Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads in my life!  I am supremely thankful for each of you.

This is a picture of my grandfather (left) and uncle in front of my great-grandfather's medical office about 70 years ago.

And here's a picture my dad and I staged last fall with McCord, my Uncle B and his dog Peppie.

The other day I walked in on a little conversation between Bo and McCord and it went a little something like this:

Bo : : McCord, I have something very important to tell you.

McCord : : {silence}

Bo : : Do you know what Sunday is?

McCord : : {silence}

Bo : : Now pay attention here, son, because this is really important.

McCord : : {silence}

Bo : : Sunday is Father's Day.

McCord : : {silence}

Bo : : ..........and the sky's the limit!

Best House Ever

Today when Monkey and I were thrifting at the Habitat ReStore (aka: procrastinating packing), I found this great Richard Scarry book and had to splurge the $.50 since we'll be moving into our new house next weekend!  Thought Mc needed a new (used) book to celebrate the good news!

If you read the last post about our house hunting experience, we decided to go with Option 2 - the 1940s fixer-upper that was up for auction.  We love the age of the house and the neighborhood, but let's be honest - it needs a ton of work.  We're excited to make it what we want. 

Here's a picture I took tonight as we drove by the house for the hundredth time!

This time we were excited to see this sign in the front yard.

Here's how it all went down:

After viewing the house several times, we called our contractor (whom we trust immensely) who did some renovations for us on Surrey Lane.  He reviewed the inspection the owner had completed and reported on what needed to be fixed.  We knew the house was a fixer-upper, but wanted to make sure that it had good bones and was worth the investment.  With his report, we decided to go ahead and place a pre-auction bid knowing that both bathrooms would need to be renovated right away.  The house also lacks attic storage and a fence, so building a garage and working on the yard are both on the to-do list.  We know we'll also eventually renovate the kitchen.  Taking all of this into consideration, we placed a super-low bid (offer) on the house - not sure if anyone else was planning on placing a bid.  We'd been told that if satisfied with a bid, the owner would cancel the auction all together, and the house would go under contract instead.  Part of our offer included the request to rent the house from the owner while we are waiting on the closing of our present house - we have to move out of Surrey Lane before June 30th, so we need to find a place to live and store our possessions stat.  After a weekend of negotiating, we are so excited to say that we are under contract!  The owner has been a dream to work with - already having the house professionally cleaned and having an extra key made for us to access the house as soon as this week.  We plan to start taking boxes over daily and move in officially next Saturday.  We can't wait!



Don't forget to pack the baby!

Here's my proud husband after cleaning out the pantry - this was an amazing undertaking.  I think the pantry fought back, but in the end, my husband was the champ!



Here are a couple of sneak peek photos of the "bones."

Standing in the foyer looking upstairs into the laundry room

Downstairs bath - this will be the first bath to be renovated

Master BR - notice that you have to be super short to get into the closets.  Just kidding, there's a regular size closet in the MB, but the small nooks will be fun hideouts for Mc.

Upstairs bath - notice moisture damage on ceiling - one of many things to change in here.

Also, this is off the subject, but are any of you on Pinterest?  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, drop everything you're doing and check it out right now.  Here's a board I started a few weeks ago to stockpile design inspiration.  The rest of my boards are located here.  As you can see, Pinterest is my new favorite thing.  I think you'll like it too. 

Stay tuned in the coming months as we document our progress on the renovations. For sure, this will be a
slow work in progress.

House Hunting

When Bo and I met with our real estate agent (whom we just adore and couldn't be happier with!) we said, "Melissa, we only have one piece of criteria for our house:  We want a good deal."

In fact we want such a good deal - we want to buy a house that has more square footage and a bigger lot than our last house.  And we want to buy it for cheaper than we sold Surrey Lane.  Our agent is so professional, she didn't even bat an eye, and so the house hunt begins.

We've seen lots of wonderful houses in our area.  We've discovered this house makes you feel like you're somewhere in the mountains and that view of the creek is amazing!  This house made us realize how much we love a tri-level floor plan.  And watching the horses graze in the pasture in this backyard was such a relaxing feature.  But for whatever reason, we ruled them all out one by one. 

We've narrowed it down to two houses.  I'll reserve sharing the neighborhoods on the blog for safety's sake.

