A visit from St. Nicholas

As we did last year, my neighbor and I helped the boys learn a little about giving through the story of St. Nicholas. And then we put our shoes outside before going to bed in hopes that someone would show kindness to us just like St. Nicholas. Actually Nate decided to put out his boots and Logan followed suit of course. The boys were so excited to open the door in the morning and find goodies in their boots. And now.... how can we show kindness to someone else today....

Gingerbread Men

Oma always has a fun craft. This week we made Gingerbread men... and promptly ate them!

Zoolights with Oma

Mom and Dad took the boys to zoolights this year while Ken and I went to a movie. They had a blast and we got a much needed break.

The Rollercoaster of November

Where to start.... This has been a crazy busy month. Many of you know we have been looking for a new house for about a year now. Not that we NEED a new house right now, but looking towards the future with growing teenage boys it would be nice to have a bit more space. Nice if Ken had an office and could work from home. Nice to not have neighbors who can look down into our yard/house. So we set out on this quest, this marriage building experience to see if we could somehow meld our ideas into the "dream home" where we will live while the boys grow up. We've looked at short sales, we've looked at bank owned homes and over the course of the year we've seen a lot of interesting homes and even managed to make offers on 8 different homes! EIGHT! But for one reason or another they all fell through. One was a distressed home, no longer in distress so they took it off the market. One was a beautiful home but we felt uneasy about the slope it was on so we rescinded the offer. One was an amazing home that no one had lived in even though it was built 5 years ago but we were too late with our offer. One was an okay home that thought we could grow to love and the price point was low so we put our name in the hat, but got rejected. One had an amazing view, but when we did the inspections there was too much work and the sellers weren't willing to negotiate. One house was absolutely amazing but a co-worker also wanted the house and so in the interest of our friendship and not wanting to get in a bidding war we backed out of that one as well. And at the begining of November Ken found yet another AMAZING home that we thought we should go for. (Yes, our realtor loves us!) So all month long we have been in this "process" of negotiating a price, going through inspections, and working with the banks. We thought "all systems were a go" and put our house on the market. I spent a good 3 days and boxed up our "LIFE" and put it in the garage. Within 2 hours of listing our house we had 3 showings scheduled for the next day. Since then I think we've had 15 "strangers" as Nate likes to call them come look and see if they would want to make this their starter home. It's really a nice home and I kinda hate to leave it behind. I like the area, the neighbors, the friends, the club, the proximity to everything. Besides, moving across town, starting all over, well nobody likes change do they? And Thanksgiving came. We had much to be thankful for. Particularly we were reminded how blessed we are by my amazing parents who came over to work on a leaky roof two days after it went on the market. And came over to help with the broken furnace which was out for 6 days! Brrrrr! And thankful for friends who were on vacation so we could take naps at their house while people were looking at our house. And Bella, that sweet little dog the boys love, who ran away, but after 3 hours we found her at a neighbors. Much to be thankful for. And then there came a "glitch" at the bank and everything was on hold with our move. As in call the moving companies, stop insurance increases that were already submitted. The bank wouldn't lend us the money given that a third of the prospective house was remodled without permits and there is no assurance that it is built to code. We went into a waiting pattern to hear if the seller would take out permits and deal with the "back taxes" owed. If not, the deal would be off, our bank (or any other bank for that matter) would not take the risk and let us buy the house. But they Sellers had a week to decide. And I was stuck in this place of do I unpack my boxes or wait in hope that this transaction will go through after all. And so that is what we did in November. And then we finally recieved the call. The deal is off. We can only speculate what happened on that end. Either they didn't want to sell it for the price Ken negotiated (since they found out it appraised for much higher) or they truly didn't want to take the permits out because the house was not up to code, or they didn't want to be exposed to the tax penalties for evading taxes for the last 10 years. Whatever the reason was, they recieved a second offer on the house and decided to try to sell it to them instead(even though we legally had a contract and they shouldn't be entertaining other offers). So it's been quite a process. We are at the end of the roller coaster and it's time to get off. I'm not sure either of us have the stamina to get back on any time soon. Which is okay, because we have a place to live that we like. And now I'm thankful for a break... enjoying our current house and our neighbors and community here. Here's a picture of the boys boxing up thier toys... to them this has been just fun. And a picture of my crazy garage. And now back to unpacking... sigh.

Just a scoop of peanut butter

Can keep a little guy happy :-) I was thankful there wasn't much in the jar and he could just go to town on it. Now that I have a brand new jar open... I'm not as ready to let him plunge on in... When I first met Ken this is what he had for dinner.