Reading

Allison loves getting read to all of the time. Chris is so much more patient and willing to read the same book over and over and over...kind of like the energizer bunny. This was just too sweet not to get a picture of.

Houston Friends

We were able to go to the Houston Temple one Saturday morning and then go spend the rest of the day with our wonderful friends, the Hansens, that moved away almost two year ago. Sadly we hadn't ever seen their twins yet and they were almost 6 months old. It was so fun to hang out with David and Jami and their children.

This is their newest little boy, Caleb


Their little girl, Grace.


My adorable little boy.


I can't get enough of this sweet smile.


The Hansen Family

The original two that we got to have so many fun memories with.
These two are so great.


Joseph and Matthew, only 9 weeks apart, boy have they grown.
You may need to put your sunglasses on though to look at Matthew. He is definitely a white boy:)

We had fun with the Hansen. Thanks for letting us come David and Jami.

Mommy/Daughter Time

Sometimes when Matthew is at school I try to do preschool with Allison. I think she really likes it, I just need to do it more. One particular Friday we had fun doing preschool and singing all kinds of songs and they I decided that we were going to do a girly thing and paint our finger and toe nails. She absolutely loved it if you can't tell by these pictures. It was the first time that I have ever painted her nails. It was so fun to spend that special time with her.

I wanted to get a picture of her cute hair and those precious curls. She looks sad just because she didn't want me to take pictures of her hair, but her finger and toe nails. Too cute.

French Braids

I grew up with my mom doing French Braids in my hair all the time, especially on picture day. I never saw her or anybody else actually do a French Braid but I felt it so many times that I learned how to do it myself. In elementary I used to french braid so many friends hair, at assemblies, and especially during movies. In sixth grade there were girls that would come early before school started and I would french braid their hair. I have always longed to have a little girl to be able to french braid her hair. Allison's hair isn't really long enough to do just one and the front/top front of her hair isn't very long but I decided that this day I was going to try. I loved that it resembled a french braid a little bit. I am excited that I have a girl that I get to do fun things with her hair....when she actually gets more of it:)

I just love this little girl's smile.

Valentine Party

I feel like we don't actually do anything, blog-worthy, but then when I look on my camera I see that I have pictures that I can blog about. Lately I have been so caught up in moving that I haven't blogged about our real life so I hope to update my blog with our real life.

I get to be involved in Matthew's preschool quite a bit and I love that. Matthew had a Valentine's party that Allison and I got to go join in. All of the kids in Matthew' class just love when Allison comes and Matthew is protective as to who gets to sit by his sister. I love watching them together when they like each other:)


They got to do so many crafts which was fun.

While others were doing crafts, Allison decided to go to the library and read books. This is one of my favorite pictures of my sweet little girl.

There are ALWAYS many many cupcakes at these parties. Seriously at least 3 or 4 kids are suppose to bring cupcakes and every parent of those kids makes sure that there is at least one for every child. So when they are all there, each child gets way too many cupcakes so that they don't go to waste (as if the kids really need that many). Since it was for Valentines there were numerous pink ones. Allison got this one and she was just too cute eating it.Making sure she gets all that frosting:)

Adore

If you really know me, I get frustrated with my children a lot and they drive me crazy constantly. Those times that I am just absolutely in love with them and treasure them and adore them I have to document, which is now. I have been feeling like this absolute overwhelming love for my children for many weeks now and I LOVE it. When they wake up at night I just want to hold and cuddle them. They are so stinking cute and I am so happy to be their mommy. I just love my sweet children and I love when I have this feeling of "just can't get enough of them." It makes me feel good as a mom. I think it would be funny to have a recording of how many times I give them hugs and kisses and tell them I love them in a day. Sadly though, those recordings would still have me yelling at them for different things also but I think right now the love would definitely out weigh the yells. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE my absolutely precious, little Matthew and little Allison:)

LLLLLLLLOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEE THEM!!!!