Here's Option One:

This house is like Surrey Lane on steroids - 5 BR, 3 Baths on .8 acres with a 2 car garage.  It has over 2500 square feet, a ton of storage, and even a tree fort in the backyard.  It's in the county which means cheaper taxes and that I could raise chickens (!).  It was built in 1991 though and hasn't had any updates since then, so we'd have to renovate changing out the flooring and updating the baths and kitchen.  It's also a short sale which means that the owners have been able to keep their house from going into foreclosure by cooperating with the bank.  The bank has agreed to let the owners sell their house short of what is owed on the mortgage.  While this sounds great to a seller (especially in this market!) it can sometimes take short sales 6 months to close since the bank has to approve the negotiated price.  The house has plenty of room to grow.

Here's Option Two:

This house was built the 40s and we just love the charm - hardwoods throughout with large oaks across the .6 acre property. It is about 2500 square feet and has 4 bedrooms 2 baths.  The kitchen has been updated and there is an addition on the back perfect for a playroom.  The bathrooms look like they are in pretty rough condition though and would require a complete renovation pretty soon. The house doesn't have a garage or attic, so you'd have to be pretty creative with storage.  This property is up for auction - not your typical MLS listing.  That means that you can place a pre-auction bid or cast your bid on the steps of the house mid-June with others who'd like a chance to own it.  Sounds odd, doesnt't it?

If the house isn't foreclosed on (like Surrey Lane was prior to our purchase), a short sale, or auction, Bo and I aren't interesed!  How do we find ourselves falling for these crazy neglected properties?!

We met with our realtor today to write up an offer - we'll let you know which one soon - and if we can't reach an agreement on price, Bo and I really need to get serious about finding a rental.  We only have about 20 days left until closing! 

McCord is 11 months old!

Dear McCord,

Today you are 11 months old, and your Daddy and I are madly in love with you. 

We are so amazed at how much you've learned this month.  You've amended your crawling style using your left knee to support your weight and you kick the other leg out to the side to push and guide - it's sort of like your rudder.  We think you made this adjustment to protect one of your knees from the hardwood floor.  It's a little awkward, but it works for you and I adore your ingenuity! 

You're pretty good at pulling up now, and you practice this new skill when I'm unloading the dishwasher and folding clothes from the dryer.  When you hear me open up the dishwasher or dryer, you come scooting my way (quickly with that rudder of yours!) to practice your new trick. 

Here are some things you've done recently that we don't want to forget:

• You reach out from the stroller to hold your Daddy's hand when we walk around the block
• I'll never forget one time when you were nursing, you stopped, looked up at me, and leaned in to kiss me on the lips, then went back to eating.  Melt my heart!
• When I brush your hair at night, you like to take the brush from me and brush my hair.
• You've also learned how to pick up two things with one hand!  It was quite a revelation for you when you discovered this and Aiya and I enjoyed watching that light go off in your head.  Now you do it all the time. 

This month we went to feed the ducks...



...and learned that those geese are quite bossy!  We were completely outnumbered - I had to hold you the whole time because I was afraid they were going to run away with you!

• You are on the go!  Your favorite thing right now is to explore all the corners of our house.  You know how to open a cracked door, and it's not unusual to find you contentedly sitting on the floor of the pantry playing with all kinds of items Daddy and I didn't even know we had.  Same goes for my closet!
• You've also discovered all of the door stops in the house and you love to pull the white cap off of each one!
• Most recently, you and Daddy devised a little game with your paci.  He pretends like he's going to put it in his mouth and you take it out of yours and try to fit it in his mouth.  This makes Daddy roar with laughter!  You are quite a funny little fellow.

This is an especially sentimental month for us - this 11th month of your life - because it's the last month we'll be living on Surrey Lane.  The day we brought you home from the hospital, I cried when we turned onto Surrey Lane, because I just knew that we would have so many wonderful memories in this place.  We couldn't wait to get you home.  I still remember walking you through each room and telling you all about the house and how we used each room.  I was so proud to show you your nursery - by far my favorite room in the house - because we assembled it especially for you.  We are so thankful for you and for the ways that you've enriched our life here and forever. 

Here you are standing next to your maple on your 11 month birthday.  My how you and the maple have grown!

