Keeping Up With the Joneses

It was a long day Saturday but with a lot of help we were able to move in to our new house without any problems (thanks to many ward members, Dave, Candi, Kim, Rusty, Eric, Norm, Carolyn, Spencer, Mallory, Jason, Mike, Daniel, Jessica, Maralyn , and of course Deb, Nicole, and Jessica Jones for watching all 9 grandchildren so their parents could help us). When Mason and Myles got to the new house Mason was so excited. He skipped through the whole house shouting "I LOVE this house". When we got to the two extra rooms in the basement Mason and Myles had a screaming match about whose room it was. Their rooms are actually upstairs, but Mason insisted it was his room, and Myles insisted it belonged to him and Grandma Delta. We went to our new church and ward yesterday and were pleasantly surprised that, not only are there 20 twelve and thirteen year- olds who love to babysit, but also a boy Mason's age right behind us (in fact there is a gate from their yard to ours) and a ...

Well, moving day is tomorrow but it has been a rocky process. We were hoping to sign all the papers Wednesday but they weren't ready until Thursday late afternoon. Then they promised they would wire the money first thing today but someone screwed up and it didn't happen so we found out about 3 PM that it wouldn't fund and record today and so technically we couldn't move in until it funded and recorded Monday. AUGHHH!! We have a lot of people lined up to help us move tomorrow, have a fridge delivery and cable installation scheduled for tomorrow. So we had an hour or so of freaking out while our agent called around trying to get the sellers to let us in the house saturday even though we wouldn't technically own it yet. Well, turns out the seller's agent knew it hadn't recorded and left a message for our agent saying we couldn't move until Monday. So our agent was just getting ready to grovel and beg when the seller's agent called again and said the sel...

We negotiated with the sellers of the home we are buying and got them to agree to let us move in on Saturday instead of Monday. This makes our life so much easier because originally we were going to have to move out of our house Saturday, store everything in one truck ( assuming we could fit everything in one truck), find somewhere for our deep freeze for a few days, and then move into the new house Monday evening after work (crossing our fingers we could get more help on Monday). This way we can move everything from one house to the other house, make two trips if needed, and be completely done moving in one day. Woohoo !! So, if everyone is just searching their brains trying to figure out something to do on Saturday the 28th, please feel free to come over and help move! Donuts and pizza for anyone who helps (or even keeps us company).

BROTHER!! That's right, we're having another baby boy in August. We are so lucky that everything looks healthy. Mason and Myles were both at the ultrasound. Myles kept saying "baby" when it was on the screen and when it was gone he started crying and said "where did baby go?". Mason was excited beyond belief. He started jumping up and down when we told him it was a baby brother and immediately started proposing names (Homer or baby boy) and is currently busy making clothes for the baby out of the paper I gave him. I took him to get a hair cut right after and in the middle of it he just got this grin and said "I can't wait to see my baby brother again." Looks like this baby will be very loved.

* this morning I was telling Mason that pretty soon we would move to our new house. He has seen it when we drove by last week and he said "you mean the CASTLE." We laughed and then he said "when we live in the castle, I will get to be the PRINCESS." No matter how hard Marshall tried, he could not convince Mason that he would be the prince and not the princess. * Mason and Myles spent the weekend at grandma Delta's house and when they got back Mason told me "I got tickets to the Grandma show! I'm going tomorrow!" * Mason has been to Sunbeams in Delta a few times over the last month and I guess yesterday they asked him if next time he could give a talk! So in two weeks (the weekend we are moving) he will be giving a talk. He is so excited--everyday he comes home from Sunbeams and tells me he wants to talk in the black thing (microphone). * Grandma Delta bought Myles Toy Story pull-ups and now he is obsessed with pulling them up and down by himself....

We got through both inspections and appraisals yesterday and are feeling a million times better. The kids are spending the weekend in Delta which has left Marshall and I with the opportunity to catch up on sleep, get our hair cut (and mine colored) and shop for the appliances and furniture we hope to one day be able to afford for our new house. We've also packed quite a few more boxes and are feeling like we are finally on top of everything. We reserved the moving truck (thanks mom--I was going to wait another week and she said do it right away and she was right, they were almost out of trucks). We feel very blessed that our house passed the inspection because the inspector we hired for the house we bought was the most thorough in town and found things that for sure would have come up on our house if he had been here instead. There are a few small things we need to fix on the new house to prevent water damage years down the road, and one more major thing that we are really hoping...

I have cousins that seem to move quite frequently. And it all just seems to happy smoothly. . .one day I hear they are moving, the next they are happily settled in their beautiful new perfectly decorated home. HOW THE HECK DO YOU DO THAT!? I really must be missing something here because Marshall and I are both stressed beyond belief. It has been one week since we sold our house, five days since we bought our new house, and about 2 weeks until moving day and both us us are not sleeping and are constantly having to remind each other to take deep breathes to avoid panic attacks. Today is the inspection and appraisal on our house and the inspection on the house we are buying. Last night we cleaned and packed and moved things for about 5 hours before collapsing from exhaustion, and then all night I kept waking up thinking things like "is the bathtub clean enough?" and "should I sweep the driveway". Marshall woke up before his alarm 6 AM to give the toilet another scrub a...

For the last few weeks Mason has been begging to have a birthday party for his dragon Elliott. We finally decided Tuesday would be a good time to have it (this is before we were moving) and yesterday in preparation he colored a lot of paper, cut it up, and spread it all over the house to "decorate". We couldn't talk about party plans with Elliott around, so Elliott spent a lot of time this last week in a closet because that is all Mason would talk about. Finally the big day arrived. Mason made sure Elliott ate a good "birthday breakfast" consisting of dragon food (cereal). Note the apron so Elliott won't get messy. And we made a cake that he helped me decorate with Edward and Duck candles. Elliott's two favorite things evidently. . . Then we decided to take the cake to playgroup to share . Elliott got to blow out his candles. . . (by the way, he is eight and Mason says he is going to baptize him soon). . . And then Elliott got to open the presents Mas...

We sold our house on Friday night, looked for houses Saturday, and put in an offer on this house this morning. We originally were going to offer 20K less than the asking price, but our agent suggested we offer 35K less than the asking price, thinking that we would go back and forth negotiating and likely end up at 10K less than the asking price. All day I worked on getting our loan approved and the process started as we waited nervously to see what the sellers would counter with. Finally at 9 PM tonight we heard. . .they accepted our asking price! Even more amazing when you consider that we are buying the house for 100K less than they were asking just 3 months ago! So we got a great deal. The house was built in 2003, is 4500 sq feet, 7 bedrooms, formal living room, formal dining room, office off the front for my private practice office, mother-in-law apartment with separate entrance in the basement, and a great yard with a bunch of rose bushes, fruit trees, and even a playground for...

Last night we sold our house. At least it is now under contract. Our agent is representing both us and the buyers and he is pretty confident it will go through. After almost exactly a year of having the house on the market, it was great news. You would think we would be jumping up and down, but not exactly. We are cautiously optimistic. We will miss our neighborhood, ward, and even our house that has become home. We know there is still the possibility the sale won't go through, but this is the closest we've gotten so we are going with it. The buyers want to close in THREE WEEKS which makes us very busy. Today we went and looked out houses. We looked at about 10 and some were horrible, a few were okay, and one was GREAT. So we are putting in an offer on it later tonight (hopefully) and we should hear soon. The big thing is whether they can close that fast so that we won't have to move twice. So, wish us luck. It is a big move for us and if it goes through it will be wonderfu...