I'm starting to see a pattern here

OK, so you tell me if you can see the pattern, too. Here is a list of all of the neighborhoods we have/will have lived in:

1. Great Oaks
2. Standing Oak
3. Spring Oaks

Hmmmm... I'm not sure why we keep buying houses in these "tree" neighborhoods considering neither of us enjoy raking up all the leaves that come along with them. Luckily, our new house has NO TREES in the yard. We do have woods behind our house, but other than that, there are absolutely no trees in our yard. Yeah!!!! Here's to throwing out all of our rakes! :)

One week to go!

We should be in the home stretch now. We haven't heard anything different, so we should be all set to close on our new house next week. Holy Cow. I can hardly believe it myself. I've never been so excited in my life to clean and paint a house as I am right now. Jacob is getting really excited, too. That's a relief. He doesn't really seem too fazed by switching schools yet, but we'll see how it goes as we get closer. Luckily, we still have about two months left before we have to actually cross that bridge.

My birthday was GREAT! Our dinner was awesome. It wasn't as nice as Yamato's back in Midlothian, but it was still really yummy and a lot of fun. We're definitely going back. And SOON!!! :) Dylan did a great job with the shopping, but he went a little overboard. You would have thought it was Christmas around here, but you're not going to hear me complain. OK, so I complained when I looked at the bank account after he was done spending, but what do you expect? At least he used the coupons I gave him. Yes, that's right - I sent my husband with coupons when he went out to do my birthday shopping. Would you expect anything different from me? Oh, and one of the items he bought came with a free gift card which he was able to use on another gift. That news was almost better than the gifts themselves. :)


All my birthday loot.


I would like to say that it took a lot of convincing to get me to wear this hat. Yes, I would like to say that, but I can't.


Me and the boys. Daniel stole my hat!!! :)


Me, Jacob and Will at dinner.


Dylan & Daniel at dinner. Too cute.


My cake that my loving husband made for me. Jacob picked out the candles. If you look closely, you can see that the flames on the candles are different colors.

All this math gives me a headache...

So... our contract was accepted and we got through the home inspection with flying colors. Yeah!!!! I wish I could say the same about the current interest rates. Ugh... We are scheduled to close three weeks from tomorrow and as of right now, we are less than pleased (to say the least) with our current interest rate. Best case scenario: the rates go down in time for us to re-lock before closing. OK scenario: the rates go down before we close, but we may have to postpone closing for a week. Worst scenario: the rates don't go down until long after we close and we have to refinance sometime within the next year or so. And with all of these scenarios, we still get to buy a house. And that makes me happy. :)

Updates on the boys

I was going through some of my old posts here and I stumbled across this. Apparently, I had it all typed up and ready to go, but I must have saved it instead of posting it. Here's an update on how big Daniel is (well... how big he was at his 2 year check-up) and more on how his birthday went.

My parents came out for Daniel's birthday party and brought Emma and Laura with them. (Sarah stayed at home with Jenn & Dave to help finish packing for their move this weekend.) I can honestly say that Daniel enjoyed his birthday. I'm still not completely convinced that he knew what was going on, but he loved every minute of it!

I can't believe that he is two now. I know everyone says this, but it really does feel like just yesterday that we were bringing him home from the hospital. Seeing him get bigger everyday is great. He has learned so many new words in the past month, I can hardly believe it myself. I swear he learns a new word every day. We went to the new pediatrician yesterday and we really liked him. Daniel even talked to him. That's a huge deal because Daniel does NOT like the doctor and usually starts to claw at me the minute he walks in the door. I guess being two really does make you a big boy. Literally. The doctor said that at this rate, Daniel will be at least 6' 3". That may not sound like a lot, but I'm only 5' 6" (yes, it's true - apparently I have actually shrunk an inch since high school. I used to be 5' 7"...) and Dylan is 6' 1" (sorry, 6' 1 and 1/2" - is that better, Dylan?) And at Jacob's last checkup, they said he would be 6'. So, that would make Daniel taller than all of us!

Here are his latest stats: 30 1/2 lbs and 36 1/2 inches tall. That puts him in the 75-80th percentile for weight and 95-97th percentile for height. And yes, he is still off the charts for his head (or as the nurse put it, he is above the 97th percentile because our chart only goes up to 97 percent and he doesn't fall anywhere on it.)

Now back to where he is at today (October). He's known most of his body parts for a long time now (i.e. you ask where is his head and he would point to it), but now he can actually say most of them. He also now says Mickey (as in Mouse) or something that sounds like it. He does say Donald (as in Duck), drink, football and lots of other new words. I can't believe how much his vocabulary has grown since we moved here. He still does not talk to strangers. When I picked him up from his MOPPETS class last week, they told me that he hadn't made a single sound while he was there. It's amazing how shy he can get. When he's around us and other people that he knows, he is so outgoing and full of energy. But, the good news (GREAT news, actually) is that when I dropped him off to his class, HE DIDN'T CRY!!!! He has cried EVERY time we have ever left him anywhere. This includes if he actually sees us leave when he would drop him off at my parents' or in-laws'. Yeah - you could say he is a tad bit attached. Just a little bit. OK. A lot!

