BIRTHDAY GIRL!

Happy Birthday to Carol and Gibson! We will be celebrating Carol's Sunday but gave Gibby a great birthday this morning : )

She hated the hat but was a trooper for a good 5 minutes!!

She wouldn't stop to pose with her "cake" but she did do what any reasonable 1 year old would.... shove her face in it! (Her cake is a nicely shaped blob of canned dog food. She normally eats dry food so it seemed to be as good as cake to her!) It's hard to tell but I'm sure her eyes were lit with excitement! And I'll admit it, I sang : )

And she did NOT drop to the floor and cover her ears because of my singing! She was trying to get that hat off : ) After a few unsuccessful minutes and plenty of laughing and pictures on my end, I helped her. She was scooting her head all over the livingroom carpet and it wouldn't budge. Quite funny.

The day is not yet over and on top of her cake and new Frisbee, she will get a walk later and we may even go visit her friend, Jake (mom and dad's dog). They are best friends until he starts to get a little "nosy" and sniffs her bottom. She gets kinda feisty....atta girl!

She's the coolest 1 year old I know!

Odd boy out

In my best Big Bird singing voice..."One of these kids is not like the others. One of these kids just doesn't belong. Can you tell which kid is not like the others, before I finish this song."

Of course you can't because I can't get the picture any bigger than this without it looking terribly grainy. I will just have to show you my little odd man out. Keep in mind this is a picture from Russia's Bible camp and every single kid seems overjoyed at learning more about God's love and our faith.

No, not that kid with the mohawk...... The one with the permascowl on his face. HAHA! Jack is my daily source of laughter whether he means to be or not.

And my day is only half over!!

My laptop started acting up last month and because it is still under warranty, I was able to send it back to HP for no cost. They sent me a box to send it to them in and off it went to be fixed.

So I just got off the phone about half an hour ago as I argued with a FedEx service rep about where in the world my laptop could be. The tracking number sent me to a page that said it was delivered Saturday to the backdoor and no signature was required. Come on now, why wouldn't they require a signature for a laptop?! I was spazzing out because I was fully picturing my laptop as being stolen. They told me that they would contact the driver and try to get more information on where it could be.
In the mean time I decide to call HP and yell at them for not requiring a signature. After yelling REPRESENTATIVE at the automated lady, I was transferred to a woman who was about as easy to understand as Charlie Brown's teacher. Outsourcing blows. I explained my dilemma and she tried to assure me that a signature WAS required although I was looking right at the tracking page that said it was not. I grumped a bit more and gave her the tracking number that I had. She finally said, "Ma'am, that's the tracking number for the empty box that we sent you a month ago. Your laptop should arrive on Thursday." "Uhhhh.. thanks." CLICK! I quickly FedEx and told them not to worry and to please cancel any plans they had to talk to the driver. Whoops!

I also had to call the vet today because Gibby has an odd rash on her belly that seems to be itching her. Too much people food perhaps ?!
Lady: "Has she been chewing?"
Me: "She has this bone she loves that she chews on a lot."
Lady: "I meant, does she chew at her rash."
Me: feels like an idiot :)

So we set an appointment for tomorrow and she asks me to bring in a urine sample....
Me: "Sure, how the heck do I get that?"
Lady: "Wait until she squats and put a pan or bowl under her."
Me: "That should be interesting."

I was right.... it was.
Not wanting her urine in any of my pans or bowls, I chose a plastic cup.
Picture this: Me holding a plastic cup following Gibby around the yard and waiting for her to squat and pee so I can catch it in said cup. She squats as she looks suspiciously at me placing a cup between her legs, takes a step, and pees on my thumb. *sigh* motherhood.......

Love them!

+ I love lots of other people that I didn't put pictures up of : P

My confession

I admit it. I have a problem. I judge a book by it's cover, literally. What can I say? I like a pretty book!

Isn't that cute?! It's definitly not the best book I've ever read, but it will look good on my bookshelf!

Update

Looks like this Top 10 in the US Lending Company has been sending it's appraisers off to do their bidding and telling them how to up the appraisal. I guess we are going to be better off without the losers. We also get to bring less $$ to the closing which is a good thing. Because they are top 10, they deal with thousands of banks and mortgage companies and that means thousands of people in our situation or worse! We may be losing the $300 we paid for the appraiser, but I have a little heck to raise before giving up on getting that back!

You. Are. Joking.

Oh my my my. Wanna see Shelly turn red and smoke blow out her ears??? I'll tell you how although it's not advised. Tell her that the loan for the new house (which has already taken over a month) has been frozen because the lender chosen by the broker has been SHUT DOWN.

You don't wanna mess with this! haha!