The Move

After the option period was taken away I finally felt like I could actually start moving...however Chris left to AZ on Sunday the 13th and would be gone until Thursday night the 17th. I knew that I wanted to be out of the house by Friday the 18th so that I could go over and clean the house on Saturday since we were closing at 1pm Monday, March 21st and they wanted to do a final walk-through at 9am that morning. Chris and I like to be independent when we can be. We knew that we didn't want help moving because not only would they have to help pack up but since we were still in the same city/ward they would feel obligated to help unload also. We may need help later when we move out in 6 months so we didn't want to use it up now. While Chris was gone, I had many friends help watch my kids while I moved everything that I possibly could do with just one person. I wanted to surprise Chris with how much I did on my own. I got a great work-out that week walking up and down those stairs so many times, and carrying so many things, that well I probably should have had help with. I was thankful many times carrying boxes up the stairs for my health. I was really grateful for friends watching my kids so I could get this done. When Chris came back Thursday night he was definitely surprised and a think a little relieved that he didn't have to move all of those boxes. We still had the couch, beds, grill, dressers, entertainment center, bookshelves and a couple other big things we had to move on Friday which were quite hard carrying by ourselves up the stairs but we made it. We cleaned the house and I had to say that yes, there were tears, but thankfully not as many as I thought since we were still in the same city and ward. I think the most tears will come when we move away and I don't get to see my amazing friends and adopted family as much anymore. That will be must harder on all of us.
Chris is always the one that gets us unpacked from vacations, and that was no exception here either. He took care of so many boxes it was wonderful.
The closing only took about 10 minutes to sign all the papers and we got a check right then and there. It all went so smoothly.
We are in our apartment and adjusting but I am so very thankful every single day for selling our house for the full amount so quickly.

Negotiations

The buyer wanted to know if we would sell them our washer, dryer, fridge and dinette set. We were planning on leaving the washer, dryer, and fridge anyways and thought that was already in the contract. Since it wasn't, then we were more then happy to sell those things to them, except for the "dinette set". I don't think they looked at it very closely. It is a very old table and actually nostalgic. Chris' parents had it when they were first married. We just couldn't let them buy that from us.
We were told that the inspector was going to come Thursday afternoon. So at 4pm when I got home from work and Chris said they still hadn't come, I figured he wasn't going to be coming today. The house was a mess including laundry out and ironing to be done since our house wasn't on the market anymore it didn't have to be spotless. I was making dinner and then at 5pm there was knock on the door. It was the inspector...at least the termite inspector. I thought that was the only person coming but boy was I wrong. I guess we finally got our revolving door, just wish I had known and my house was clean. We had about 6 different inspectors there and then the buyer's realtor showed up...and then the buyers showed up. It was a big surprise to me. I was quite embarrassed with the way the house was. I apologized to the realtor and buyers that the house isn't as tidy as it was when they first came. They were surprised to hear that I wasn't expecting all these people in the house. There were about 10 people in our house and boy did I feel like an odd ball. It was my house and I felt like the one out of place, just making my dinner. However, while they were sitting at the kitchen table and I was cooking I heard/saw the buyer's daughter look up at the chandelier (that we had not replaced yet) and say, "I like that chandelier, that is a nice chandelier isn't it?" The realtor said, "Yeah, it is." I just started laughing inside. I was very thankful at that moment that we never spent the money or time replacing that chandelier. After all the inspections, it came out to be a total of $300 of work needed for AC stuff up in the attic. We countered that we would take off $200 from the non-reality items (w/d, fridge) and they accepted that and took the option period off. From that point it was time to start moving.

