all summer, wasn't going to be coming in. Seriously? So we chose to get our money back and shop elsewhere.
2) Brenda and the kids came out and after getting some Jason's Deli for lunch, we left Marcus here with all the kids and the three of us took off to furniture shop. After going out with intentions to buy a table, we also bought a really cool chair grey/brown/green checked chair (ok, that sounds ugly, but it's really cool!) and a greenish loveseat for the formal dining which we decided to make into a formal living instead. We also got a server instead of just a sofa table to go on one of our many blank walls. Those should all be in in just a few weeks. Today we plan to head out and buy the table!
3) While we were out, Marcus put together my 2 new barstools, so now we actually have somewhere to sit!
4)At 11:38 last night, I finished unpacking my kitchen, and I love how it looks!! It looks so different without boxes and junk all over it.
5) We finally went out and spent a while 15 cents at Lowes for the hardware that was missing for our bed so we could put it together. Once we did, we realized our bedroom is so much bigger! Brenda suggested putting a pull out sofa at the end of our bed so that our guests can sleep at our feet. We opted not to. But, our new bedding looks fabulous!

What's on today's agenda??
1) Buy a table!
2) Head to Bed Bath and Beyond and get our new dishes and hopefully some art for the walls.
3) Find an ottoman for the bathroom (big open area, great place to sit and dry hair, etc)
4) Unpack boxes......
5) Hang curtain rods and curtains
6) Possibly attempt to redo the frequencies on the fans so they aren't psychotic anymore. (Got a suggestion off line and from Lowes. I'm sure I'll be on my own doing this as Marc usually doesn't do the manual labor!!)

I will have pictures soon, but still can't find my cable for the computer. Feel free to visit anytime, now that you can actually walk through the house!

Home Sweet Home

We are in our new home! We moved in yesterday and for the most part things went well. A big thanks to Brenda for putting up with us for several days while we were homeless! We closed on this house yesterday morning and were so excited to come right over and show our mortgage guy (Marc's friend) the home. When I tried to unlock it, no keys worked. Turns out the owners didn't want us in until the funding all went through officially. We got in early anyhow, but it took some of the joy out of coming to our house! We did have a few incidents - 1) no air for a while until we figured out to flip a breaker 2) a constant beeping all night of the smoke detector because we didn't have a new battery 3) and thinking the house was haunted. I was home alone with Mia, and she was asleep. I went back to her room, and her light was on. This happened throughout the house. I finally figured out later that night that our "really cool remote lights/fans" in every room are very sensitive. If you turn one light off, it triggers another room's light. So we have to figure that out still. Luke and I just got back from a big target trip, which is always exciting for me, but this was at the new one that just opened and we bought many great things that of course all require assembly.

I will share photos later, when I can find my cord! Here's my address in case anyone needs it:
5703 Bald Ridge Court
The rest is all the same. Off to unpack boxes!

Packing Day

9 hours, a garage full of boxes, 5 rolls of tape, one hole in the ceiling, several trips to the dumpster, and two showers later, Marc and I are pretty much done packing and are headed out to spend an Olive Garden gift certificate for dinner. The day went very smoothly, well, for the most part, and it helped so much having the kids gone during the process. The best part of the day was when we were emptying out the attic. I really wanted to show you photos to go with it, but my camera cable is packed somewhere and there's no way I'm finding it any time soon.
First, Marc was pretty excited to find a mystery box full of his old atari and games. I'm sure he'll be attempting to hook that up when we move! Then he threw down the computer box, and I let out a small yell as I noticed a snake in it! Luckily, he was very crispy and very dead, but I still wasn't too happy to see him. He was getting the crib box next, which is a 5 foot box, and next thing I know, I am getting hit with the box and knocked out of the way. I thought Marc had fallen down the attic steps, but when I turned around and looked up, I saw Marc's leg hanging through the garage ceiling! After a brief panic when I called out to him and heard no reply, I found out he was fine. It was probably 120 degrees up there, and he was so tired and hot, and just slipped. I'm very glad he's okay, but now we get to add a $100 dry wall bill to our list of ever growing expenses. At least it wasn't the $100 ER deductible! Now, of course, it's a bit funny and I laugh out loud every time I see it! Well, we're off to a much earned dinner. Have a super saturday!

