Okay, okay!

Having been chastised twice and told by a third party I was to be chastised, I am now officially updating my blog.

Since last posting in July we have managed to reduce the amount of cardboard boxes with which we cohabit significantly. Los niños are finding that the smaller bedrooms mean they get messy faster...

School is going well for all three kids. Hijo número 2 has a great teacher who "gets" him very well. We are grateful to have her. He is responding by actually completing and turning in classwork. He's making some friends, too. I am also pleased to report that he earned his Webelos badge and his Arrow of Light. Yay!

Hijo número 1 is adjusting very well to HS and Early Morning Seminary - 100% attendance in both so far. He proclaims that his Seminary teacher is the right woman for the job. Of course, he may influenced by the fact that she feeds them snacks three days a week. He is also much more consistent with his schoolwork this term. He's doing theater construction again and joining the newly formed robotics team. He enjoyed Pirates of Penzance this week.

M'hija se bautizó el 30 de agosto. And it was marvelous to have out-of-town family join us for the event. She was radiant. She's wearing her special dress tomorrow for Halloween to be "a dead bride." She still loves school and Brownies, and is very happy to be in Achievement Day Girls regularly now (I think she likes the leader...)

I will try to be better at this!!!

mi casa es MI CASA!!!!!!

HOLA! Well, I waaaaaay behind on the news here, but with very good reason. So, to catch you all up who may not yet know, we are now real-life homeowners! The appraisal went through at the loan amount, we waded our way through all of the mountains of paperwork, we had every conceivable obstacle on closing day (including getting a city inspector and a contractor out to look at non-permitted repairs one hour before our scheduled closing -- aah!) but it is done. We now own the house and are busy moving in.

I have been so overwhelmed by the show of love and support from our church family. The members of our ward (LDS lingo alert - that's the local congregation) have been positively amazing. The week prior to the move we had 12 people at our house over three evenings to help pack and the full time missionaries came over and hauled boxes out to the POD in our driveway as we packed them That was an inspired choice, by the way, that I highly recommend. It was very beneficial psychologically to have the boxes leave the house as they were packed up. Then on the day of the move over 20 men and boys showed up to load the van, which amazed my non-LDS friend who was afraid he'd be the only guy to show up. They moved and unloaded the whole house in about 3-1/2 hours. The following Monday a half-dozen women helped me clean the house we were leaving. Then later that week my visiting teachers came over to spend an evening unpacking with me. And one brought her husband, who unloaded half the POD during that time (LDS lingo alert: two visiting teachers are assigned to every woman in the church to visit regularly and make sure her spiritual and temporal needs are being met. This is part of the Relief Society). The full-time missionaries happened by the same evening and moved some furniture for us. They also came back yesterday and unloaded the rest of the POD. This is the way things are supposed to work! This is an example of people living their faith. I am grateful for the sacrifices they made of time and energy to help bear my burdens and serve my family.

So now the POD is empty, the garage is fairly full, and we have boxes in the house to work around as we accommodate their contents. But all in all we are surprised and pleased that it's not so cluttered as we though it might be. Yay!

And my dad came over and measured everything in the house to make a floor plan. I can't link to it for you, because I only have a hard copy, but it's very cool. Thanks, Dad!

On another note, Hijo No. 2 turns 11 today and we are going to the science museum to see the current exhibit on Star Wars, including the Omnitheater show about the special effects, and we can hardly wait! AuntyX is meeting us there. In fact, I'd best quit blogging and get ready to leave. Hasta luego.

AAAAAAHHHH!

Well, the good news is that the appraisal is complete, the home appraised at the loan value, and there were no work orders called in on the property by the appraiser. The loan will now be sent to underwriting tomorrow - I had to ask what that meant. The annoying news is that they may want to put hubby back on the loan. The only reason this is annoying is that it would mean he'd have to go back and sign the purchase agreement and all of the addenda. We already had to go the rounds with one document that removed him from the purchase agreement! We won't have the final decision on that until it all comes back from the underwriter tomorrow.

So, hubby says to me this morning that he's grateful that at least we don't have to move oxen or other livestock in all this mess. :-)

Laughter is good medicine

I've been so stressed lately with everything going on that I just don't even know where to turn some days. So, I can has cheezburger to the rescue (AKA LOL cats). Here are two that I busted my gut over this week - a lot of stress left with the guffaws.


more cat pictures


more cat pictures

I'm hanging the supervisor one on my office door. :-)

Mi casa es...