And that should bring us up to speed on Daniel. As for Jacob, he is loving school and is a soccer junkie! We have soccer practice/games every Monday and Wednesday and he just loves it. He is actually VERY good, too. He stays right up there with the other kids, running up and down the field. He even gets in there and kicks the ball up and down the field. He has been working on his "drop kick" for when he is the goalie and has gotten really good at that, too. Daniel gets just as excited as Jacob when it is time to go to soccer. He loves watching Jacob and is his #1 fan. He stands on the sideline and shouts, "Go, Go, Go!!!" He is just dying to go out there and play with everyone. We've had to run after him on the field at least once or twice every game. All the other parents think it's funny. Of course... you always think it's funny, unless it's YOUR kid. :)

Here's Jacob doing his soccer pose. He said he was pretending that he was getting ready to kick a ball.

He got to choose his jersey number. I can't tell you how proud Dylan was that he chose John Elway's number. Totally different sport, I know. Apparently, that detail is minor when it comes to men. :)

Oh and did I tell you that I am so stinkin' excited that my birthday is now only 2 days away!!!! I LOVE my birthday. Dylan and I have even found a Japanese steak house to go try on Saturday. The tradition will live on!!! Ever since my 20th birthday, my family and I all would gather at Kabuto's (later on we switched to Yamato's) and celebrate my birthday. I loved being around both of our families. I miss that so much. The first time we didn't go was in 2006. Or what I like to refer to as, "The year that everything changed." Grandma passed away, Daniel was born and my sister moved far away. Anyways, I know we didn't all go in 2006. I was busy with a newborn, Jennifer had a crazy schedule and we just couldn't find a date to get together that would have worked for everyone. I think Dylan and I may have gone by ourselves on a date night sometime after my birthday, but I really don't remember. Last year, we ordered Outback to-go and just had an evening at home. This year, we're going out! I miss doing that for my birthday and even though it won't be the same, I know we'll still enjoy it. Maybe next year, we'll go back home for my birthday and our parents can go with us. Our friend, Will, is coming into town, so he'll be going with us. I can't wait!!!! :)

The ink isn't quite dry, yet....

As I write this, the sellers of the house we have been looking at should be signing and faxing our contract offer that they have accepted!!! Woo-hoo!!!!!! I can hardly believe it. Negotiations were painless and moved relatively quickly once they had all their payoff info on hand to work with. We made an offer, they countered. We countered with a 2nd offer and they agreed. Phew! Luckily, the cards were in our favor in this crazy housing market. Their house had been on the market since June and we weren't looking to completely rip them off or anything. They have only owned the house since May of last year (only 17 months) and by the time it is all said and done, we are only paying them $2100 more than what they bought it for. Plus, they have to pay realtor's fees on top of that, so they are really walking away with less than what the house is assessed at. Well, actually, they are having to write a check themselves to pay off the rest of their mortgage and fees that go along with selling the house. I know that must stink for them, but I had to keep reminding myself that this was strictly business (especially in this market.)

Dylan and I are very excited and we really feel like for once in our lives, we got a pretty good deal. I am in love with the house and the floor plan will be great for us. It has 340+ more sq. feet than our last house (which was almost impossible for all of us to fit into), plus it has a full unfinished basement with a roughed-in bath. By the time we finish off the basement, our new house will have about 1200 sq. feet more than our last home. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. That's almost double the size of our last home!!!!

Here are some pictures of what will soon be our new home:




Ahhh... just look at the size of that kitchen!!! (If you have seen either of our last two houses, you would totally understand why this kitchen makes me absolutely ecstatic!!! :)


The half bath. The only room that they painted in the whole house. The purple will be making a departure sometime shortly after we get the keys. :)
(And while we are on the subject... why don't realtors tell their clients to leave the toilet lids CLOSED when you are trying to sell your house??? I can't tell you how many houses we went in and the toilet lids were up . And they were open in the most of the pictures on the MLS listings, too!)


The hallway downstairs. I was standing in the living room while I took this picture. To the right is the dining room and you can see that the kitchen is right through the "window" in the wall looking into the living room. Down this hallway is the 1/2 bath and the door to the basement.

Those are all the pictures I really have for now unless you are interested in seeing more open toilet lids. :)

OK, time to get the boys to bed. I don't think I'll be far behind them tonight. I'm exhausted! Although, I should probably stay up to watch the debates to see who can make a bigger fool of themselves. All I have to say is: NObama! Go McCain!

The search is over... almost???

I think we may have found a house to put an offer on. It's got the perfect floor plan, the perfect amount of space and very few things that I could actually complain about. Imagine that! I'm so picky that after looking at 8 houses, I thought I would never find a house that I would want to buy. The house that we are looking at right now only has one problem that I wish we could change, but we'll never be able to - it's on a street that is a big hill. The yard is flat, but the street that it's on is a hill. Well, I should say, it's a mountain because that's what it is! It's a great street, though. It just means that if the kids want to ride their bikes, they have to walk them up the hill first to get to the flat cul-de-sac. Basically, it looks like we will have to make use of the local park with bike trails. That's fine by me, it's just different. They just don't do neighborhoods here like they did in Midlothian. First of all, they don't have a ton of neighborhoods here and second, I haven't seen a single neighborhood that has playgrounds, bike trails or pools in them. Again, it's just different out here.

So, we're going back on Friday to take a 2nd look at the house before we put in an offer. Wish us luck and pray that the interest rates will stop going all over the place long enough for us to lock-in! :)