Luke's Bowling Debut

Luke has been wanting to go bowling, so we took him yesterday for the first time. He had so much fun, and although his form needs some work, he did quite well with the help of the bumpers! I did notice that bowling alleys are probably the last place on earth that as an employee, you can smoke while on the job, without taking a break!!

Under Contract

I went to the website for our new home and now it says "Under Contract!" So nice to see something in print that shows we're getting the home we want. Here's the latest:
We are waiting to hear from our realtor to see if we'll be able to lease the new home before our closing date. We're hoping it all works out, because we're set to move our things out next Wednesday! We have to have it all out for cleaners, carpet people, and painters (ok, so the painters are going to be Marc and Marcus...) to come before closing.

Both home inspections went well - except for the man inspecting our new one was a bit odd - I found out way more than I need to know about my home inspector, including that he's been married 4 times, his ex wife died, and he even shared about UTIs. Nice.

Today Brenda was in town so I took her by the house - we had to settle for peeking in windows - but I was so happy to know she liked it alot! She's the first person to see it, and I have such great thoughts about the home and wanted everyone else to like it to!

A thanks in advance goes out to Nonno and Nonni for taking the kids this weekend so Marc and I can pack everything up without worrying about kids, and to Brenda, who agreed to take Luke on moving day!

I just can't wait to get in the new house, because I have high hopes for an IKEA trip to decorate the playroom and other areas. And I've already decided Marc isn't going- it'll be Brenda or another female who gets excited about decorating!

No new photos to post -Mia hasn't done anything new or remarkable, and right now Luke has a mysterious rash/bites on his face, so we're skipping photos for a few days!

Um, can't think of a title today...

First things first: We close on this house on the 21st, and our new house on the 23rd!! So far everything seems to be working out quickly for us. We had our current home inspected yesterday and our new one we'll go do tomorrow, so if both of those goes well, then we should be set. The biggest problem will be figuring out what to do those few days from when we move out of here and until we get in the new home. We may get to lease the new one and really hope that works out as it seems the easiest situation.

Ok, now for what else has been going on. We've been able to do a few things not involving the house lately, which is a nice change. We spent the 4th at Brenda's, swimming, eating, and seeing fireworks. This year there was no rain, and the weather was perfect at night, so the fireworks were a lot of fun. Except for a small incident (ok, maybe not so small) of a glass patio table shattering and making a mess, it was a great day!!

Today Luke is invited to do his first "friend" activity, so we're excited about that! There's a family that lives a few streets over and we knew the mom from years ago. Now, her oldest son will be my student this year, and her youngest will be in kinder with Luke (possibly same class), and they just got a pool and asked him to come swim today. He's pretty excited about that!

Mia is a bit of a trainwreck lately. She is finally getting rid of her 6 facial bruises from a variety o falls and unknown accidents. Now, she's walking funny - sort of dragging/not using her left room properly, and today she fell over a pillow and smacked her head on the bed - and has a nice fat purple lip to show for it! She's just a mess, but still cute!


As for me, I seem to be spending my free time going through furniture stores or looking online for things for the house. Here's my challenge for you all - especially those creative, HGTV friends and family members! The biggest room I'm focusing on changing will be the kids' playroom - the middle bedroom will be theirs for toys for now. I don't want to do too much, but I think I'm focusing on doing it in primary colors. I am set for a trip to IKEA to purchase a little table and chairs and some other random things. But I'd like some ideas for decoration/toy storage that is on the cheap end but easy and cute. Not sure if I'll paint the room right away, but thinking of letting the kids paint some canvases to hang. Other ideas??

Here are some photos that I finally have time to upload! :) Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

Here are my children, eating at our ghetto table. Since we sold ours at the garage sale, and our new one is yet to arrive, we end up eating somewhere new each day.



Cooling off in the new kiddie pool


Little Miss Thing making a total mess with her rice and being a bit crazy as usual!


Happy 4th of July!


Um, no explanation for what is going on here... just a typical 5 year old boy photo!


Mia quickly figured out how to ride Payton's 4 wheeler

Smores!!

This is at the fireworks - a man gave the kids boxes of little poppers and even Mia got in on the popping action!

Ready for fireworks!!