Greetings From Our New Home

Here I am? Were you wondering what happened?

We are all moved into our new home. We moved on the 6th. In the snow. It was hell. But so worth it!

We're getting unpacked and our house is coming together very nicely. We're decorated for Christmas. Major plus there! We just weren't "feeling it" until the tree went up. Now that we are we're freaked out because we have no gifts for the kids! I finally did sit down on Monday and order the items that either aren't available in the stores or were just too dang expensive. Amazon is my friend! That's for sure!

My 3 year old has been saying she wants a "pee in the potty doll" for weeks now. Unfortunately, the one she so desperately wants is $50 (at least) in the stores. It's the Little Mommy Gotta Go Doll. We just can not imagine spending $50 on something like that this year. But I found it on Amazon for $24.99 with free shipping and I snagged that real quick! Good thing because today it's up to $39.99! Strangely, it came in a box, without the actual packaging. Something about "frustration-free packaging" or whatever was enclosed. Made me a little mad, because I want that "WOW! LOOK WHAT I GOT!!" response when she opens it, instead of..."What? A cardboard box with a doll shoved in?" So now I have to decide if I want to set it up beside the tree unwrapped or set it up and cover it with some scrap wrapping paper. I just refuse to wrap her most wanted Christmas request up in a cardboard box...that's no fun!!

My 5 year old wants a Spiderman Web Blaster. I finally found the one I wanted and it actually was on sale! And I had a coupon code for 25% off! So cool! But I ended up paying OVER full price to get it here by Christmas because shipping was over $15. Oh well..it'll be worth it right?

I figure, we only have a few precious years where our kids have a FULL belief in the jolly red elf. If we can afford to grant their most wanted requests, it's kind of our duty. Besides, Christmas morning is so magical, and it's so much more magical to see their eyes light up when the find the treasured toy they've asked for hidden under the tree wrapped up beautifully and awaiting their greedy little hands to play with them for 5 minutes and totally forget they ever got it before the clock strikes 12 on New Years Eve!

Yes I'm PMSing!

I haven't blogged in a few days because...I haven't had anything to say. I still dont, but I am determined to blog, so please, bear with me.

We're still waiting to close on our house. We should be doing it this week. But it's looking like it may not happen, thanks to our bank lady who's handling everything. She's gone from office until tomorrow. Our appraisal is done and is just waiting on underwriting. It's been waiting since last Wednesday, but like I said, our bank lady is out of the office. Who needs Thursday-Tuesday off for Thanksgiving? That's what I'd like to know. Seriously, getting pissed here. I want to move. More importantly, I want to decorate for Christmas. Brown cardboard boxes are not nearly as beautiful as a Christmas tree. And if I hear one more person talk about how they got their tree up and decorated over the weekend, I am going to scream! I'm highly considering just breaking and entering into our new home and putting a tree up and decorating. Maybe moving in a few boxes..beds..who would really care? It's empty. It's just waiting for us. It's all about formalities now.

To ease our impatience we decided to hit Lowes over the weekend to check prices on the upgrades we want to incorporate into our new home. Things like paint, a new front door, shutters, old-fashioned screen doors, dishwasher, shower for the basement, curtains, carpet, laminate wood flooring, new cabinets. You know, just little stuff. I didn't realize just how much the "little stuff" would actually cost. I have just one room I want to carpet. Our family room. I want plush, sink your toes in carpet in there. The kind of carpet that when you lay on it, you fall asleep. Of course with carpeting like that you need the good pad underneath it. I found exactly what I wanted. I was so excited. It wasn't even the top of the line stuff. I looked lovingly into my husband's eyes. "Please, can we get this once we move in. It's so perfect! It shouldn't cost that much to do just one room." He looked back at me with a smile that said; You simple-minded little fool. Then he said, "To carpet that one room with this exact carpet and padding, with me installing it and not paying for labor, it would cost over $1200." That was a shock! I had budgeted $1200-$1500 to put laminate flooring in our kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway. I thought that was expensive! But over $1200 for one room. I might have to scale back a bit on my "dream carpet". Either that or look into robbing a bank!