Still Can't Believe It

On Friday, February 25th at 3pm, our realtor, Myke Leatham, came to our house to put our house on the market. When she knocked on the door, she asked me if this was still the same house. It definitely made me feel good because we had put a lot of work and money into it. She had to tour the house again and was surprised with our hard work. I think one of the biggest things that she liked was our new deck, and the red gravel walkway out to our new deck. She was pleased that we took so much of her advise and made the house look nice. The one thing that she still thought we needed to change was the kitchen chandelier. It didn't look bad, it was just gold and apparently gold is out these days. We had gold doorknobs too that she suggested replacing...but we didn't do that either. She strongly suggested we replace that gold chandelier and make it more in style. We thought we were done replacing and doing things to make the house better, our bank account was sure telling us that we were done. However, we knew that you have to make your house look good especially in this market in order to sell it. Kind of like the saying, you have to spend money to make money. I really didn't want to be working on this project and have somebody show up on my driveway saying they wanted to come look at the house. We figured if she strongly suggested it still then maybe we should change it. She put her for sale sign out in the lawn and we signed the papers we needed to and she took the pictures of the house. I was expecting out house to be "on the market" as soon as she got in her car and that we would start having people come immediately after that. Well, I kept looking on realtor.com for our house and it wasn't up there all weekend, we didn't hear anything and I even looked on Myke's website and it wasn't up there.
On Monday morning I went to do visit teaching in the morning...(it was the last day of the month after all) and when I got home there was a message from a realtor wanting to show our house from 4:30-5pm that night. I was so excited and it made it so real. It was official, our house was on the market. The next day we had a showing, and then Wednesday I didn't think we were having a showing that day since I hadn't heard from any realtors and it was 4pm. The house was a mess (for being on the market) and I was starting to make enchiladas. While going back and forth from the kitchen a car was sitting outside in front of the for sale sign. They finally parked in the driveway and called and said they wanted to come through. I asked her for 5 minutes and broke a sweat trying to make it showable. I am sure they just loved the enchilada smell:) Ok, maybe not because they didn't make an offer. Thursday we also had a showing. I was getting excited, we had a showing every day. However Friday I was expecting a showing and nobody came. Over the weekend we expected our door be just be revolving having so many people coming through it since it was the first weekend on the market...not a single person came. We were a little bummed but oh well, what can we do. Monday we didn't have a showing either which was very good because I was so busy doing so many different things I was very grateful for that. Either Monday night or Tuesday morning a realtor called wanting to show the house from 1-2pm on Tuesday, March 8th. We did our thing and came back to the house at 2pm. At 3:45pm that day Myke called and asked "I just sent you an email, so what do you think of a FULL CASH offer with a quick closing? I have got to go show some houses right now but check your email and I will call you later tonight?" OH MY GOODNESS!! Are you serious? The whole world just stopped. I burst into tears. I could not believe it. Matthew asked Chris, "Why is mommy crying?" Chris told him that mommy was sad because she loved that house and she didn't want to leave it. I had to clarify that those were tears of joy for getting a full offer and in only 1 week. Chris and I sat down to see what a quick closing meant. As we strolled down the many pages we would see different amounts of earnest money and such and then we saw MARCH 21, 2011. That was only 13 days away!!! Are you kidding me? 13 days? But I thought I would have at least a month? It totally threw all my plans out the window. Once I got over the shock of in 13 days this house that I love so much would no longer be ours, I began to fret as to where we would go. I knew that the next day I was going to be looking for a place to live that only did 6 month leases. However, I didn't want to officially start the moving process until the option period was over. Thankfully, that was only 5 days but that is almost half of my time to get out. I really didn't want to go sign a lease and then have them back out. I found a place that was close enough for Chris to still walk to work, somewhat within our budget, and they did 6 month leases. The manager was really nice and surprised that we had so little time to move out. She worked with me, not holding us accountable if the sale fell through. She was so nice and helpful. I actually had to go find a place all by myself because Chris has been so busy trying to write his dissertation. I felt a little scared to do it all by myself but he trusted me to find something good and thankfully we have been married long enough that I have a pretty good idea of what he would say about things. There were a couple places I went and looked at that he definitely would not have been ok staying, inside or outside. Some neighborhoods here in Bryan can be a little rough. I was thankful that I found a place that had an immediate opening, even if it was on the 2nd floor, and it would meet our needs.
Here are the pictures Myke took and put online:

