Better late than never...

Today I got the best package in the mail!  Merry Christmas to me from the amazing Teri Stringham! She mailed these to my old address and they got sent back to her. She mailed them a second time to the correct address. Now there is commitment!  The towels are gorgeous and have fabric covered buttons to match! New hotpads are great and washcloths are always welcome.  The Dove dark chocolates were a delicious bonus. The towel perfectly matches the apron she made me several years ago (that is being used as a curtain for the cupboard with no door. Thank you Teri!  I love it all!!!  She also sent a cherry pan with lid that doubles as a tray. She outdid herself this year! I can't wait to have a real kitchen again so I can put up all my cherry things!! 

New year, snow finally!

January 5th we got to start basketball season with David...blurry pic but he did a great job!  It was fun watching him and seeing how much he has improved in his game! Jacob started that day also but we weren't able to see his game. Soon though! And today we got SNOW! We have been waiting a long time for it! Everything looks so pretty and I am so happy!!

The End of 2018

We had a nice and cozy, quiet new year's eve. We finished our puzzle (it was hard!) and made soup in our insta pot and I even made some homemade rolls to go with it. Cozy and quiet, just how we like it. Happy 2019 everyone! We hope all your wishes come true and that we find a house soon! Many prayers for that! We are excited for our growing family and feel so blessed in so many ways. 

Another portion of a letter...

It is just easier to copy and paste, so here is the saga on house hunting as 2018 comes to a close. Also, Church in January will be only 2 hours instead of the 3 hour block. WOW! Changes all around...I am loving serving with the Stake Relief Society President, not sure who much longer it will be, but I love it so far! Now to the portion of my letter to Jill...

 

So you know that we didn't get "my" perfect house. It really spoke to me both times we looked at it!  And the second house in PG - amazingly enough, they came down to our price the NEXT DAY. First they came down about 9,000 the first day but it was still too high for us.  Then the next day they came down another 10,000 to our price!  Seems really great right?  BUT, they said we had to let them know THAT day and that it would now be an "As is" sell and we could do our inspections but they won't pay to fix anything.  It was suddenly a pressure sale and it didn't feel right to us at all so we declined.  We noticed a few days later it was under contract, so they found someone else to pay their price, or at least more than our price.  We did like the house, but never dreamed they'd come down almost 20,000 so that's why we offered in the first place, but they didn't accept our offer and countered which we still declined.  So after their 3rd offer of our price, I didn't feel bad turning them down.  We had one more in PG we wanted to look at but it went under contract before we could get over to see it.  That's how this marked goes...

We took time off from house hunting because we were just so frustrated by that point.  and it was Christmas.  So we have looked online a few more times but not seriously again yet.  I feel like we are in such limbo. Dave says maybe we are supposed to rent awhile longer (NOOOOOO!!!!!!) We can't take advantage of these sweet friends and stay here much longer.  So that would mean finding a house to rent and moving AGAIN.  I want my move to be the FINAL MOVE.  At least for now.  I'm not saying we will stay in whatever house we buy forever, but I'd like to think we might!  So back to square one.  AGAIN.  We really hope during this month of snow and cold, that there will be some houses come up that are cheaper and that maybe can get right away.  Otherwise, I told Dave by the end of January if we don't have anything and that one by Amanda is still available, we are just going to go for it!  It's not what we want, but we could definitely live there!  Well, enough of that. 

Christmas!

Christmas day we went over to Amanda and Nate's. We had fun bringing the kids their gifts. Ontie got Walter a ball pit. He was having great fun with that. Santa brought him a cute little chair and he was owning it! Oh the joys of Christmas day! We went back to our little apartment later and started our puzzle from Joel and Kristen. It's a Thomas Kincade painting and a hard puzzle! We of course had lots of good food and snacks. We felt the love being with the family and their sweet and thoughtful gifts for us. Love this family of ours! Merry Christmas!

Luminaria 2018!

We went to Luminaria again at Thanksgiving point. So much fun. I am loving this tradition and hope we keep it! I love all the lights, being the with the grandkids, and getting hot chocolate and donuts to eat around a fire. It is fun to walk through it all and see everything. Ashton Gardens puts their best foot forward on this event! And all the lanterns through the Light the World Garden (all the statues of Christ) is so beautiful and words can't even describe it. It is all just magical and even though it's cold, we bundle up and just enjoy it!