¡Buenos días a todos! Es un día glorioso - hace un tiempo increíble hoy. And besides the lovely weather, it looks like we have a house!When mi hermana came over on Saturday she mentioned that she had driven by the house and seen this outside...

We have come to terms with the sellers regarding a couple of things that showed up in the inspection process; They will effect a repair to the foundation and provide a copy of the sealed well certificate. They have declined to upgrade the wiring too 100 amps, but may have to put in some money toward it if the appraiser puts it in on a work order. So, as I understand the process now, the appraisal will be ordered this morning, and may take a couple of days to actually schedule. So long as the appraisal does not come in as less than the accepted purchase price we are good to go. I told Moose on Saturday that emotionally and mentally I have been resisting calling the house "ours" yet in case something went awry, and asked her if the house is ours now. She said the only thing that could affect that status is the appraisal, so, "it is virtually yours." I'm virtually very happy.

...and we're virtually packing. :-)

An now, for something completely different. Hijo número 2 partió ayer para un encampamento. It's the same MS camp he attended last summer, at the same location, and he's really been looking forward to it. M'hija asked if she could attend next year. Besides not meeting the age requirement yet next summer, I'm inclined to decline. I think it is important for Hijo No. 2 to have something like that "belongs" just to him and no one else in the family. Especially, at least for now, his kid sister. I decided not to try to explain all of that to her just yet, but did point out that generally she will be at Girl Scout camp the same week (we didn't make the application deadlines this year, so she's home this week).

I'll be taking some time off work starting at the end of this week to get the house ready to move. Then I'll need more time off to recuperate. Right?

home sweet home?

Well, we are closer to owning a home than ever yet. This weekend we signed a purchase agreement for a house - not the one I mentioned in the last blog. This one is move-in ready, and despite some challenges will, I believe be a nice home for us. One challenge is the size. It was built in the 40s so is just generally smaller, which will take some getting used to. Another is that the boys will be sharing a bedroom for a while. There is room to make a fourth room in the basement, but we'll have to save up first to have an egress window put in. We really like the yard (huge, hermanito, almost like the last one). Best news? The kids won't have to change schools and we'll be in the same ward.

So at this stage we just need to see the results of the appraisal and the inspection. If all goes well, we close on the 27th.

We're not celebrating yet, because that would be (in the words of our realtor) the kiss of death.

Deal or no deal

Well, last Saturday we went back for a second look at a house we thought would meet our needs. We had seen it the day earlier with a friend who owns and maintains his own rental properties (the third house he's seen with us) and he said it looked a solid house to him. My dad and sister went also in Saturday with us, and my dad used the same words to describe it. It's very close to the kids' elementary school and my bus line, and has an unfinished basement and huge backyard (yes, hermanito, did I mention it's huge!?!) We left from the showing to the agent's home office to make an offer.

Sunday we got a call back from the agent notifying us that the seller had received our offer and was considering it. For the next part to make sense, you need to know about the Genesis Foundation Preferred Program. This is s first-time home buyers' program that helps folks that can manage the monthly outgo get into a property without upfront money. Basically they gift up to 6% of the sale price to the buyer, from which the downpayment and closing costs can be made, and the buyer agrees to make a corresponding donation back to the foundation in order to help a future buyer. So...we got a second contact on Sunday from the agent with a counteroffer. The counteroffer is that the seller agreed to participate in Genesis, but would not come down on the price of the home at all. We have no wiggle room based on the pre-approval, and we are $17K apart on the offers. This one is not coming through, I'm afraid.

So, we went back to our agent and widened the geographical region we're willing to consider (after talking with the kids about it). We'd been restricting ourselves to the elementary school zone, but now are open to the whole school district. I really hope that helps.

More updates as they become available.

home search update and out of town guests

So the saga last left me going to meet with the lender. I have done that. The meet was a good one - I like the people I worked with. But, my credit is on the low end of happy, so they can't automatically approve the loan. That means that someone, somewhere, will go over my stuff and make a quasi-arbitrary decision. *sigh* So the woman I worked with suggested writing a letter of explanation to accompany my application materials, which I did. She's had it all now since Tuesday,but I have no idea as to the timeline for a decision.

Meanwhile, ¡vamos a ver unas casa mañana!

