Saturday, July 22, 2017

Surprise!!

Soooooo..........

I have some news........

And I've been sitting on it for almost six weeks, so I think it's time to spill it.

Remember how I told you we had been so busy this summer, with trying to sell our house and all the renovations we were doing on our new house, and how the summer had just completely slipped away?

Well, there is another reason we've been so busy/overwhelmed...



Yep.... That's an eleven week old baby bump in that picture!

At the beginning of June I realized I wasn't totally sure when my last period had been. I didn't think too much of it, May had been crazy and I had traveled a lot, but S wanted me to take a test.... apparently he had a feeling!

Well, needless to say, two very bright, very definitive pink lines showed up on that test pretty much immediately! Baby #4 is on the way!

We were shocked, I was overwhelmed, but after those feelings passed, we were so incredibly ecstatic and this felt so right and so meant to be. We just bought a beautiful (and bigger) new house that we were going to bring this baby home to. We always knew we wanted another, and although it was a little sooner than we expected, we are absolutely thrilled.



So, I found out I was pregnant at about 7 weeks. Pretty crazy since I've always started having symptoms super early at like 4 weeks, and this time I had no idea. The morning sickness and tiredness kicked in pretty quickly though, and I spent weeks 7 through about 12 puking pretty consistently, which especially sucked since we were trying to paint a huge house. I'm almost 13 weeks now and in the past week my appetite has started to return and the sickness has gone away, which is so amazing. I really forgot how much that first part sucks! (On the bright side I haven't gained any weight.... not being able to eat anything will do that!)  I'm still pretty tired and have been falling into bed around 8:30 overnight. I'm hoping the second trimester energy kicks in sooner rather than later!

Let's see, what else? I've had two ultrasounds, including the 12 week nuchal screening and everything looks perfect! We've also decided to attempt to go "team green" this pregnancy and not find out what the baby is until he or she is born in January! Let's be honest, I'm kind of planning on a boy with our track record, but I think it will be fun to have that anticipation and moment of surprise!

So, that's our big news! We are beyond happy!








A few summer getaways

Well, despite being ridiculous busy with the selling of our house and the re-doing of our new house, we did manage to sneak away and have some fun this summer. We took two "mini-vacations", the first one being up to our old stomping grounds, Flagstaff.

And, yes, this almost happened. But it didn't. We decided a few months ago that the boys were getting to a good age to start thinking about getting another puppy. We got our first dog at the pound in Flagstaff and have always wanted to go back there when we adopted again. We decided if we found the perfect pup we would bring it home. This one came close, but in the end we decided we just had too much on our plate right now, but we promised the kids we would keep looking to add a furry family member. (At this point we are thinking it might end up coming from Santa this year!)



After our pound trip we hit up one of favorite restaurants/breweries, and enjoyed the beautiful weather and being able to actually sit outside on a summer day!



(The kids had a blast playing in the old phone booth downtown!)

And you can't take a vacation with kids and stay in a hotel without letting them have some good pool time. It's funny though, because they usually end up cold since we are use to swimming in 80 degree pools in 100+ degree temperatures!




Baby snuggles in a hotel


We had to hit our favorite dog-inspired bagel shop in the morning, and then spent the rest of the day hanging out at the gorgeous lake just outside of town!




It was a perfect little weekend getaway, especially getting away from the heat. And I have to include this last picture which is the very reason why I love this little town so much. These signs were on practically every single business. So much love.



And our second getaway was, of course, off to California. The boys love going to papas house, and we always get some much needed adult time while grandma and grandpa help out with the kids!

(So sweet, I could die. He loves when papa lays down with him at night!)

We also got to sneak away and have a beach day with a couple of my best high school girlfriends. I love how we can always pick up right where we left off, not matter how long it has been since the last time we hung out. I love these girls, but unfortunately I forgot to take a picture until the very end and only Kati and I were left!


We spent a majority of this trip just relaxing at the beach. The weather was perfect and all of our kids are finally old enough that the love it! Plus, it's pretty much the most relaxing and peaceful thing ever.



And of course you can never have a vacation with three kids without some sort of injury! Poor L got into a fight with the gate on his grandma's house trailer... needless to say the trailer won. Luckily it was just a bad bump/scrape and he bounced back pretty quickly!


So, we didn't get to sneak away as much as we usually like to during the summer, but these two small trips definitely helped break up the summer!

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Our new house!

Oh my gosh, I have not been here all summer! The last time I updated was the kids last days of schools, and now we only have two weeks of summer break left. Needless to say we have been super busy and this summer completely got away from me.

But, we have a good reason! We bought a new house!


We've been looking at buying something bigger for over a year now, but nothing had come up and we had actually taken out house of the market and decided to give it six months before we started looking again. Then randomly one day, we saw that this house was having an open house and decided to stop in. Now, I'd looked at pictures of this house before and didn't like it, which is why we never went to see it. But anyway, the open house was there and we decided to step in, and oh my gosh, it was perfect. Well, it actually wasn't perfect at all, it needed a lot of work, but I could totally see what it could be and I fell in love. So we put in an offer and re-listed our house.

And, they accepted another offer.

Whomp, whomp. We were so bummed. I was so bummed! But we decided to keep our house on the market and keep looking. Then a few weeks later (actually, as I was flying back from my Grandma's funeral) we to a call that the other offer had fallen through and they were accepting our previous offer! So excited, except our offer was based on selling our house, so we needed to get ours sold asap! We had literally a ton of showings and a ton of interest, but no offers and we were worried we were going to lose the other house, so we did probably the most grownup thing we've ever done and bought the other house before we sold ours. Want to know whats really scary? Two mortgages are really scary! Then we had a somewhat sketchy investment offer on our house that we accepted, and then it fell through, and we were getting really stressed. But thankfully, we accepted another offer this past weekend and things are going smoothly so far!

Anyway, about the new house. Since we closed a month ago we have been working, working, working. the whole house needed to be repainted and we are also redoing all of the flooring with wood plank tile thought the downstairs and in the master bedroom and bath, and new carpet in all the rooms. The painting is about 70% done and flooring demo and install should start next week, so we are hoping to be able to move in in the next 3 weeks or so. Once we get moved in we are looking at getting new appliances, new counter tops and paining the kitchen cabinets. And one of the biggest draws to this house was the huge backyard. Our goal is to put in a pool and extend the patio area and put in new landscaping over the next two summers. The house also is surrounded by greenbelts on two sides, which is so nice for the kids, and is on a nice quiet street. We love it!

I'm including a bunch of photos from the sale listing. It's not much to look at in these pictures, but hopefully you can see the potential! I can't wait to start posting some "after" pictures!


The huge yard and you can see the greenbelts on the side and in the front!





Two story front entry way and foyer!



Formal dining room and living room



Family room


Kitchen



Playroom


3rd bathroom


Laundry room


Master Bedroom and bath



Upstairs bath


So, this is one of the things that has been keeping us so occupied this summer!