T minus 24 hours till the move

I wish I had a picture of a chicken with the head cut off. That is what I feel like. Whew. Actually today is going pretty good. Our agent called last night and said that the appraiser did a second drive by and they appraised the wrong house. So they needed to come by between 6 and 10 this morning. They knocked on the door at 6:09. I was still in bed. The kids were still asleep. He said everything was fine, just a time crunch.

So since i have little time. Here is the link to the pictures to the house.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24599218@N06/?saved=1

See you in Missouri!

Pictures of the boys.

Here are some cute pictures of the boys I took this week.

Dominic wanted to help me sweep, cowboy hat and sword required.
Luca was eating plums and decided it was lotion, so he rubbed it on his face and hair. Then I gave him a kitchen sink bath. He thought it was hilarious!

On a roll.

Since I have been on a good roll of blogging everyday I figure I might as well keep it up.

Today was supposed to be my down day. We still had swimming lessons, but nothing this afternoon. Well my friend called this morning and wanted me to watch her son. He needed drops in his ear and the camp wouldn't do it. So he has been here. The morning was kind of crazy, but the kids are doing good now. I actually got 5 boxes packed. I think the master bath is done now and more of the kitchen. Then... I ran out of packing tape. DOH! So I have to run up and get some after DH i home. I am doing creative meals this week, to try to clean out the fridge. The less to move the better right?

Tomorrow we have the new house inspection so I have to go there. Thursday we will go to eat lunch with DH at his company picnic and then go buy or new fridge. Friday we close on this house. Saturday Move. Sunday collapse in a heap. LOL!

SLINGS!

So since I am not busying packing, I am gonna make slings. *yeah right*

But really i am not complaining just really really busy. I got an order for 9 slings for my friends store HappyBottomus. Then I sold a new sling today to a friend, another friend bought an older discounted sling from me as well, but she wants a new one made also. For those with a calculator that is 12 slings. Oh wait, and a girl that I am emailing who wants one. I am just not sure which one she wants yet. So 13 slings to go out the door in the next couple weeks. I have 3 done. 2 almost done. So if I am not packing, I need to be sewing.

If you haven't had the pleasure of checking out my slings, you can go to the website.

www.bambinoslings.com

Packing Packing and packing.

Happy Fathers Day to all!

We have been packing everything. I feel like we got most of it done this weekend. We scored a bunch of boxes from Price Chopper and then some more today from Walmart. Nice. I think we have several people lined up to help out with the move.

This afternoon we went swimming. I had Luca in the sling. He liked it, then he slept most of the time. The big kids had a blast.

We are looking for a fridge. We have to get a new one for the house. I think we found the best deals at the Sears Outlet. They will deliver it and also we can charge it. We need it right away, but need to pay for it later. Our goal is to get to all cash purchases after we move, but for right now we have to save our money for the house down payment.

FINALLY! The good news.

Finally! These sellers are so slow. Finally the good news.

We have a contract on the house. I finally feel like I can share all the good news. It is a house with 8 acres. Very nice. Newly redone on the inside.

The best news of all. They are going to let us move in a month early (july 1st) so we won't be homeless! They are asking for a hefty deposit on the house, but that is ok. I chalk it up to the same as rent. We only are going to have to move once! HOORAY!!!

Here is a link to it. HOUSE
The pictures don't really do it justice because they were taken in the winter. Now it is beautiful and green with all the trees. I will take more pictures on Wed. when we go out for the inspection.

UGG... This is making me crazy.

So we signed and faxed over the counter offer Wed. night. We have still not received it back with the sellers signature on it. I am really just feeling sick to my stomach about it all. The real estate agent for the seller did call to say today that it is in front of the sellers and they are looking at it. I am not sure what there is to look at. Everything we wrote is what they emailed to us saying they wanted. Please just sign it so I can move on with my life! We went ahead and scheduled the inspection for Wed. I figure it is easier to cancel it than to schedule it last minute.

After that we have to sign the papers to close on this house. The buyers said they would like to do a final walk through this week to make sure everything is still fine. So we have to go back through and clean up really well this weekend. It has been a real headache trying to keep the kids from messing things up. Last night Dominic wrote on a cabinet drawer with a permanent sharpie. Luckly DH saw it RIGHT AWAY and they got it off with Magic Eraser. Whew! We bought 10 rubbermaid tubs at Walmart tonight to finish packing in, hopefully that is enough.

House looks great. Done deal.

These are the words the appraiser said about our Gardner house this morning. I was not worried, I know it looks great. The real estate market is so weird right now it just makes me feel good to hear it. So that was the last step in selling this house, having the appraisal. So now it is just moving and closing/signing the papers. YEAH!!

That means in about 10 days I have to move! HOLY CRAP! But really, we are working on it and I don't think it will be a huge big deal. I am going to ask our Homeschool girl that babysits to come babysit the big kids that day. AKA...keep them out of the way. Maybe she can even watch the baby some.

