The house

So, about five thousand years ago I promised to post pictures of our house. I may have even said, "Stay tuned for remodeled house pictures!" By now you all think I'm lying, either that I'll ever post pictures or that we live in a new house at all. Well, I got inspired today because this weekend Greg finished our brand new so awesome I can barely stand it seats a boat load of people dining room table. This afternoon the house was mostly picked up and I thought, what the heck, let's take some pictures! I mean, I don't have anything else to do, right? Johanna, you go ahead and make yourself a sandwich if you're hungry!

I will post pictures of the bedrooms another time (don't stay tuned, it could be another three months), for now ALL FOUR OF MY KIDS ARE SLEEPING!!!!

Last thing. All major remodel work (bathroom, kitchen, carpet) is compliments of my long suffering, generous father-in-law Doug. The hanging of all new curtains, new lighting, and newly finished furniture is compliments of my hard working, never complaining, dedicated, smoking hot husband. Oh, and all the new paint is because my own family came one weekend and painted the whole stinking house. Thanks Matt, Lianna, Daddy, and Greg! Have I mentioned before how much my family rocks??

And I'd like to thank the Academy for....

Caught with my pants down

UPDATE, UPDATE!!!!!!

As of today, the people that made me work my tail off, stayed for one minute, and didn't appreciate my three bedroom house, have put on offer on that house that we accepted and we have signed the preliminary signing agreement. They want a close of April 15. God works in cool ways. HOORAY!! Now Mojo won't have to be naked and sleeping in a box.

Metaphorically speaking that is.

We have found this whole house selling/move thing rather tedious, laborious, and currently, disappointing. We are trying to sell the house by ourselves and it is SLOW going. Few calls and fewer showings.

The first few weeks we were listed I about killed myself keeping the house constantly sparkling. Not a fun way to live but I was sure that THE BUYER was going to show up on my front door and I'd have five minutes to prep.

Then there wasn't any action. A few phone call, not a single showing, and my dedication slipped. The house is still clean but not oh-yes-please-stop-by-in-the-next-five-minutes-and-I always-have-fresh-baked-cookies-on-the-counter-and-my-kids-never-have-snotty-noses clean.

We have had a bit more action since but imagine my horror when I get a phone call today from a realtor who is hoping to show the house in fifteen minutes. I took a look around and thought to myself, impossible. To the realtor I said, "Can you give me an hour?"

Here are a few tricks I learned in that hour.

1) Shoving the five loads of clean clothes you had spread out to fold into garbage bags and throwing them in the back of the van works.

2) You can rinse dirty dishes in a sink, place them nicely in a cupboard, and take them back out later to really clean.

3) THANK GOD for beautiful, sunny days. I threw the kids outside, acted like I had planned a picnic lunch all day, and made them eat on paper towels. No dishes, no crumbs, no mess in the house, and the kids think I'm awesome.

4) You need at least ten minutes of rest after an insane hour of cleaning because if you are pregnant your entire head will glow neon red from the exertion and the prospective buyers will be more concerned about you keeling over than the condition of the house.

5) You son will, two minutes before showing, throw open the garage door and re-ding the wall that was so recently patched and repainted. This, with a door stop in place and everything.

6) Your hopes of a nap will be GONE. Your kids naps will be all off. You will be frazzled and grumpy.

7) The buyers will walk in, spend six minutes looking, say, "Is it really only three bedrooms?" and leave. With never knowing that you nearly died trying to make the house look pretty for them. You know, because with three little kids and pregnant belly it always looks like this.

And Greg wonders why I think doing this with a newborn would be impossible. Not hard, not challenging, not even horrible, but IMPOSSIBLE. IMPOSSIBLE I SAY.

How a Danish turns two

Things around here continue to move at a frantic pace but not so frantic that I cannot acknowledge that our current baby turned two! Dane celebrated as any good two year old does. He knew he was awesome, he knew he deserved presents and cake, and he knew that he could say things like "Sing mo happy" and everyone would sing him Happy Birthday once again. He is still our snuggly little boy, a lover of his daddy, a lover of airplanes (hence the cake), a master at the art of apologizing ("Soey brover. Give me?" (Sorry brother, forgive me?) ), and an increasingly adept pest. WE LOVE YOU DANE!!!!!!

Because we couldn't just have a birthday party this weekend, we also conned most of our family members into helping us paint our new house. Greg and I did the prep work over the last week and a half so Greg, my dad, my sister Lianna, and my brother-in-law Matt tackled, and finished, all the painting on Saturday. My father-in-law did other work on the house, helped paint on Saturday, and helped us, along with my mother-in-law, take down all the tape on Sunday. Yeah! Job DONE! My mom hung out with the kids and me (Mojo doesn't like paint fumes) and helped me do birthday party prep and scrub out my utility room. You guessed it, Greg and I are indentured servants to every member of our family for as long as we shall live.