Prep Work

A lot has happened since I last blogged. It is amazing how quickly things can change. With the housing market so bad right now realistically we figured that it would take at least four months to sell our house. We were planning on moving around May or June. We had friends, the Carrols, that put their house up using the same realtor as us and they sold their house really quickly, 2 months, from the time they put their house up until their closing day. We originally thought that we should put our house up at the beginning of February but I just couldn't do that yet. It still seemed too early. We knew we were going to have Myke Leatham be our realor and she is a very good realtor that gets the job done. She spends lots of money in advertising and she has many connections. We used her to buy our house and she has been fabulous. We had her come in and tell us her recommendations of changes and it was up to us to do what we wanted. We took down the master bedroom wallpaper (and our marriage is still strong:) We painted the master bathroom including the trim. She wanted the house neutral so she suggested Chocolate Froth and Wheat Bread. After the bathroom the kitchen had loud wallpaper that we never liked but never knew how or had the ambition of taking it down. Since it wasn't neutral, she said take it down. Our friends, the Carolls, had to do similar things to get their house ready as well so I asked them so many questions as to what they did. It was so helpful. I am sure Chris was sick of hearing what the Carrols did:) We decided that removing wallpaper and prepping the drywall was more work then we actually wanted to put in so we decided to just paint over the wallpaper. For the most part it worked. There are a few places that you can tell there was a seam but it worked. So we put a couple coats of paint on and then textured it, which was not the funnest job but it is an ok job. We painted the walls with the neutral colors and made them "pop" by making the trim white white so it looked really good with the chair rail in between the two colors. A long time ago we accidentally painted the kid's room a florescent green so that obviously had to go and then our room was a nice blue but she still didn't want it. We painted a lot, a lot! We did most of the painting in the first week. It was a crazy week and our children watched way too many Disney movies so that we could get it done. We were able to get so much done because it was the two weeks before Chris started the semester. It was really fun having so many projects to do with Chris. I love working on projects with my honey. Before Myke came we had already boxed up all of our pictures off of our walls and boxed up all of our books that we didn't need out. After Myke came she said more closets needed to be cleaned out so we had lots of stuff to go through. We had a garage sale at the beginning of January and despite of the rain throughout the morning we were still able to make $500. It was pretty awesome and felt good to get rid of so much clutter that we just had around the house that we never used in the 7 years we have been here. I told Chris that I was just going to bawl when we moved because we 7 of our 8 years of marriage had been in that house. We had to kids in that house and that was our home. There were so many memories made in that house and I told Chris I was going to be a basket case when we sold it. However, boxing up all of the pictures let me disconnect a little bit. It helped me realize that the memories stay with me, not the house. We have always had a "deck" in the backyard but that apparently used to have a hot tub on it before we moved there. We never did much back there but Myke thought we needed to make a reason for people to go in the back yard so we had a guy come and make it an actual deck with benches and a rail and another staircase. It turned out really good. This guy also fixed our fence that was falling over and put in another gate on the other side of the back yard. Myke suggested that we put new dirt and sod down since so much of it washed away but luckily the guy that did the fence and deck said that it wasn't a good idea to put that down right then because it wouldn't settle and just wash away again. We also had a shed in the back yard that was just a hornets hotel for the past 7 years. The wood on the bottom all rotted so he also replaced that. We are not good landscapers by any means. There was a guy that came in to take English as a Second Language class and as I was testing him he mentioned that he did landscaping. Thankfully he was in the highest class and therefore I could talk to him in English. I, unlike all four of my brothers, do not speak Spanish. Pedro came and made our house look good by trimming trees, raking, putting down mulch and making a gravel pathway to our new fabulous deck. It looked good and we got a great deal on it. We also painted the white trim of our brick house. I wanted to leave an area not painted so the buyers to see what a difference painting that made. We replaced our fan/light fixture in the master bedroom as well as rearranged furniture to make the house look better. We also installed the 2" foe wood blinds in all 9 of the windows which were actually really hard, but made it look better. We did the majority of Myke's recommendations. We were basically done with all that we were going to do at the beginning of February but I still wanted to do this, and that, and whatever else I could think of to postpone putting our house up on the market. I didn't want to live having to leave at any moment but I also really felt like we had a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, located in a good place, with an excellent realtor that would work get our house sold. I kept thinking about our friends and two months. I figured, if we put our house up the beginning of March, we wouldn't be closing until May with a quick sale and we would go from there. I was finally done with all of my procrastinations at the end of February and was excited about putting our house up on the market. I really enjoyed this experience of "having" to do certain things so that it forced us how to do things. In January our water heater burst and we had to replace it. Thankfully the $1200 quote was too much for me and we had our friend, Mike McConnell come help us install one. Ok, so we didn't do any of the installing, he did it all by himself but we were at least there watching him and giving him full support. He is so wonderful to come help us. Then a few days before putting our house on the market our dishwasher broke. We bought the cheapest one possible and saved the $125 thinking we could do it ourselves. Surprisingly, we actually did it all by ourselves. If you actually know us, doing all these handy things is not like us, but it has been a good learning opportunity. We bought our washer and dryer and fridge when we moved in, we had to buy a new oven since living there, the water heater was only a month old and brand spanking new dishwasher. It is a pretty good house if I do say so myself:) I was pretty confident that it would sell quickly...like in two or three months or more.

This is the first of the projects.
Master bathroom wallpaper removal.

Kitchen:
Wallpaper which was on the top of the chair rail we painted and textured.
Then we used chocolate froth on top and wheat bread on bottom. Made the trim white to made those colors pop more. It was just a cream previously.

Too bad I don't have more before and after pictures of all of our projects. Oh well.