The realtor (remember Moose?) and I have been working via e-mail to fine tune the houses she refers to us. One is very near the school Son #1 attends this year, where Son #2 will be the year after next. Like, the athletic fields are a half block away. I actually saw this place before she sent it to me, and had the flier in hand. Between when I saw and when she passed it on the list price has dropped $30K. I think they must be very motivated to sell... We will also look at another home about 2 blocks from our current residence. That's a great neighborhood where our kids know classmates. The outside doesn't look quite as nice as the other so I don't know what we'll find. We'll also look at a third with her that I know very little about but met our criteria.

In among all the home search madness we had a rare treat. We had a visit from a very old friends - as in my first boyfriend - and his wife and son. we had not seen him for about 12 years, and had never met his wife and son. They were in town for a long weekend because his parents are moving from the house he was raised in into a condo and he came to farewell the homestead, etc. They came for dinner Saturday and stayed very late. We didn't mind but the kids were all dragging the next day...oops. His wife is a very interesting and insightful woman, and his son is delightful. And of course it was marvelous to see him again. Mi esposo commented that it's too bad they live so far away, he could see our families socializing a lot. Hijo número 2 y el hijo de mi amigo se llevaban requetebien. Jugaban a Legos y Mech Assault (en el X-Box). They didn't want to quit. :-)

*Whew* makes me even more tired to read about everything.

Casa

So, as I mentioned, here we are minding our own business when we learn that our landlord is opting not to renew the lease on our house. Bleah. Con el mercado como está ahora no sé lo que piensa... so we've decided that now is as good a time as any to see if we can qualify to buy our own home (then no one can make us move again!) So for the next while you'll see some of our process there in this blog.

5/1 (recap for you) Bank says they have no programs for folks who need 100% of the value as a loan, but does have a referral service for a local agent that comes with cash back when you close - even if you finance elsewere. Who can say no to that?

5/5 Called the referral program and enrolled. Said I'd hear from the brokers' office tomorrow

5/6 I did! Got a call from Coldwell Banker/Burnet representative who asked some specific Qs to match us with an appropriate agent. Me dijo que recibiría una llamada más tarde hoy.

later on 5/6 I did! Within 90 minutes! Got a call from the agent, a woman named Moose. I am not making this up. She recommended talking to their lender about pre-approval so we are on the same page with specific homes. Gave me a name and number for Nick.

even later on 5/6 I called Nick - it was just after 5 PM and I thought I'd get an answering machine, pero todavía estaba en su oficina y me dijo que no le encontré saliendo. I filled out the application over the phone with him and he pulled my credit report on the spot. We talked general options, and set an appointment to meet F2F Thursday.

5/7 Called my student loan lender to get some detail Nick requested, and it was good news in the homebuyer context. Yay!

So, tomorrow I meet with Nick, and the saga will continue.

MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

Yes, it's May Day, and yes, I feel like shouting "Mayday!" El dueño de la casa que alquilamos no va a renovar nuestro contracto. So that means that we only have our current residence until June 30. We are exploring the intricacies of first time home-buyership, but so far have met with little success. The bank where I have my auto loan does not have any programs for people like us, meaning those who didn't know they'd be buying a house and therefore have no down payment saved up. Me avisaron que me ponga en contacto con un agente inmobiliario local because he or she would probably have a better handle on what local and/or state programs we might tap into. They did give me contact info for a program they have to help folks connect with such local agents, y hasta ofrecen un incentivo de $950 cuando cumplimos la compra. Funny thing is I contacted t hat program a few months back when we didn't know we would be moving, but I thought it was a different service than it was so so didn't have them do anything.

Todo esto y a la vez tenemos que encontrar más ayuda para hijo número dos con sus problemas psicológicos. Stress: I has it.

Howdy from St. Louis!

I know Mom will be looking to see if I've posted since I'm out of town, so HI MOM!
Es mi sugundo viaje a St. Louis. The first time I was here was to choose the hotel for this conference. I guess my colleague and I did a good job, because we hear lots of compliments about the venue. The conference is also going well. I had to make an unexpected purchase while here, though. My shoes self-destructed. I only brought one pair, and the heel on the left one totally ripped in half. My feel hurt so much from continuing to walk around in them. Ouch-a-mundo. Not what I thought I'd be getting for a souvenir...

