Buying a house!

Jenny and I are in escrow on a new 1988 vintage house! As mentioned in my super fun Home AC Service post, we're in the inspection period. Neither of us can wait to close on it and get moved in! Here are some pics:

Here she is. The grass isn't looking quite as nice as it was the day these pictures were taken, but still pretty good. Can't wait to take the sign down.

Yeah, that's a 3 car garage and a RV gate!

Not a huge fan of the flooring, the wood is a little light and the carpet is a little dark, but it'll work. The paint on the other hand, has to go.

Should be fun painting the walls with the vaulted ceilings. We're debating scraping the popcorn from the ceilings while we're at it.

My TV room! Perfect shape and nice size. Can't wait to fill it up.

Appliances still in place, and look, nice ceiling fans! Corian counter tops, nice looking layout, and my favorite, maple cabinets. Hooray, not ugly!

We were hoping the house we bought would have gas, so it'll take some getting used to the electric stove, at least it looks good.

Ahh, the wonderful crap collection counter, where everything without a place goes.

Hidden buttons on the dishwasher. Now Blake won't start it when it's empty, stop it when it's full and change all the settings every day (or at least until he figures out how to open it)

Looking from the master bedroom, across the entryway and into the TV room. That closet on the right is under the stairs and unfinished inside, super cool.

That's the same cool closet with a view into the master bath.

This is where I will be brushing my teeth. Maybe I'll even get my own sink so I can have one free from toothpaste :-D.

Looking down the stairs, not a bad view, hopefully the bars for the banister will keep the kids on the stairs when they tumble down!

Another shot of the kitchen looking into the TV room. Not sure what to do with the niche, the girls think our hamster Spotty should reside there.

Hrm, a little tuscany in my house? I've never been a big fan of those types of sinks, but the faucet got me hooked, watching water fall over the spillway on the faucet and imagining wier calculations in my head.

The upstairs bathroom. Sure to be the subject of time sharing issues when the girls get older.

The back porch and view of grassy area. Wow, the grass is still alive, I'm sure to fix that problem with my greenish thumb!

The piece de resistance, the saltwater diving pool, diving board and all. I've been hoping for *a* pool, and a few houses we bid on actually had diving pools, but saltwater? Am I dreaming?

Funny rocky area. That's the 3rd bay of the garage sticking out (or, in it's present state, studio apartment). Not sure what to do with this area, more grass, garden, ash tree. We're going to have to do something to shade that wall from the afternoon sun.

That's the play area in the back. Nice slide and swing set. I think it is about a year and a half old but looks like the sprinklers are taking their toll.

Overall the house is excellent. The upgrades are very nice (hello ceiling fans) and for the most part in line with what I would have liked to do myself. I think the most disconcerting thing about the house is that the previous homeowners were unable to keep it. They did a lot of very nice things to the house, and must have been good people because unlike many of the foreclosures we have seen they kept the interior of the house in excellent condition. A few homes we have looked at were completely trashed and/or stripped by the previous owners. Hopefully they will be able to find an equally nice house when they are ready to purchase again, I know the pain of moving from a nice house into less than ideal conditions. I'm happy to finally be moving back into a nice house, it's been ages! :-D

House

Well I wanted to wait until after our inspection to announce that we are in escrow on a house. The inspection went really well and there are only a few minor things that came up. It still isn't a done deal, we still have to get the appraisal done and all of the loan worked out but it seems like it will probably work out. So after 7 offers over the last year we are finally almost done! We are getting pretty excited.
We took the kids to see it yesterday during the inspection and they are in love, especially because they are all going to get their own rooms. Kayla called the pink room no surprise there. Blake will get the room next to Kayla and Elizabeth gets the biggest room that is bright orange. They are anxiously planning how they will decorate. :)
The house is only a half a mile from Jared's sister Angie so we will be close to our new cousin Zad. The house is also fairly close to my Aunt Gail, Mimi, and Papa which will be really nice. It has a salt water diving pool and a three car garage that Jared is really excited about and I get a new kitchen equipped with stainless steel appliances. We are set to close at the end of May but have our loan agent trying to get it done sooner. We decided that right after we sign the papers we are going to all jump in the pool, even if it is cold.
So I will keep everyone updated, cross your fingers.

Easter pics

I just thought I would post these pictures of our Easter/Blake's birthday weekend. I have already posted about all the festivities a little earlier this week.

Old cars, what a pain

Earlier this week I took my 95 Avalon to Big O tires to get it aligned, what a big can of worms that brought about. They informed me that they would not be able to do the alignment because my inner tie rod was really loose so that needed to be fixed first, quoting me at 200 bucks for the fix. Well being married to the handiest man alive Jared and I decided that he would do the fix and it would only end up costing us around 40 bucks. Hrm, well once Jared started getting everything off he found more and more things that needed to be replaced , great. Once he had it all taken apart Blake got into the front seat and began playing with the steering wheel, apparently when it is all taken apart if you turn the wheel really hard you can ruin your rack and pinion. So now we get to replace that too, thanks Blake. I think we have already spent over $400 bucks and still have a more to spend for the alignment and new tires. Stupid old cars, what a pain...

