Ghouls and Goblins

Or Brides, Super Heros and cowgirls, whatever.

We met Stacey, Shane and the kids at their temporary living home (did I mention that they are ALSO building a new house!  Not next to me :-( They should be ready to move in Jan).  It's fun to get the kids together to Trick-or-Treat. It's all my kids know.

We figured we'd hit the jackpot considering they are in a townhome complex for the next few months- the kids got a lot of candy and as always THEY were the ones to ask to stop and go home, they had enough.

Next year I hope to Trick-o-Treat in our new neighborhood and I hope that the Busta's will join us.  

This year we did regular treat bags for the school and daycare treats.

For the teachers and Jackie I made these jars and attached a little note: 'Thanks for taking care of our little pumpkin'

 

For the daycare kids we also included these oranges- they turned out pretty cute!

 

What a sweatheart!

Hailey is such a sweet little girl.

She has been so sensitive lately and can cry on demand.

She is starting to get more and more observant and you can see her soaking things in.

Last night when I picked her up from daycare I announced our plan for the evening "Hailey, when we get home we have to put together a few Halloween treats for your friends at dance, get changed, eat supper, go to dance and then home to bed.  Got it?"

Hailey:  "Yes.  You got treats for dance cwass? (class)"

Me:  "Yep"

Hailey:  "What did you buy dem?" (them)

Me:  "Mike and Ike treats and then some candy for your teachers too.  Nothing fancy but at least you and Hannah can both bring a treat for your friends."

Hailey "Thank you mommy.  WAIT!  Mom, my friend Caylee can't have sugar.  Member, she has DB's (Diabetes)!  Her need Tic Tacs! We better get her those."

So proud of that little one

So we made a quick little stop to the gas station to pick up a pack of Tic Tacs because she is right, Caylee does have Diabetes and eats orange Tic Tacs as her 'treat'.

That night at dance it came time to hand out the treats and Hailey reached into her pumpkin bucket to pull out the Tic Tacs for Caylee.  Her face lit up!  She was so happy that she got a special treat!

It's so important to me that my girls grow up being good to people.  Think of others and be thoughtful.  I would say that we are headed in the right direction!

 

Hannah's dance class- Hailey's group was too excited to pose for a group picture

And just like that....

We have had a busy turn of events over the past few days.

We had a showing on Sunday afternoon.  About 45 minutes after the showing we received another showing message (automatic email that happens when a showing is scheduled).  The showing was scheduled for yesterday.  I mentioned to Brian that he should check who the realtor is- maybe he/she came Sunday and decided that his/her client would like the house so is bringing them back or maybe, just maybe it's a second showing with the same potential buyer.

We reached out to Mike, our realtor and he confirmed that it's a second showing and mentioned that he has talked to the potential buyers realtor a few times since their first showing.  They are very interested.  YIPPEE!

So Monday morning came and about an hour before the showing we received a cancellation message.

Within the hour there was another showing scheduled for today.  Looked at the details and it was a different realtor.  Later in the evening last night we received an update to the cancelled showing that stated that although the potential buyers were interested, they had had a change of heart.  Bummer.

We left this morning knowing that we had a showing again today.  You never know if it's better to have a lot of traffic and nobody buy or a little traffic and then get an offer.  At this point we aren't in a huge timeframe hurry to sell our house, we don't have a place to go, we really don't want to move twice and our house won't be ready until almost spring- BUT- it would be nice to sell knowing that this part has been taken care of and get an idea of the amount of equity we may have with the sale.

Within an hour of the showing I had a text message from Brian- we are getting an offer!

Check your email.

I checked my email and attached to the showing there were comments added:  Offer Coming

We connected with Mike and he said he had the offer in his hand and would like to stop by tonight to review it. OMG!  It was only a few hours between that message from Mike and the time he showed up but it felt like forever.  Such a nerve wrecking waiting period- is it good news?  Will we accept their offer?  Will we need to negotiate?  Will the deal fall through?  Will they offer us way less than we want?  If it's not a good offer do we chance it since we have time and wait it out?  When will they want to close?  etc, etc, etc

Mike arrived around 8:30 and presented the offer.

Overall it was a very good offer.  Clean and easy.  We made a few minor changes to their offer and extended the close date by 11 days and sent Mike on his way to present the counter offer to the potential buyers.  Within 10 minutes Mike called and Brian answered on speaker- "It's done.  Congratulations!  You just sold your house."

So that's it.  12 days on the market and we are done.

We still have to pass the inspection and appraisal but so far so good.  Keep your fingers crossed!

From this view you would never know there is a foundation down there!

Mmmmm, what's that smell?

I walked into the house tonight and could smell something fantastic!

When I looked to the stove I did not see the usual chef standing there (Brian). 

Hannah was making dinner tonight, sloppy joe's.

Obviously she was given a little help and guidance from the master chef but at the time he was able to chill on the couch for a little bit while she was working away.

Once she was done cooking she moved on to get all of the plates, chips, buns, etc out.

What a nice treat!

Halloween Dance Show

This morning we celebrated Jennie's Birthday at Fabulous Fern's for brunch.

We have a showing at our house this afternoon and the girls have a dance show at 2.

When brunch was over we stopped home for about 30 minutes before we had to leave for the dance show.  This show was just for the Champlin Just for Kix dancers and the show was expected to last for only about 20 minutes.

During the show, Hailey's group started their dance- the music is adorable and so were all of them so the crowd giggled with excitement.  Later that day when I asked Hailey what she thought of the show she got a sad face and said "everybody laughed at us".  It was so heartbreaking to hear her say that and not understand why the crowd giggled. Poor thing- she is such a sensitive little soul.