I like to move it, move it

Christmas is over. The decorations are put away, our fake tree is in a box which may very well be a sin, and Greg took down our front yard blow up Santa carousel. Greg also forced me to hide the rest of the Christmas candy as he gears up for our second annual Biggest Loser Contest. Mojo has eaten more cheese dip and popcorn balls than any fetus should and the kids have already broken a Christmas toy. You know what this means? It's time to move.

Okay, we're not quite there but now the real work begins. We have been making weekly van loads of stuff to the new house and it was embarrassing how long it took before we even noticed the difference. Things are starting to clear out though and we're entering the phase of home repair and deep cleaning. I am not impressed with the cleaning part and overwhelmed by messes that I just didn't even see. If you have been to my house lately sorry that I didn't notice the chocolate milk splatters IN THE FAMILY ROOM BEHIND THE FILING CABINET. How did they get there? What spill explosion made that happen, how long have they been there and how unfortunate that I now have to care. Both the front door and the garage door were upgraded from "Deep Clean!" to "Paint!". One room at a time girl, one room at a time.

On the new home front, things are happening. Doug, my father-in-law, has nearly finished the front bathroom and I am overwhelmed. It's just so much more than I imagined. I knew about paint and new sink and new flooring. But a fully tiled bathtub with an inlayed design? Tile floor instead of vinyl? A tile wainscot? (Thank you on line dictionary for spelling that word for me.) New cabinet doors and drawers? We didn't even know about these things and the bathroom is stunning. I cannot wait to post after pictures. THANK YOU!

Two weekends from now we are also having a painting party. My folks are coming to watch the kids for us all weekend while Greg and I con some kind, unsuspecting souls into helping us paint the new house. We went to Home Depot today to get samples and this is all I have to say: more isn't always better. I do not know if Peanut Butter or English Toffee is better for the kitchen and, let's not kid ourselves here, don't really care. An interior decorator I am not.

So, let the games begin. The sooner this house is on the market the better and we are hoping by mid February to get it listed. That is if I ever manage to clean out all the dirt from the slider door tracks. Or get the stickers off the window. Or wash all the curtains. Or remember that most light fixtures aren't coated in an inch of dust. Or.....

What does your New Year hold??

p.s. I feel Mojo kick now. It's the bees knees.

Go west young man

It is time to head west when baby number four is on the way and you begin to wonder if bunk beds can be stacked three high.

So that's what we're doing. We're moving west.

By west I mean 20 minutes west of our current house. But west, nonetheless.

And moving. A true move of buying one house and selling another. Except that we're not really buying the house. Or we are but it's already in the family. Confused?

We are buying Greg's grandmother's old house. It was left to Greg's dad after she passed away and has been a housing option that we've known about for a while. But we were comfortable and the house had renters and we just never put that much thought into it.

When the renters moved out though we went looking with different eyes and the one things we both thought was, "Why on earth wouldn't we do this?"

It's a much bigger home, over 1000 square feet larger than where we are now. It is a rancher with three bedrooms next to each other on the main floor, 2.5 baths, a huge lovely living room, double sided fireplace, large fenced backyard, over sized garage, and STORAGE. Did I mention the storage? It might be the best part.

There is also a fully finished basement. It has one more bedroom as well as this massive expanse of a family room. Whenever we are over there the kids ride their bikes in the basement because it's that big and open.

This house really fits our image of where we want to be now and years from now. A basement for teenage entertaining in the future and a playroom for now. No more worrying about crawling babies falling down stairs. Bedrooms close together. A master bathroom!!

I'm not to the best part yet. The house was built in the 1960s I think and while in very good shape does look a little dated. This is where father-in-law Doug (otherwise known as coolest remodelingest Daddio out there OR the statue of David (inside joke, hahaha)) comes in. He's remodeling this place for us. New main bathroom and half bath. Fully beautified kitchen. New carpet. Carpet ripped up in the dining room and new flooring through there, the kitchen, and laundry area. New stainless steel sink for the laundry room. Greg and I are going to paint and take down a bit of wall paper and put up new drapes. How do you say thank you for that?!?!?!? THANK YOU DOUG AND MARIAN!!!! It's really so much more than a person can dare even ask for. We're giving them our fourth child as a gift.

Enjoy the pictures of our new house. These are the before pictures and I'll post after pictures in the spring. Our goal is to have our current house on the market by the first of March and pray it sells in a timely fashion.

So there it is, the big news. Did you guess??

One shot of the backyard

More backyard. A great size for a family.

A picture taken standing in the corner of one of the bedrooms.

The dining room. This picture doesn't do it justice, it's twice as big as our current dining space. It will fit a table that actually seats all six of us!

The kitchen, which is obviously adjacent to the dining room . The cupboards over the range are being taken out to open up the space more. Another good father-in-law idea.

One side of the two sided fireplace. This side is in the living room, the other side in the dining room. I think it needs a mantle for six stockings next Christmas!

The living room. Another large space, separated from the kitchen and dining room by a wall and the fireplace.

A teeny glimpse at the storage area in the basement.

This picture was taken standing at one end of the basement family room.

This picture was taken standing at the other end. See the other fireplace off to the left?

Next summer we should have room for visitors and guests. Book your reservations now!