Blake turns 2

Blake was my Easter baby this year and had his second birthday on Easter. What a day we had or weekend to be exact! Both grandparents came down this weekend to spend time with us. We woke up Saturday morning to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts brought to us by Grandpa and Grandma Harris. They then ended up taking the kids to Walmart and went shopping. When they returned we took the kids over to the Owensby's house to hang out with Grandma Dutton while Jared and I went to look at a house. They had a great time making pipe cleaners and pom poms into bunnies, deer, and squirells. We had a little birthday party for Blake with mini cupcakes and Grandma and Grandpa Dutton got Blake a wagon which he has been having a lot of fun with. The girls then headed with the Harris grandparents to see Monsters and Aliens in 3D, followed by a trip to Target for new outfits for Sundays party. Saturday night we ended up having The Owensbys and the Dutton grandparents over for games and lots and lots of popcorn( I think I popped 6 bags).
Sunday morning Grandma and Grandpa Harris came to church with us and brought newly made church activity packets for the kids. Blake has never, I repeat never sat through sacrament all the way through, well he just had a dandy time playing with Grandpa trying to match colors on the board game that he stayed all through sacrament meeting. After church we headed to Mimis (Great grandma Harris) and died Easter eggs. We then had a contest Harris vs. Duttons to see who decorated the best bunny house. The Harris bunny house was much better than the Duttons but for some reason the judges chose the Dutton house as the winner. We think it had something to do with the grand kids being on our team. :) After the competition the kids were then able to take turns at the pinata. Elizabeth was the one to break it open and Blake had the chocolate candy open before it reached the ground. Once we were done with the games at Mimis house we went across the sidewalk to Papas house (great grandpa Booth) where we hunted for Easter eggs. Blake only found one egg, apparently the egg he found was just too much fun to put down to find more. We then went up stairs for birthday presents, Blake got an aqua doodle, a car set, and disk shooting guns. The night ended with dinner of Honey Baked Ham, salad, grilled pineapple, asparagus, marshmallow rolls, and a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. Thanks mom and dad for all the time and fun you put into making such a wonderful day for the kids. Jared and I were saying when we got home what a fun birthday Blake was able to have and how lucky we are to have a close family that we can share such great times with.

Spring Break

I guess I should post a little bit about our Spring Break, it was nothing spectacular but we had fun. The kids took the cushions off of our chairs and made beds and forts in the family room all week. They even had a "sleep over" in the front room.



We tried going to the Botanical Gardens but were turned away because there wasn't any room for non-members. Instead we drove over to Jared's work and went out to lunch at a brick oven pizza place called, Grimalldis. We ordered 2 large pizzas and ate it all! I think Elizabeth had 4 huge pieces all by herself.

One night we met Jared after work at our favorite fishing spot and got a lot of bites but didn't hook anything. Blake is in this weird stage where he will not let me change him out of his pajama shirt. He does it almost every day it is getting kind of annoying, I think if I didn't have to change his diaper all the time I wouldn't be able to get off his pajama pants either.


We also went to the Southwest Museum with Aunt Angie and Zad. The kids love this place. They had an exhibit about 1001 ways to use poop. Blake had fun grabbing all the different rubber replicas of animal poo. They also had a story about a monkey that eats coffee beans and after it poos people gather the coffee beans out of the poo and make coffee out of it. Gross, now Kayla thinks all coffee is made out of poo. :)

On friday we went to Cheescake factory with Uncle Mike. Kayla woke up on friday morning with a little cold and was upset she was going to miss her special day but luckily she felt better by lunch time. About a month ago we went to Cheesecake factory with uncle Mike and all Kayla wanted was chocolate cake but when she had a bite of the key lime cheesecake that is all she talked about for a long time. So this time we ended up ordering 2 to share and 2 to take home to share with dad later. It was a great day to end our spring break.

Jared decided this week it was time to teach Blake how to go pee in the toilet so we headed off to Target to get him his very own potty. When we got home we set up his potty in the kitchen Blake was very excited and stripped off his clothes and just sat and sat so we all started going about our business and left him alone. Apparently boys are made a little bit differently than girls and when a boy sits on the potty they need to do one more extra step or else pee goes flying strait forward, which of course we figured out a few minutes later. So now when he gets on his potty we get to tell him to hold down his winkie. After he went pee we rewarded him with a cupcake which is what he has in his hands in the photo.
The next day Blake was still pretty into going pee so he kept stripping off his clothes to use the "potty". I guess he just figured any chair would do and ended up taking off his diaper and peeing on the recliner. Oh well it needed a good cleaning anyways. :)
So now a few days later he is not that interested in it any more and neither am I, he is not even 2 yet so I figure I might wait a few more months to try again but we will see.