1 year

I got an email today from our mortgage broker that today is our 1-Year Closing Anniversary.  Hard to believe that we've been home owners again for a year now!  I never thought we'd be able to own in Meridian, but thanks to our horrible economy, we did it!
Loves:

• close to the freeway - easy commute for Bob
• close to my parents - exactly what I wanted
• big backyard
• great ward
• nice neighbors - my kids just discovered the next door neighbor kids and they've spent more time playing outside in the last 2 weeks than they have all year.

Sometimes I wish we'd held out for some of the things on our wish list, but we're making what we've got work.  I do know that this is the house we were meant to be in and we're making the most of it.

Re-arranged

Our new couches prompted us to do a bit of re-arranging in the living & family rooms.  In the living room, we moved the china hutch to the family room, bob's desk to where the china hutch was and the couches to where you see below.  Bob's desk was where the big couch was.  It seems a lot more open this way.

 In the family room, we moved the TV to the end wall (it was on the wall to the right).  That's our china hutch on the left and a bookshelf of my scrapbooks on the right.  The couch faces them and behind the couch facing the short wall into the dining room are my and Braden's computer desks.

New Furniture

RC Willey had these couches in their President's Day sale ad for only $399!  We hurried down to the store Monday morning and stood in line for 20 minutes before the store opened.  Then stood in line for a few minutes to purchase them once inside the store.  We found the rug in the clearance section of the store for only $49 because it was a floor model and kinda beat up - but our kids will beat it up even more so it was great for us!  We also bought another mattress for the bunk beds in Mylie's room.  Thank goodness for tax returns.

Sold

I took this picture the evening after we signed the papers on the house, March 29th.  We didn't get the keys until the 31st though, when the loan funded.

Below are pictures of the house taken from the listing website:

The front

Nice Deck

The Huge Backyard

And some pictures that I took the day we first walked thru the house: March 3rd

The kitchen 

 The family room

 The living room

 Front door

 1st front bedroom - aka: Braden's room

 Hallway Bathroom (full bath)

 2nd front bedroom - aka: Mylie's room

 Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

New House

I may be a little premature in posting this because we don't close on the house until next week, but here is a pic of the house. I'm pretty excited.

(Borrowed from the MLS listing pics - obviously taken a while ago because things are still not green here.)

A month later...

Here's your next "tiny" update:

• Evidently we didn't have the best offer on house "S" so we began the house hunt again. Still in love with house "G", but not enough to wait on a bank being that it is a short sale. Looked and looked and found house "K". Not a foreclosure. For the most part it was a house for sale the conventional way except that his tiny 2nd loan was a short sale. He accepted our offer, we got the house inspected and appraised, and the Bank holding the 2nd loan approved the sale the next day! We sign on hundreds of dotted lines next week. Yea! Move in date is set for Friday, the 8th of April.
• Mylie is completely diaper and pull-up free. She screams at the top of her lungs, "I gotta go potty" as she is running to the bathroom so that whoever is closest can run after her and help her.
• Braden just finished his 2nd week of track break. He got to hang out with his cousins a lot this week and really enjoyed it. He says that he just can't wait until we move so that he can have his own room.
• Clark is growing and growing! He's started doing quite a bit of baby babble and gets pretty loud sometimes when he's looking for attention. My mom bought him a bumbo seat and he loves being able to sit up and see everything going on around him.
• Bob and I celebrated our 9th Anniversary on Wednesday. We celebrated by going to dinner at TGI Fridays and then to Home Depot to look at paint colors for the house.