Eventful

Aside from a few newsy or funny kid things, I've been pretty quiet for the last month. That's because 1) I'm pregnant and currently prefer napping to blogging; and 2) we have been busy!

Here's what's happened/what's been accomplished since our little surprise announcement last month...

• Defrosted the deep freeze and cleaned both freezers and the fridge. 

• Lorien got pneumonia which, we discovered, takes 2 weeks to fully recover from. 

Foiled Again

We were supposed to close on our house yesterday. But we didn't. Then we were supposed to close today. But ... you guessed it ... we didn't.

See, a few days ago we were told that we would actually be getting cash back at closing, because our earnest money more than covered what we needed to pay at closing. Well, apparently, FHA decided that they didn't want us to get cash at closing. They would not approve the settlement statement unless there was a zero on our bottom line. (Why they have jurisdiction to say this, I'm not sure, because we're not even getting an FHA loan.)

So ... the bank is going to refund our earnest money, and we are going to write a smaller check so that we don't get any cash back at closing. We will pay the exact same amount either way. But now they need 48 hours to approve the new paperwork that they demanded. You have got to be kidding me!

So now we close on Monday afternoon. I hope.

Grrrrrrr.....

We were supposed to close on our new house tomorrow. But the VA appraiser came on Friday and required that someone scrape and paint the trim around the windows before they would approve our loan.

Because we were camping and out of cell range, and because our realtor rocks, she just hired someone to do it. But then that someone got sick and wasn't able to finish the job today.

It will be finished tomorrow, but not in time to have the appraisal completed and still close at 4 p.m. So now we are closing on Thursday. I am disappointed, but glad the delay isn't too long. So ready to apply some elbow grease to that place and make it ours!

We Have a House!

Yes, friends, it's true. We have an actual written approval on our short sale offer. See, here it is!

Today we had our inspection which, thankfully, didn't yield any unexpected bad news. And we finally got to take some pictures. Would you like a tour?

The seller is still in the process of moving out, so there is stuff everywhere, but you can pretend it's nice and clean and empty.

For some reason, I didn't get a photo of the FRONT of the house. I'm not really sure why. Here is the back of the house. As you can see, they did some touch-up painting with paint that doesn't quite match. We will have to fix that eventually, but probably won't worry about it right away.

Cool back yard. We are not positive, but we think they are leaving the play set. Too fun! We will need to fix the sprinkler system and work at getting the grass greened up. Since it will be July before we move in, I probably won't do any flower or veggie gardening this year, but I am already dreaming about playing in the dirt next year.

Side yard. Hoping to make this a dog run someday soon.
Josh needs a dog.

Now we go inside.

Kitchen. I am very excited to have a range with two large burners. It may seem like a small thing, but I have been waiting years for that. The cabinetry here is...umm...creative. We still don't know exactly what we're going to do in here. Probably just enough so that we can live with it for now. Then later we can turn my brother Mike loose in there. He is a very talented cabinetmaker, and I am excited to see what ideas he comes up with for this kitchen.

Opposite angle of kitchen. Nice sunny place to eat breakfast. More counter space than we have ever had before.

Family room. It's open to the kitchen, which is great.

Standing in the family room, you can see the stairs going up on the edge of the frame. The door straight ahead is open to the stairs to the basement. Behind that door is the door out to the garage. Double doors are laundry. (I think it's kind of weird to have the laundry in the family room, but whatever.) To the right of the laundry is a small powder room--the only bathroom on the main floor.

Living room. Can you just see a Christmas tree in this window?!

Dining room.

And now we head upstairs.

Master bedroom. I love the vaulted ceiling.

Master bath. Probably one of my favorite things about this house (today, at least).

Can I tell you how long I have wanted a double vanity?

This shower has severe water damage and needs to be replaced. I don't necessarily love the current design. Any ideas for a better replacement?

Lorien's room. Love the window seat! The hot pink has to go, since her nursery stuff is red, yellow and green. This will probably be the first room we do.

Guest room

Office

Call me silly, but I am pretty excited about having a linen closet after not having one for five years.

Guest bath

Cautious Elation

I think we have a house!

Today we got a message from our realtor, which was a forwarded message from the seller's realtor saying that the bank WILL move forward with our short sale offer. We are supposed to get an approval letter next week and then close on the house in about four weeks.

We can't believe it!

And until we have that approval letter in hand, we don't want to be too confident, but it looks like this is really going to go through. We are so excited and so thankful!

What a Week!

Last week was one of those weeks where you take a deep breath at the beginning and don't exhale until the end. Between last Saturday (4/24) and this Sunday (5/2)...

Josh's sister Christy and her husband Nathan flew in for a long weekend. Christy got food poisoning at the airport on the way to CO, and ended up in the emergency room at 2 a.m. the first night they were here. Because she is 19 weeks pregnant, they ended up admitting her for another day and overnight so they could monitor her and the baby. So...last Saturday, we visited Christy in the hospital. They had put her in the same room we were in after Lorien was born. I told Lorien I was awfully glad she's as big as she is now, instead of how big she was last time we were in that room. (Both Christy and baby are fine now, and we are thankful!)

