busy march and fingers crossed

1. *phew* march was a busy one! we counted that we were home for 8 days- 8 days! less for mike since he works off shore. 

2. went back to indiana to go house hunting. we wanted a newer home but still had a budget to keep.  we also planned for renovations within that budget if need be.  after looking at 13 houses on monday, we were kinda discouraged.

3. i told mike about a house that i loved in a neighborhood that i loved and we drove past it. our budget got raised! (see how i did that? took him to some crappy houses first- ha!)

4. funny thing, that house ended up being our 3rd favorite. 

 5. i found this house driving by and looked it up on zillow. (photos courtesy of zillow)  i was kinda dishearten when i saw the inside (very outdated)  and that it was a foreclosure.  they did put in new, dark, hardwood floors [love] and new carpet.  they are also going to finish the half bath in the basement.

 6. but once i saw the outside, i knew mike would love it too!

7. and he did!  the deck is brand new and the yard is big enough for some fun get togethers around the fire pit or a friendly game of corn hole.

8. the pond or "lake" is also usable for paddle boating and kayaking.

9. pretty much all the bathrooms need new everything but cabinets. i'm hoping to just get new doors for them and get them painted a new color.  same with the kitchen cabinets. the countertops are perfect.  we also plan on doing the smaller bathrooms ourselves.  just the vanities and toilets.

10. unfortunately it's not ours yet and that makes me very anxious. [my heartbeats a mile a minute just thinking about it]

while we could put an offer on it we don't want to risk the paper work getting done faster than normal and be stuck with yet another house payment. (foreclosures have no contingency on them and paperwork usually takes longer than normal but i can see with our (non) luck, it would get done right away.)

spring break

@sheraton resort in kona

1. we are back from our 10 day hawaii vacation.

2. it was nothing less than fantastic, of course- its hawaii!

3. will try and post more if i can get off my lazy butt.

4.  kaylee's been a trooper and went back to school on monday. jet lag and 5 hours lost didn't seem to faze her.

5. still house hunting and will be leaving soon to do the actual house hunt.

6. 2 more have sold that we really wanted to see. i think that makes like 5 sold that were our favorites.

7. its ham's spring break this week. he was thinking about going to south padre but decided it was too expensive especially when you have very little to no money.

8. he is thinking about going up to austin since its sxsw week and it will be cheaper even though they don't have a place to stay.

9. i like that he thinks things through and won't go and spend money he doesn't have. 

10. and because i'm his mom, have to remind him this is what summer jobs are for. (to have some extra money)

can i be busy yet not busy at the same time?

1. one of my favorite photos of my kiddos at sam houston national park for a hike. the big one just farted on the little one who thinks its the funniest thing.

2. not much going on yet a lot going on. mike was gone for 2 weeks since he works off shore now.

3. i cleaned and organized my closet.

4. started to clean and organize the craft room but that lead to more of a mess because it needed to be painted like 3-4 years ago!

5. another house we wanted to look at has been sold. we really had big plans for this one because it  was on the river.

6. hawaii is coming up and i don't even have a list ready. gasp! by now, i usually have a list of how many days of clothing, toiletries, camera etc...

7. we finally got a new tv for the family room.  ham said its not cooler than his but told him its 65", smart, curved, hd cooler than his- ha! (my parents gave us some christmas money towards it and best buy is having a sale right.)

8. still boot camping. even had a friend join.

9. did a #handmadeval swap for the second year in a row.  loved what i sent out- so cute!

10. we also worked on the yard this weekend.  and i even planted a few flowers.  it feels pretty good getting things checked off the to do list.

leaving the big kid behind and a vivid dreams

not much longer and this will be me again! (hawaii 2011)

1.  for the last 2 years, the kids have been on the same spring break. this year, ham is a week later so that means he will not be going with us!  it makes me sad.

2. he asked his professors if he could take exams early but they said they can't do that unless its for a death or something really big like that. a+m gets a finger salut on that one- hahaha!

3. so we told him we would take him somewhere over the summer since this is the second family vacation he's had to miss.  we're going to wing it and wait for cheap flights to someplace and go there.

4. i had the most amazing dream last night, in color even!  i magically appeared to a place called langford market (its a name of clothing store here) and it was cape cod type houses all along the water.  the houses were beautiful colors of yellow, reds, blues.

