Our House Situation

I think most of you who read our blog know what's been going on with our house situation. For those who don't, a little update:

We have been living in a house for about 10 months now that we originally had planned to buy (we had sort of a rent-to-own deal set up). In October/November we got approved for a loan to buy the house and had an appraisal and inspection done. Well, with the inspection, we found out that the house had over $25,000 of repairs that needed to be done. This was much more than we had expected and we felt that the house was not worth the price the owners were asking for it (and they were not willing to lower the price).

So we began looking around for another place and found a great house just three houses down that was for sale and had actually been forclosed on. We put in an offer on the house. Well, a couple of months later, we still had not heard anything back from the bank despite our realtor calling them numerous times. Our paperwork continued to sit on their desk. We heard that because of the housing crisis that banks are sometimes taking up to 10 months to reply on forclosures! There's NO way we can wait that long because our landlord wants us out of this house soon.

So we started looking around the area for something else. We really want to stay in this area and keep our kids in the same schools. Well we got talking to my husband's uncle who is a builder and we found out that we can buy property and build a brand new house for the SAME price it would have been to buy that forclosure!!!

So, we found a property just down the road a bit and we are going to go ahead and build a house! Josh and I are still in shock as we never thought we'd be able to afford to build at this point in our lives. We're so excited! Things have been going smoothly so far. We've chosen our plans and are just waiting for the city to approve them. That should happen within a day or two and HOPEFULLY we'll be breaking ground by Thursday! : ) I'll be posting updates on the house as we go along.

Welcome Baby Booker!

On February 3, I was blessed with another nephew! My youngest sister Marcie gave birth to a baby boy named Booker Montana. He was 7 lb 12 oz and they're both doing well! We're excited to go down next weekend and meet them. Congratulations Marcie and Dason!

Isaac's Report Card!

We had a parent teacher's conference with Isaac's teacher this week, and we got his report card. He had a perfect score on his report card and we were so proud of him and how well he's doing in Kindergarten. : ) His teacher told us that Isaac is almost reading at a Second Grade Level already! The only thing he needs to work on is doing his work more and chatting with friends less. Hehe. He always gets it done though. Isaac just loves school and we're happy that he's doing so well.

Bryce's First Day of Preschool

Bryce had his first day of preschool today, and it went SO well! When Bryce turned three, he graduated from Early Intervention. This is the program that offered all of his at home therapy like feeding therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy. Since he definitely still needs all of the therapy to help him catch up developmentally (and learn to eat orally!), Josh and I made the decision to enroll him in special education preschool. It is part of the local elementary school, and is just amazing. Josh and I went and checked it out and met the teacher, aides, and therapists. We were super impressed! They have several aides that help the kids, and Bryce will have his own that will help him do all of the activities. He will have a speech therapist, feeding therapist, and physical therapist that come into the classroom and work with him as well. We really think the peer interaction will be really good for him as well. It seems like such a great school district in general, but their special ed program is just phenomenal (we've heard so many great parent reviews). In order to coordinate and juggle all of our boys' school schedules, we opted to let Bryce ride the bus to and from school. I met the bus driver and one of the aides that helps out on the bus and they are both such sweet ladies and so good with the little kids. The driver said that her and the aide had been working together driving the bus for 19 years and they just love it. I was a little nervous to send him off on a bus for the first time, especially since Bryce doesn't really understand what is going on, but it went so well, he had fun, and it made me feel better to have such neat people working with Bryce and taking care of him. His teacher (another really sweet lady) called me after school and said that he did really well and he seemed to have fun! :)

Finally Caught Up!!

I just spent the last 2 hours updating our blog, and am finally completely caught up (woohoo!). You'll need to scroll down quite a bit to see everything because I just posted a HUGE amount of new posts. Enjoy, and thanks for reading! :)

Christmas

We had such a great Christmas this year! We spent Christmas day at home and just got to spend the whole day together as a family which was SO nice! The boys were so excited to get up and see what Santa brought. Bryce was a little sick with the flu and ended up sleeping most of the day, but he still had fun opening his presents and playing a little with his new toys. Santa brought the boys a GeoTrax train set (they LOVED it!). He brought Isaac some Castle Lego sets, Parker a Pokemon ball, Bryce a bath toy, Josh a RC helicopter, and Heather a cake decorating set (as well as some games for the family). Josh also got clothes, books, and a Ball of Whacks. Heather got a foot massage spa, the game Quiddler, and some fun ethnic foods. Isaac got a Pokemon ball & a Light Saber. Parker got a RC Lightning McQueen car and a Light Saber. Bryce got Clipos and some toy cars. They all got a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to share! (that was probably Bryce's favorite.

Christmas night we had a fun Christmas Dinner. It's our tradition to "splurge" on seafood. We had some YUMMY beer-battered coconut shrimp, snow crab and artichokes.

The day after Christmas we went to Josh's parents' house to celebrate with them. We had a good dinner and exchanged gifts. We had a good time. We didn't make it to my parents' house until New Years Day because Josh ended up getting sick with that flu. But we had a good time when we went down. We exchanged gifts with them and had dinner. We got a chance to visit some other family members the following day which was nice. We got to visit Great Grandma Chappell, Great Grandmpa Bell-Tuft, and my sister Marcie & her family!

Here are some pictures from Christmas day (you'll notice that the boys changed their clothes & jammies a hundred times that day! LOL!):

Happy 6th Birthday Isaac!

OOPS! I forgot to post about Isaac's birthday before Christmas Eve. Isaac turned 6 on the 22nd. He had a fun day, although I was sick with the stomach flu, so we didn't get everything done for him that we had planned. :( He opened his gifts that morning. He got a Power Ranger costume, and a MegaBloks castle which he loved. He wore the costume ALL day and of course had to do all his Power Ranger moves! He also got a set of Legos from Grandma & Grandpa Bell, a Fishing kit backpack from Aunt Cammie & Uncle Jesse, and a digital camera from Grandma & Grandpa Chappell. Unfortunately I didn't get his cake made. :( But Josh made him a birthday dinner when he got home from work and luckily, our neighbors had just happened to bring over some Christmas cupcakes that day so we used those as Isaac's birthday cake. I felt so bad, and I still owe him that cake and a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, but he had a fun day anyway. I didn't get all the pictures I wanted either, but here are a few.