Sunday we went to church in the morning and met with our small group in the evening. Our small group consists of eight adults and nine children, with one more on the way. Needless to say, we have a lot of chaos to go with a little bit of Bible study. But it is so good to being doing this crazy time of life together, and I am so thankful for these friends.

Monday we spent a bit more time working at Bob and Lois's (Josh's parents) house, because they are trying to get it ready to go on the market. I am slowly working on re-tiling their fireplace. At the rate I'm going, it will take about a month for me to finish it!

Also on Monday, we were supposed to finally get an answer from the bank on our short sale. but we didn't. Instead, we were told that the seller's agent has convinced the bank to have another appraisal done. Since it is an FHA rule about the appraisal that is preventing the bank from accepting our offer, we figure this is a good thing for us. But it means that we're waiting again. And even if that obstacle is removed, we're not sure that they will accept our offer.

Tuesday was a sad and happy day. Sad because Bob and Lois had to put down their dear old Black Lab/Golden retriever, Buddy. He was almost 12 years old and his back legs just didn't work anymore. He had also gone about three days without eating anything, so it was just time. So hard, though!

Lorien and Buddy on Saturday. If you look closely, you can see the fireplace I've been working on in the background.

In better news, we also celebrated the graduation of the Spring 2010 FLI class. And we had a fabulous Mexican dinner at Amanda's Fonda, courtesy of Christy and Nathan. Uncle Richard was also here to help out on the house, so that was a fun family gathering.

Sarah and Lizzie, two of my sweet girls from this semester.

Stones of remembrance from the Spring 2010 class.

Wednesday, I woke up with a sore throat. Yippee. Ironically, I also had an audition for the music team at church that day. And I had my last meeting with our Young Adults team as the church elder representing that area. (I've been moved to a new area for the next year.)

Thursday... I can hardly remember Thursday. It happened, I guess.

Friday—whew! Couldn't believe when we finally made it to Friday. Friday is one of my work from home days, and I took a few hours off so that I could catch up on life a little bit. Got the grocery shopping done. Did some more work on Bob and Lois's fireplace. Hung out with Lorien.

Saturday morning I knocked out my monthly writing assignment for David C. Cook publishers. That night we had dinner with my cousin Dan. He and his family are moving to Colorado Springs, and he was in town to start his new job. He'll be headed back to Florida soon to get his wife and two boys and bring them back at the end of May. It's going to be fun to have cousins here in town.

And Sunday was church again. Between Easter and Pentecost, our pastoral team is preaching a series on the Holy Spirit. Pretty gutsy for a bunch of Presbyterians. It has been so good! After a baby-gear shopping trip (Lorien needed a new carseat and booster seat for the dinner table), my wonderful husband took his girls out to dinner so that I wouldn't have to cook. Boy did I need that!

I wouldn't normally write a whole post just to list a bunch of stuff that we've been busy with, but I feel like this packed-full week touches on a lot of stuff that's important in our lives right now, so I thought I would share.

Maybe this coming week will be a little less nuts. One can hope, right?

Still Waiting

We heard from our realtor that the bank may make a decision on our house offer on Monday. Every time I think about it, I get nervous. The good news is, we submitted our offer seven weeks ago, and they haven't received another offer since then. I think that has to mean that our offer is looking better and better every day.

Please pray with us and for us. Our unselfish prayer is that God will use this process to show us His path (and that if we're not supposed to have this house, the offer will be rejected). Our selfish prayer is that the bank will accept our offer as it is, without asking for more money. Join us in which ever prayer you can agree with. Or both!

Two of Us Came In...

... and three of us are going out.

Last night we finished cleaning out our Lexington Park townhome and locked up for the last time. In a snowstorm. I think the wild weather helped me not to be too sentimental about it at the actual moment of leaving. Still, I was surprised that over the past week, I've been more nostalgic than I thought I would be over selling this place.

We bought #7909 in the fall of 2005 when I changed jobs and moved out of the resident supervisor's apartment at the Institute. At the time, Josh was a full-time student, so our housing budget (well, actually, our entire budget) was pretty tight. We quickly gave up hopes of owning two full bathrooms or a two-car garage. We bought what we could afford, knowing that it wouldn't give us much room to grow. Because of that, we always expected to sell it within a few years.

But we did put a lot of work into making it our own. And we brought our first baby home there. And we lived there for four and a half years. So I guess it's only natural that I was a little sad about leaving.

Today we closed on the place, so it is officially sold. That feels good. We also heard that our short sale offer has moved along to the next step in the process: the negotiating officer. We are hoping that he doesn't want to negotiate much, because we don't have a lot of wiggle room in our offer. We may hear back as soon as next week.

Short Sale Update

Nothing too exciting, but I wanted to say that we heard from our realtor late this past week that we may have an answer from the bank within 10 days. That's not a guarantee, and it doesn't necessarily mean it'll be an answer we like, but we're thankful to have some kind of timeline to go on.