McCord, Monkey, Baby, we love you like crazy.

Surrey Lane is Under Contract

Last Friday was a good day and a bad day all rolled into one.

At 9 a.m. we received a very respectable offer on our house with a clean contract and a quick closing (before June 30th!).  It was more than we could ever hope for after being on the market for almost 5 months.  We quickly made an appointment with our agent to revisit the property that motivated us to put our house on the market in the first place.  We had a contingency offer on it through March, but unfortunately our house didn't sell in time and the contract expired without renewal. 


House For Sale

Then I drove past the house to "check it out" again, I was so sad to find a contractor's truck in the driveway.  He told me that the house went under contract two days ago!  We just couldn't believe it!  It was swooped up by another buyer in this unfortunate market.  What are the odds?!! 

I immediately called Bo to tell him not to e-mail our counter offer to the buyer's agent just yet because at the moment, we didn't have a house to move into.  He hurriedly said, "I'm glad you called when you did....my finger is on the send button!" 

Must Sell.  Lost job. Can't pay mortgage.  Wife left.  Took dog.  House a gem.  Except for asbestos.  Best offer.

We asked for an extension to our response to the buyer which left us with 24 hours to decide if we were going to
a) decline the offer on Surrey Lane so we could continue to live at home while we search for another house, or
b) counter the buyer's offer and find another house asap so we would have a place to live after our quick closing, or
c) counter the buyer's offer and rent for a while while we take our time searching for another place to live.

Option C would require us to pack up twice and not only find our dream home, but a temporary home as well to live in for an unspecified amount of time.  Sounds undesirable, right?  That's what we thought too.  But to us, it seemed like the right thing and the best choice for our family.

We spent a good portion of Saturday looking at houses.  I plan to blog about our experience and some of the houses we see house hunting, as well as what I learn from packing up 6 years of living in less than 30 days, so stay tuned.   Exciting stuff around the corner.

Today (Sunday) we got an e-mail from the buyer's agent saying that the buyers accepted our counter-offer.  We packed up the baby and headed to Bo's office to print out the contract, sign, and fax back to the agent.  (Thank you Jennifer for being our witness!).  Poor McCord, he's along for this entire house-selling/renting/buying adventure whether he likes it or not.  Here's a picture I took of him today hanging out in Bo's office at the bank while we finalized the contract.  Thank goodness he's easily entertained!

We are so thankful...
1- To be Under Contract (let's hope all goes well with the inspection!)
2-To be finished with showings.  When we first listed our house, McCord was 6 months old and had just learned how to sit up on his own.  Now he's crawling and getting. into. everything!  It's a much more challenging job to prepare our house for a showing with an almost 11 month old as opposed to a 6 month old. 
3-To find someone who loves our house and wants to live here.  But let's be honest here, Bo and I will probably both cry when we hand the keys over to the buyers. 

Are you still reading this?  Maybe you're wondering about McCord's maple....I have to admit as soon as we got the offer, I called the nursery right away to discuss the likelihood of it surviving transplantation during the summer (about 50%).  And of course now that we've decided to rent, we don't have a yard to plant it in regardless.  So, we've requested that the buyers allow us to remove the tree in the fall (restoring the yard of course) so we can move it to our new house.  They agreed.  They must be nice people.  I can't wait to meet them and welcome them to Surrey Lane. 

A Dress for Bess

My friend Kasie throws spectacular parties (if you've been reading for a while, you might remember this post about our baby shower with more pictures here) and I know that her daughter Bess' 2nd birthday will be nothing short of fabulous! 

Kasie asked me to sew a dress for Bess to wear to her party.  The criteria was turquoise and orange, goldfish, and ric rac.  She sent me this dress on etsy as inspiration.   

...and here's what I came up with

The goldfish's body is tacked down, but the tail is loose so that it can swish on it's own as Bess skips about.



Ric rac peeking out of the pockets

Box pleats and buttons on the neckline

and buttons up the back

And this morning on our early morning walk, Bo spotted this beautiful tiny birds next.  It was abandoned and fell out of a tree in our front yard last night. 

It's hard to tell from this photo, but our little resourceful bird even incorporated the twine that wraps up pinestraw into the bricks and mortor of the nest! 

McCord and Aiya