I was wrong

The picture was still hilarious the next morning. And it's still hilarious now.
:-)

LOL-ing myself to death

'Kay. Son #1 and I are about to bust a few blood vessels on ICANHASCHEEZBURGER tonight. Here's the one that about sent me into apoplexy (pero seguro que no parezca tan chistoso en la luz del dia...)



moar humorous pics

A bailar

Okay. So now that Son #1 is fourteen, he can go to the dances at church. He had his first opportunity this past Saturday. May I just say that I have never seen him so nervous about ANYTHING?!!? No recuerdo haber estado tan nerviosa yo. But the interesting part is that his dad forgot about the dance that evening and served chili for dinner. Can you say bad idea? I knew you could. :-P There was much teasing about possible individualized musical accompaniment.

Así que él se alistó y nosotros nos reunimos para orar juntos antes de que saliera. We decided to pray before he left since the younger kids would be in bed before he got back. Son #2 offered the prayer. What a sweet boy, he remembered his brother's nervousness and prayed that he would "not make a fool of himself or fart."

I love my kids.

Promised pic and more

El mes pasado les prometí una foto del autito de Hijo Número 2. He did an AWESOME job. It reflects his truly creative mind so much better tan the design he originally proposed (shiny black with a red hourglass - bleah). ¡Aquí está!

He calls it "The Cheese Whizzer." I love it! It was fun to watch him make the little mouse, too. A fellow that works for me thought it was real cheese in the pic. :-)

He took 2nd place in the troop derby and will race in districts in April.

And m'hija's race is tomorrow. Watch for a pic later. Y parece que somos la familia de las carreras ahora, porque Hijo Número 1 tiene una la semana que entra también. His race is with the Young Men at church and will be limited rules: they can use non-combustible power sources like CO2 cartridges, for example, and there's no weight limit. Kewl.

El sábado pasado pasé la tarde - una gran parte de la noche - con mi hermana. We watched Jane Eyre (may I just say "wowza!" It was actually BETTER than the book!) and ate yummy Greek chili. She let me take the leftovers home, and it heats up great. Hubby also approved. I really enjoy her company and it was fun to just hang out together. We agreed that this does not happen enough. Leaving her house at 11 PM it was extremely cold (wind chill near negative 30), and the steering column in the van freaked me out a little bit. It was quite sluggish, but warmed up fairly soon and was working fine by about a block from her house. No way could I have driven home if it hadn't. It's almost too bad - an excuse to stay the night would not have been unwelcome. ;-)

Off to the races.
Chau for nau.

bits-n-pieces

Saw this quiz on my brother's blog and did it too. I guess I came up as belonging in the same year as his wife...

You Belong in 1955

You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!

What Year Do You Belong In?

Other musings:

We have Pinewood Derby this week for Son #2 and in another three weeks for m'hija. Me gusta que las Girls Scouts hagan esta actividad con las niñas - m'hija está re-entusiasmada. She's going to make a car that has a puppy and his doghouse on it. Son #2 changed his original design idea - for the better, I'd say - but he's keeping it under wraps from the public until the race. Pondré fotos aquí después. It turned out great!

¡Qué luna tan increíble se veía ayer! It was full an bright, shining from a cloudless sky onto the fresh snow that fell the day before. Amazing. When I woke up, Son #1 was on the couch looking at it and called me to see. About an hour later m'hija did the same thing: "Mom, is that the moon or the planet Venus?" (My sisters should be chuckling right about now - Look! It's Venus!)

The cookie selling is going well, I think. M'hija is 42% to her goal after two door-to-door days. We expect she'll get several more orders at the Pinewood Derby tonight, too. Last Saturday we toured a bakery with her Brownie troop and had a great time. The owner let all the girls decorate a cupcake, and you'd have thought she'd given them the deed to Fort Knox.

I love being a mom.

anti slacker

Having been called to task, I now proceed to post some thoughts that have been milling for a while and some new ones.

Cosas que me han traido placer lately.
(from my laptop again, where I can't do special characters)

- scuffing the leaves as a I walk down the street. I had forgotten that childhood joy.
- snowshoeing with m'hija at the nature center
- going to the library to pick up two reserved books and discovering that all six were in
- new snow on top of all the old dingy stuff
- the yummy dinner my hubby made tonight. Me gusta chile verde! And *ALL* of the kids loved it, too!
- Watching m'hija at her first Brownie troop meeting.
- playing a game with son #1
- reading a webcomic with son #2
- living in a community where people thank the driver of the public bus as they get off

Estar viva.