After the dance show we had about an hour to kill before we needed to be out of our house for a showing so we stopped home to change and assure the house was picked up.  Then we decided to take the girls out to get pumpkins.

We started at the 'parking lot patch' at a local church but didn't find anything we had to have so we piled back in the truck and went to a real pumpkin farm.  Dehn's.

Dehn's had a huge pumpkin bouncer and corn pit.

When we got home the girls started to draw the faces that they wanted to carve into their pumpkins.

Hannah LOVED digging in the pumpkins this year and scraping out all of the guts.  Hailey didn't mind when the stuff was already scraped from the sides but lost interest pretty quick and was happy to let her sister finish for her.

Grammy's Annual Halloween Party

Each year Grandma Judy plans a Halloween party for the kids.  It always includes Halloween themed treats and crafts.  In return the kids parade in their costumes for her and agree to take some pictures.  It's a great way for us all to see the kids in their costumes and it's a much better time for me to get pictures of them since Halloween is usually during the week and the rush home from work, getting dinner and traveling to our trick-or-treating spot is chaos.

It's nice to have this time and I always enjoy seeing Justin, Courtney and Adam's costumes!

Let there be light!

 We started our day with the wood floor people, then meet with the electric company to map out the outlets and switches and ended our day at Cartier Lighting where we got to choose all of the light fixtures for our house.  As fun as it is to go shopping with money that is already spent it's making me nervous.  I second guess every decision that we are making and I am getting more and more nervous about how everything will look and tie together once it's all done.

I know deep down that there are no bad decisions with this process but I have never been one to decorate well so this is sort of terrifying.

The flooring meeting was overwhelming but also discouraging.  We both know what we don't like- that part was easy.  But, the way this process works is that you really don't know your price range or what things cost in order to pick something within the budget.  There are a few floors that we loved but were pretty sure they were out of the budget but without knowing just how much it was sort of hard to make a decision right then and there.  We took some samples with us and at least narrowed the wood type choice down to a few- hickory and birch.  I really LOVE the walnut but that type of wood is so soft that according to our builder 'it dents if you sneeze too hard'.

The meeting with the electrician was fun!  She was great to work with and made things like light switches actually fun to talk about.  We left that meeting with a list of lights we needed to purchase fixtures for and after a quick lunch we made our way to Cartier Lighting.

This place was FULL of lights.  Rooms and rooms full.  The lady we met with brought us a few catalogs to look through and kept pointing out that there were more books to look through if we needed more ideas.....a whole wall full of other catalogs.

We tried to coordinate as much as possible which made it easier to pick out lights for the bedrooms, etc.  Pick one and then multiply.  Here are a few of my favorites.

This is the light for the outside on the garage

This light will be in the Master Bath- pointing down

The one in the middle, the three light, is for the girls bathroom

And my very favorite- the pendant lights for above the center island-(on the left)

 Once we were done making the lighting decisions we drove past the house to check things out.

We were pleased to see that the forms were removed and we have a foundation!

We picked up the girls and made our way home and pulled in to see that the sign has finally made it's way here!  We have already had a few showings (last weekend) and so far this week things have been very quiet.  Hope this isn't a sign of the cold weather coming....

Happy 30th Birthday to my sister Jennie!

The little machine that could

What a difference a day makes!

Looks like that little machine from yesterday was hard at work today.

 

Getting Anxious

We are winding down with all of our design meetings we have been having- today we met with the cabinet guy.  We chose our door style, knob style, and talked about some added features we would like to look into like the soft close doors and drawers and a few other cabinet features.

When we left the meeting we drove by our lot to see if any progress had been made and were super excited to see that there was a machine and pile of dirt!

Something is starting to happen and we are getting a step closer!

Booty Shaker

Occasionally the girls and I leave for work the same time that Brian does.  On those days Brian would start to pull out of the garage and Hailey would shake her booty at him.  

A few times recently Brian has left before us and as he starts to pull away from the garage Hailey would hurry to get her shoes and coat on and then run outside to say goodbye to her best buddy.

Colorful

It's so hard to part with this stuff.

It just simply makes me smile looking at these papers. I love the way that Hailey colors.  She uses SO much color and it's such a difference from how Hannah was at that age.  Hannah was known for using one crayon on a whole page.  She would still color well and within the lines but she would use the same color.  You could tell that she was just trying to get done with the picture as fast as she could so she could move onto the next activity.  I am pretty sure that Hailey uses every single color in the crayon box.

I love her perspective.  I love the way she sees things.

I'm a fur-auntie!

Kimmy has had puppy fever for a while now.  

Many of her friends have dogs and she has always been a huge fan.

Last weekend I received a text from Kristin showing us what Kimmy had picked up.

He could not be cuter.

He could not be softer.

He could not be more perfect.

They sure make a cute couple!

You want me?

I was honored.

We mentioned to my sisters that we were going to head to the lake this weekend for one final trip and Kristin contacted me to see if I would be willing to take her and Bobby's engagement pictures.  

The leaves are about as beautiful as they are going to get and it is suppose to be decent out so this was a perfect opportunity.  

It was so hard to choose a few to post.

300+ pictures and they are all good.

The love between these two just radiates off of them and it was so fun to take their pictures.

Bobby was such a good sport and followed all of the directions we gave him.

They both seemed genuinely happy with the pictures- whew!

The backgrounds couldn't have been more perfect!

Congrats you two!!