Wow.... I'm still in shock. I knew it was bad as soon as Dad slinked his way into the livingroom with a look on his face like he was bracing himself for an earthquake and cautiously sat down and started with, "I talked to your broker". Meanwhile I am giving him an accusing look and nervously shouting, "Why are you sitting down? Stand up. I don't like where this is going." The broker had decided to go with the lender with the lowest interest rate. This is normally a great thing.....except when they are about to get shut down by the government. We don't know if it was bankruptcy or illegal actions that caused this but I guess we got out before we got stuck with this lousy lender. Luckily we didn't have anything invested besides TIME at this point. Others are probably losing much more than just their closing date because of this lender.

Fighting back the urge to run to the bedroom, slam the door and scream in a pillow while throwing my fists into the matress was very difficult. This has been such a SHADY ordeal and I would tell anyone to just go through a bank because there are way too many different people involved when you go through a broker. Now we have to start ALL OVER which will take about 3 weeks. So it looks like we won't be in the house until early September. LoVeLy

I knew there was a purpose : )

I knew there was a reason that I let the laundry pile up! I do what I can for my girl. I posted this picture despite the horror that my mom and mother-in-law will likely feel. (p.s. This pile does not reside on our living room floor. I moved it there for sorting. No need to divulge where it came from)

TaDa! Our new home!

So, I am getting very anxious to get moving and the lenders are taking for-e-ver! They said that because of the tax rebate being offered to first time home buyers this year, they are all backed up which is pushing our closing date back from last friday until who knows when. It's really annoying but gives us lots of time to get prepared for the move. All I can do is take the occasional stroll past the house or admire the pictures and try to come up with ideas for when it is FINALLY ours.

The landscaping out front is really nice right now. The flowers look really pretty and so do the trees. This picture doesn't do it justice. I wish this was the entire building, but there is another home connected because it used to be sold as a condo. Picture this, flip-flopped and attached to the other side of the garage. We do own the land and the home, we just get a very close neighbor : ) It's called a "zero lot line" which means that we own everything to the right of the center. Hurray for our .2 acres....... well at least we have side walks now!

Here's the kitchen. Not huge, but it is a bit more open than the one we have now. It's really nice and I can't wait to tile the space between the counter and the cupboards (the backsplash?) as well as paint it a nice neutral color. It's a little too white for my liking as is. Oh, and guess what!! We have a garbage disposal AND a dishwasher! YAY! You don't know how wonderful they are until you live without them for a year. It comes with all of the appliances and we will end up with an extra washer and drier if anyone needs a set. We are keeping what we have and selling theirs. They seem to be pretty nice ones. I'll put a picture up when it's time to sell.

This dining area is just to the right of the kitchen. It's hard to describe what I plan to put in this space. I have a laddershelf desk that will look great on one of those walls and hopefully we will be able to afford a dining room table to put in it some day! This will be painted the same neutral color as the kitchen. I haven't told Jace this yet so.... hey hun, we're going to have a bit more painting than originally planned. (I'm batting my eyelashes in case that helps)

Here is the livingroom from the view of the dining area. I really want a nice sectional like this but that's another thing that will have to wait a bit. The windows in this house are so long and skinny that I don't really know what to do with them so I am going to have to rely on help for that! It's hard to tell, but the walls are painted with a rag-roll kind of technique and look really nice.

This is another view of the livingroom with the nice entrance way.

This is the master bedroom. The red doesn't match our stuff at all so that will have to be painted. I have always liked accent walls so we will probably keep the rest white (for now) and find a good color to paint over the red. I am not putting up any pictures of the master bathroom or BIG walk-in closet but they definitly made me smile!

I have not included pictures of the second bedroom because they haven't done much with it and we probably won't either for awhile. I also left out the 2nd full bathroom and laundry area because they are nice, but nothing outstanding....yet ; ) You'll just have to come see us!

Last, but definitily not least, our enclosed porch! We were both so excited to see this. Everytime there is a storm, one of us mentions how we wish that we had a porch to sit and watch it from. Can't you just picture us with a couple of rockers our there?! I can! We are also going to eventually add a little patio outside that door. We even have a decent little back yard for Gibby.

Gosh, looking at this pictures makes me want to move even more although I will miss our little house and all of the hard work that we put into it. Our first year was a good one and having this house was such a blessing. It's time to move on, but we won't be able to do it without a few glances back over our shoulder at what we are leaving behind..... lots of spiders, crickets, mice, and rusty water! (I have to keep reminding myself of that. It makes me feel better!)

Baby Boy!

Welcome Braden Lyn (aka Teeny Tussing and wearer of my onesie creations)! He is so cute and sweet that I was contemplating sticking him in my purse and leaving the hospital. I decided against it because his mom was in so much pain from her C-section that I felt like she needed this little trophy to help her remember that it was all worth it! I brought her some ColdStone cupcakes as a "welcome baby" gift and you should have seen her grimace of pain turn into a look of love and appreciation in seconds : ) She squished down 3 in no time and sighed with joy. I was glad to see that I helped her feel better. Chalk 1 up for me and my love of all things sweet!