Singing with Daddy

One of the things we will not miss about our current house is the fact that Josh's guitar equipment has to live in Lorien's room, because there is just no other space to put it. This often means that we have to choose between naps for Lorien and guitar practice for Josh. It's not really a choice. The nap always wins, but it has been frustrating for Josh not to get to play very often.

However, on the rare occasion when she is awake and he has a few moments to play, she does like to hang out and sing with him. And boy does she sing. As a matter of fact, once recently he felt he should probably stop playing, because Lorien was screeching so loudly that Josh thought she might bother the neighbors. :) (We also won't miss sharing walls with our neighbors.)

Here are some fun pics from last Saturday morning:

I love my Daddy.

All smiles.

The shirt is totally appropriate. It says,

"If you think I'm cool, you should see my dad."

50 Hours on the Market

When we bought our townhome in 2005, we only expected to live here for about three years. We thought that when Josh graduated from UCCS in May 2008, he would find a job, and we would sell this house and buy one big enough to start a family in.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

Little did we know that Josh would graduate in an economy that didn't really lend itself to finding a job quickly. Or selling a house quickly. It took him seven months to find a job. (We are so thankful and thank God often that we are both employed right now.) Meanwhile, we put our house on the market in July 2008. It was up for a year. I got soooo tired of having to leave it in showing condition everyday. Some days we took the gamble: no one will want to come see the house today. Then, if we did get a call, we'd run home to clean it up before the showing. We left it on the market until 2.5 weeks before Lorien was born, so you can imagine me rushing home, eight months pregnant and cleaning like a crazy woman ... all for nothing. In that whole year, we got one offer, and it was so low that we couldn't afford to accept it.

We decided that moving with a newborn was out of the question, so we stayed off the market for the last seven months. Recently, though we decided we ought to take advantage of the tax credit for first-time home buyers (since that's probably who is going to buy our house) and get it back on the market. I was dreading—dreading—the pressure to keep it clean. Having a baby didn't make that any easier.

Insanity Week

Since the current real estate market has made it difficult to rack up much equity in our house, we decided to go with a flat-fee listing service and save ourselves paying commission to a real estate agent (even though we have an agent whom we love). To cover ourselves, we decided to work instead with a real estate attorney who would charge us a fraction of a realtor's fee to to the contracting for us. We filled out the forms to list the house on Monday night. It was supposed to hit the MLS by Tuesday night, but there was a glitch and it didn't go live until Wednesday at 2 p.m.

At 3:00 p.m. we got a call for a showing at 4:30. Thankfully, I was working from home that day and could drop what I was doing to get the house ready to show. I got it all done except for 2 dirty pots, which I left in the sink. Lorien and I went to Focus to see Josh, since he was working late. While we were there, we got a call from the Realtor doing the showing, saying that his client was very interested. After a minimal amount of verbal negotiating, we got a formal offer at about 8:00 p.m.

The next day, Thursday, we had another showing. And another offer. It amounted to about $4000 less, because it included a request for us to pay the buyer's loan closing costs. We let them know that we already had another offer and asked if they would like to beat it (thinking they wouldn't, but they did).

Both offers were reasonable, but both also came with slight risks. (The first had a contingency for the sale of her current property, and the second was financing almost the whole amount and asking for closing costs on top, so there was a high bar for the appraisal.)

We spent all day Thursday on the phone negotiating and working out the contracts. Seriously—Josh and I both nearly ran our phones out of batteries talking on them. Friday morning we commenced again. By Friday at noon we had reached a verbal agreement to accept the first offer (the one with the contingency). And at 4:00 p.m. we signed the counterproposal and went under contract.

Fifty hours. Unbelievable.

In the midst of all the negotiating and trying to figure out which was the better deal, Dad Keffer put it this way: "The one thing that's clear is that you were not supposed to sell your place the last time around, and that you are supposed to sell it this time around." Thank goodness!

Now we just have to make it to closing on March 24 and get the money in the bank!

Just for fun, here are the house photos we used for the MLS listing (for those of you who haven't seen where we've been living for the past 4.5 years).

Front door: ours is the unit on the left.

Back door

Pretty and green in the summer

Our postage stamp-sized back yard and flowerbeds in early summer

Nursery #1

Nursery #2

Living room #1: The fireplace is one of my favorite things we did with this place. I have even considered recreating it in a future abode.

Living room #2

Upstairs bath

Master bedroom

Downstairs bath

Kitchen #1

Kitchen #2

Big Day

We got new windows installed! One step closer to selling well, we hope.



The downstairs window is old and the upstairs window is new. Much better, don't you think? (We replaced the slider back in 2006 after it had a little run-in with a rock thrown by the weed eater.)

And...drumroll please...

Lorien got her first taste of rice cereal today. As we expected, not much actually made it into her belly, but it was a great photo-op.

All ready for my big dietary adventure.

I've been soooo curious about big people food for weeks now, but I'm not sure I like it.

Hey, what are you guys doing to me?

Mmmmmm....rice drool!

We switched to using mom's finger instead of the spoon. I liked that a little better, but I still didn't swallow much.