Counter offer.

Our offer on the house expired at 9pm last night. At about 7pm, the other agent emailed saying he was still trying to get ahold of his clients. We were glad to hear from him. Still, we called BS and hoped that what it really meant was they were trying to get together a counter offer. This morning we did in fact receive the counter offer, which was totally fine by us! HOORAY! We have a contract.

Our agent suggested we also talk to the owner later in the week about seeing if we could take early possession in the form of rent for one month. Then we could move in once and be done with it. That would be great!

Otherwise, I think we have arranged care for all the pets while we stay with friends or hotel.

This week the radon people came and fixed it all up. I wrote them a hefty check. Oy! Not fun. :( So we are ready to go with the selling stuff.

A month without a home.

Well we are still waiting to hear back on our house offer. The agent said they really want to sell it, so I figure they will take it or counter offer. We should know later today what they say. If we can make an offer go through we won't be closing/moving in until the end of July. So we have a month with no home.

Our plan is to stay at a corporate hotel with a kitchen and/or with friends. Probably a combination of both. We thought of trying to find a rental house for a month but then we would need our beds and such. Unpacking for that is not really an option. DH has to go to St. Louis for work occasionally, so he is going to try to get it to happen in July. Then we would have a week of hotel for free in St. Louis. Nice.

I have been wanting to do a month of blogs so I think this is the perfect opportunity. The homeless month of daily blogs. :)

We are very fortunate that we have a few friends that have offered to let us crash for a few days/weeks. Also some that have offered to help with our dogs if needed.

If anyone has any creative solutions to our temporary homeless problem please post it in the comment section!

Makin an offer.

Well I am excited, today we are making an offer on a house in Peculiar with land. We looked at it a while back. It was one I mentioned before, but we had a couple hesitations. We looked at a couple more houses on Saturday and ended back up at the Peculiar house. My husband and our agent walked over to talk to the neighbor. He was able to tell us about the history of the house and about himself. He is the only visible neighbor. There is also some trash out back in the field. The neighbor said the original owner was a pack rat and slowly the current owner has been getting rid of it. The sellers agent said it would all be removed if we buy the house. So that is good.

When we were there last week we saw a deer, and a turkey with her babies. Cool! The kids found snails and we all got ticks on us. Not so cool, but we are going to us my friends natural bug spray. It worked the last time we used it. Also my plan is to get some chickens/guineas (probably next year) and they will eat all the bugs. Nice!

We have grand plans for this property. It has 8 acres with a creek and trees. DH plans to build a cool firepit and camping area. Then our friends can camp at our house. We can have weinie roasts and cook outs. There are trees to climb in! YEAH! We are getting excited. Now its just up to the contracts and banks.

Not the way its supposed to work.

Well life is always throwing you curve balls right? Just when you KNOW what path you are going to take it all changes. We have been dreaming of building a earth contact awesome home, but the economy is getting in our way. It would be another thing if we thought it would turn next year, but i really doubt that. I think it will be several years.

Massimo went and looked at 6 houses yesterday. They ranged from pretty cool to should be condemned. The worst was a foreclosure house, so we knew it needed work, but it was really bad. He videotaped it. Siding was peeling off, mold in the basement, water in the basement, rotting wood on the deck. The best thing was that the next property in your backyard basically was the firestation. A big firetruck to turn its sirens on night and day, anytime they get a call. Those that don't know, I have two big dogs who howl every time they hear sirens.

The best was out of two. One was 8 acres, big brick ranch house with finished basement and fireplace in the basement too. The second was an earth contact house, very nice, could use a little updating. It has 20 acres, a couple barns, 3 car garage etc.. The downsides to the earth contact were a pond close to the house and the price.

Building has been either put on the back burner, or may not ever happen depending on if we find a house we love with land.

Many items.

Our June is jam packed. This week is full of appointments and shelling out money. First we have an electrician coming for various small items. Tomorrow the heating and cooling guy. Then the Radon people. Yeah, our radon test came back positive so we have to take care of that. It is not cheap either. Blah.

We are going to go look at a rental house tonight. Sounds great. 20 miles from DH's work and in the country. Nice. Fun for the kids. No more info on the house building scene. Its hurry up and wait at this point.

Then next week is Vacation Bible school. I am actually looking forward to that. Both D and G will be in it. So Luca and I will have 2 hours every day to ourselves. I plan on getting some major packing done. I think I can keep L busy while I pack boxes.

Then the next two weeks we have swimming lessons for both big kids M-Th. After that is moving time. So i know it will go fast. We didn't sign up for any homeschool classes this summer because of our busy schedule already. I want it to be fun and not stressful.

We went camping this last weekend and it was pretty fun. We just went one night and went swimming.