5. there were clean streets and gigantic pools with people swimming. i was eating outside of course and said to the guy sitting in front of me: "you have a lot of food there." because he did have a lot of food.

6. the girl sitting close to him said, his wife is around here.  which was weird because i was just making a statement, starting a conversation not hitting on the guy. (i find this happens in real life too)

7. so another house that was a contender sold. as of right now, there are 2 left that we're interested in. one of them isn't in an ideal neighborhood- being its not as fancy as the others but its on the right side of town. (the school district we want and on the right side of the railroad tracks and its a brand new house.)

8. also told mike that while our budget is x amount, i really want to go about 50 grand under that. (some of the new houses we liked were 50 grand under)

9. my motto: i want to own our house, not our house own us.  

10. plus, i'm keeping mike to his word that if we move back to indiana, we will be able to do more and travel more.  AND, i'm leaving a kid back in texas who needs a visit from his mom every once in awhile- hee hee!  

what she wore wednesday because she's cute

taken last friday 

(top: tjmaxx, tank: target, shorts: justice, shoes: target)

1. after school on monday, this sweet thing said she was homesick while in school. she just wanted to be home with me.

2. then she went on and said that she loves her life and she doesn't want to be anybody else. how awesome is that? 

3. back in my days, i wished i was someone else or had someone else's life. even to this day i don't feel loved unconditionally or wanted- by my parents.

4. this week has been one of those take a nap everyday kind of week. just been going to bed late and waking up early.

5. we started bootcamp again on monday. they have us do a workout called baseline on the first day for time. then we do it again on the second to last day so we can see if we improved. 

6. last nights workout was another good one. i rocked it on the box jumps and squats but running those short distances kicked my butt.

7. we're debating on heading back to indiana over thanksgiving break since kaylee has the whole week off to go and look at houses. hopefully the ones we like are still for sale.

8. also debating on kaylee's halloween costume. as of right now, she's going as a witch. i wanted something more creative like last years candy robber.

9. been secretly snacking on talenti gelato. southern butter pecan, fudge brownie and peanut butter cup have been my favorites.

10. i'm also secretly debating on purchasing this purse. or this one or this size.

house hunting and wasting time, its what i'm good at

alabama

1. this was taken in alabama for mike's work get away. miss kaylee had enough bike riding at this point.

2. once again, blogging has gotten away from me. its not that i've been busy, just lazy. (there's painting, cleaning and lots of de-cluttering to be done)

3. if i haven't mentioned it, mike got the job offer to go off shore. now we're just waiting to hear when he starts that new position. he's hoping after the holidays.

4. so instead of getting the house ready for moving, i've been looking for houses on-line even though we won't be moving till the school year is over.

5. and i really need to stop looking because the houses i end up liking end up selling even though its a slow market. (in the area we're looking at, houses we looked at over 5 years ago are still for sale!)

6. we found one that we really like. its only a year old and its got 3 acres for a really good price.

7. its not as grand as the one we live in now but how grand does it have to be for just kaylee and i?(mike and ham will only be there part-time.)

8. plus not having a $700+ electric bills will be awesome! (isn't that crazy?)

9. pooppoop (mike's dad) even offered to come and mow the lawn when mike's off shore.

10. and (ba)nanny has offered to come and pick kaylee up whenever she feels like spending time with them.

i am NOT going to stress out

1. we spent a week house hunting in the texas heat. we looked at maybe 50+ houses.

2. we decided on two maybe three. the one above is our favorite. in houston, you can put down $100 to get ten days to decide whether or not you want it. during this time, you also need to get the inspections done.

3. the day we went to see the house we found out that someone had done just that.

4. and of course we ended up loving the house.

5. two days later we went back to see the house again. the owner said she felt like she had to meet us even though we were not the people she thought we were.

6. turns out her and her husband went to notre dame. so did the previous owners. we all took it as a sign that it was meant to be.

7. we put in an offer that night in hopes that the first offer falls through.

8. we are still waiting for that offer to fall through. the sellers realtor went out of town to make things even worse.

9. thursday i had to break down and cry. friday, i did not want to go and look at any more houses till i heard that the seller of our favorite house sabotaged her house for us. [the people with the first offer did another walk through that morning]

10. we also put in an offer to our second choice only to have had it countered. then tonight i found out that they decided they didn't want to sell their house after all.