The house has been sold!

It's official! The papers are signed! We sold our house! Yippee! After 8 months on the market, it's gone!

Now, we just have to make it through the buying process and we are in business.

We had many good times at Bluefield Ave. It's where Caden was born and it was our first house. Also home to our cactus garden. But now it's time to close the door on the cactus and move on to Green grass!

I think our first purchase after the house purchase will be a lawn mower! :)

One tired boy!

Well, this picture about sums it up... we are tired. After many months of being patient and waiting for our house to sell, we feel that we are pretty close. (The house is closing on 2/27)

As you know we made an offer on a house, but didn't get it. So we started over this week. Our realtor sent us about 20 listings. Justin and I made our lists of what we liked and then gave them to the realtor to show us around. We looked at 7 houses on Saturday. The 1st one looked really bad from the street, but the inside was awesome. After that, all houses paled in comparison. We kept looking and on our way to house 7, I wasn't sure what we were going to find. We pulled up, and it looked great. A cute brick 1950's house. It just kept getting better as walked around. This house had 2600+ square feet! Granted the basement is finished, complete with wood paneling, but a can of paint can do wonders for a house. So we went home to the townhouse, and had some lunch. After talking it over and weighing out our options, we decided to go for it and make an offer. We found out today that they accepted our offer as written. That means no counter offers or changes! We will be doing a home inspection in the next week, and see what that brings us. Things are looking up! our closing for this house would be the end of April, but could be sooner if the current owners find a house sooner. (they haven't packed yet).

I will get some pictures to post at a later date, but wanted to keep everyone in the loop! Yippee!

Caden takes a few steps!

Ok, this is a clip of Caden taking a few steps. We had some techinical issues with turning the camera off, but it's kind of fun to see him take some steps. He can now take about 5 steps on his own. He really leans forward when he is walking. With this milestone comes some excitement. He is getting closer to moving to the toddler room. I will have to talk to the director to see when he goes there. Now some people think we may be pushing the toddler room too much. If it could save you $35 per week, you would push that room too! That's right, $35 less per week. Daycare isn't cheap!

In case you were wondering, we don't dress him like batman very often, it just happens that those are his batman pj's handed down from cousin Charlie. We didn't get the cape that goes with it, Charlie kept it. But we still love the batman look. Turns out the bat outline glows in the dark too! Pretty cool!

1st Birthday party!

I finally have had time to get a bit organized and here are some pictures from Caden's actual birthday. I thought there were more, but this is it. We had a low key birthday for him. Probably more for us than him. My dad flew over and took a break from taxes, and my mom was already here. We also had the Rings over so the cousins could celebrate together.

Caden did not like the party hat and almost snapped the elastic around his neck. Ouch! He was not really engaged in opening the presents. He was more interested in playing with what he had. One present he got was a tool sack that sings. Uncle Matt called it the tool purse, but it's brown, so it's a sack. He now likes to make the sack sing. His favorite part of the birthday party was cake and ice cream! He loved the cake! We made cupcakes and just let him have them. ( I didn't even get a picture of them) We gave Caden and Charlie each a cupcake with a candle and let them blow it out. Charlie kind of understood, Caden did not. Caden did know what to do with the cupcake. He grabbed the whole thing and shoved it in his mouth. He also grabbed the ice cream and shoved that in his mouth too. We gave him a second cupcake because he liked it so much. My mom made real whipped cream frosting, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, less sugar for the little guys. (us too!)


This picture is actually before they started with the cupcakes, a little bit out of sequence. Ooops!

Housing Update!

We are very close to closing our phoenix house. We just signed the papers and sent them back to the title company. All that is left is for the buyer to sign the papers and the deal is done!

So with all of that being so close to being done, we made an offer on a house in Spokane. After 2 rounds of counter offers, we did not get the house. It was not meant to be, although, it was a great house, I know we will find something even better. That house had been on the market since July, so I thought they would be eager to sell. Turns out, not as eager as we thought. Oh well.

So, we will wait for our check from the phoenix sale, and then start looking again. Real estate is so fun!

ChucK E Cheese - So much fun!

That's right, Chuck E Cheese was fun! Caden had a blast. He went on a few rides and down the slide. He was really excited about Bob the Builder. He also had a blast just watching everything. We went to Chuck E cheese with my parents and the Rings. Charlie had fun too, he keeps saying mouse, cheese. Which we decided means Chuck E Cheese is a mouse.

Caden slept so good last night. He woke up once and then slept the rest of the night! I think we will be going back to Chuck E cheese again, Justin can come with us next time.

Did you know they serve beer? I guess you might need it if you were there for an extended period of time. It was a bit of a zoo! Birthday parties galore!

What's new with us today?

Well for starters, Caden is 1! He is just changing so much, he now has 8 teeth. We will try and get some tooth pictures of him.

We are also going to Chuck E Cheese tomorrow with Charlie. Oh yeah, and my dad is here now too. (I guess it takes grand kids to get the man to slow down during tax time). Thanks Caden & Charlie for that!

House update: the house is still on track to close at the end of February (exactly 3 years to the day from when we bought it). Once the money is in the bank, we will feel good about finding a house. Until then, we will just keep looking to see what is out there, so when we do find something, we are ready when the house sells.

My mom and I drove by a potential house today. Our realtor was stopping by at the same time to preview it for us and make sure it was worth looking at. Turns out one of my sisters friends lives across the street and has 2 kids. The people next door have a boy that is the same age as Caden. That could be great for growing up with friends on the street! We will see what happens.

Pictures of Chuck e cheese and Caden doing laundry will be up tomorrow.... I promise.

It's a year later!

So I can't believe it, but it's been a year. Caden turns 1 tomorrow at 10:15am! (or 9:15am Pacific time). I am still in DC, but will get to see the little guy on Friday morning. We are going to have a little birthday party with cake for him on Sunday. It's amazing how much can change in a year!

Washington DC - Here I come!

Well, I flew into Washington DC yesterday and am here for a week for a training class. Sadly, there is not any time for sightseeing, but I may be able to go on a night tour on Wednesday. We will see where the week takes me.

Caden is at home with Justin and my mom. He's got a cold, so he is kind of cranky. He will be 1 on Thursday! I can't believe it.