So now I am frustrated that I can't move into my house. Frustrated that I can't decorate for Christmas. Frustrated that I don't have bottomless pockets of money to do all the upgrading and decorating to my house the FIRST DAY we move in. Frustrated that the only options for me right now is to wait, be patient, try not to bite people's heads off when they look at me, and learn how to save. Damn home-ownership!

Wordless Wednesday

We Got The House!!

Thanks Tiff!

HOUSEHUNTING UPDATE: We have fallen in LOVE with a home! We put in an offer last night... Please, please, please send prayers, good thoughts, whatever, our way so they accept the offer! This is truly the PERFECT home for our family!

Okay..now..

Tiff at Three Peas in a Pod awarded me with the following award:



Tiff is the mother of 3 great kids! She is a very busy lady, but has always made time to be my (online) friend and I appreciate her so much!! You really need to check out her blog if you haven't already! She's always sharing great tips, crafts and giveaways!! Seriously GO VISIT HER NOW!!

There are rules and tagging involved with this award, but I don't wanna follow them! Because I think you all are nice mommas!


Okay so I'm going to tell you just a bit about the house we put an offer on last night. Yes, I know, ENOUGH already! But seriously...I have a feeling there will be plenty of house-hunting, moving, decorating posts to come! This house has 3 nice-sized bedrooms. A cute kitchen with lots of cabinet space. A huge living room with a gas fireplace and large picture window facing the quiet street. An even more HUGE family room with built in shelving/entertainment center on one wall with a large picture window looking out to the wooded back yard. A nice sized bathroom with a big vanity (just what I need!), a basement (with a half bath) that is ready to be finished. And a breezeway from the garage that is big enough to use as a covered patio. It's also in walking distance to a park!

So please, if you are a praying person...pray pray pray!! If you like to send positive thoughts out to the universe...DO THAT! Whatever you can do to support us so that the owners will accept our offer and we'll get the house, I will be forever grateful!!

Oh and one more thing..this house is empty. If they accept our offer...we'll be moving in the first week of December!!!! My head is spinning!!!

Total Chaos!

I know I didn't blog much last week. I had the flu the beginning of the week and the end of the week was filled with house-hunting excitement! So far no luck, but it was wishful thinking that we'd find our perfect home right out of the gate. I'm sitting here now very impatiently waiting for our Realtor to call and let me know which of the 4 properties we're interested in we can view tonight. We looked at 3 over the weekend, all turned out to be NOT for us! Three of the 4 houses we want to see tonight we are both really excited about. I'll keep you posted!

It's amazing how stressful this actually is. I had NO idea!! There is the problem of picking out the diamonds from the duds. Then we have to worry about whether we'll get to view it before someone else does and puts an offer in. Then we have to worry about once we DO put an offer in if it'll be rejected. Then of course, what if we actually get the house and it turns out we hate it once we're in it!? I worry about everything non-stop, so this is obviously no different.

My husband and I are both irritable, grouchy, emotional and stressed out! It's going to be a long process, and by the time we do find something and I'm sure by then we'll both have aged about 5 years!

But on top of all the stress, there is a ton of excitement! So much so that I still am having trouble not jumping up and down at any given moment. The kids were not too pleased when we told them we'd be moving. But once we told them they would have bedrooms they could paint any color they wanted, they started to come around. Then of course (without consulting me) my husband told them they could get a puppy AND a kitten...they are now very excited and won't stop talking about our new animals.

Our house is in an uproar of chaos, stress and excitement. It's scary and wonderful at the same time! Now if we could only find a home! I can't wait to move in to our OWN home. Hopefully this will be our last move! I really really am dreaming of the house we will live in for the rest of our lives. The house our kids will grow up in and will bring THEIR kids back to. I sure hope I'm not getting my hopes up too high!