Christmas is in the air...

When you live in a tiny apartment, it makes decorating for Christmas easy. Ta dah! Done! And here is Joel's stocking from his growing up years, and Kristen's that got finished (on time I might add!). I will let you guess who spelled out the message on the fridge this time...it is getting so depressing trying to find a house! We have a cute little class of CTR 5 kids in primary. We are exhausted when we get home, but they really are cute. We brought them brownie trees and did a manger craft on a blue paper plate. They turned out cute and I think the kids had fun. And for another Monday activity, we decorated sugar cookies! That was a tradition my mom did with my kids, so it has been fun to do it with the grands. I will also let you guess who got caught tasting the sprinkles...ho ho ho!

A letter I wrote to a friend...

This is a portion of an email I sent to my sweet friend Jill in Clovis. It explains a little about the frustration we are having in house hunting...so thought I would put it here as this is kind of my journal...

 

So the house hunting...a couple of months ago, I found the PERFECT house.  For ME.  It was in a great location and I fell in love with it just seeing the pictures (I think I might have sent you pictures of it).  We made an offer but it was too low and someone offered full price.  We have looked at many houses in the meantime and found another one that we really liked and I knew I could live there! So we put an offer on that one.  Nope. Didn't get that one either.  So we continue to look at houses and it is getting quite depressing!  I cried for days over losing the perfect house, I just couldn't get over why it felt so right and we didn't get it.  Then when we felt at peace with the next one (at the temple even) but didn't get it either.  Well, Friday I was online looking at houses AGAIN and there really isn't much new out there (I know because of Christmas there won't be much new for awhile) and I saw a house that said "Financing failed, back on the market" and I had the though to look at my perfect house again.  It always says "Backup" meaning, there is an offer and a back up offer.  I had secretly hoped that WE were the back up offer and that the first offer might fail.  So anyway, I looked it up and lo and behold, it said ACTIVE!  It didn't say anything about financing failed, just the same old listing only ACTIVE, not backup.  I got so excited!!!  I called Dave at work and told him to make an offer right now!! (Our realtor works with him so they could send it in from work).  We went back and looked at it Friday late afternoon and I still just loved it! THEN, our realtor said that realtor called and said they lowered the price to our exact price that we qualify for (they had received our prequal letter the first time we offered.)  That made it seem even more to me that we were supposed to get it.  They still had their first offer, but it was contingent on those buyers selling their house.  Well, the house is sitting empty and if they have another good offer, why would they wait!?  Right?  So we made an offer, but still had houses lined up to look at on Saturday.  We went ahead to look at them because even if they accept our offer we have 10 days to make it final, and JUST IN CASE, we might find something else better, we had already made appts to look at houses.  Well, we saw 4 houses and we really liked one in Pleasant Grove so we made an offer on that one too.  But it is higher priced and we offered lower so I know we won't get it.  But at the same time, our realtor told us there were 3 other offers on my perfect house.  I knew as soon as he told me that, we wouldn't get it. Because they didn't change the listing online for our lower amount...so someone will pay more and get that house.  Back to square one!!!  We haven't been told no yet on either offer, but it was the weekend so we will hear today.  It has been a rollercoaster for sure!  I was so excited to think I might get the house I wanted!  Then to find out no, I likely won't.  And Joel and Kristen have been looking with us because if we get one with a good enough basement, they would like to move in until he finishes school.  And we are fine with that.  We love to help our kids if we can.  His rent would help us with the house payment and they'd be getting a far better deal with us and hopefully better living space.  Their tiny apt is soooo tiny.  They have a stackable washer/dryer in their tiny bathroom!  It's crazy.  Anyway, they didn't really like my perfect house for their situation, but I was going to get in anyway and they don't HAVE to move in if they don't want to.  ha!  

So one more thing to add to the roller coaster.  You are going to love this.  On Thursday I was invited to the Stake Presidency's office and issued a new calling!!!!  I told him we are house hunting and probably won't be here very long.  He issued it anyway.  I was thrilled at the calling and told him I will serve my very best until I move.  😊 I am now the stake RS secretary!  We were set apart yesterday and the stake president said he knew we were looking to move but felt impressed to issue the calling anyway.  So now we are thinking, are we supposed to stay here?  We can't live in this tiny apartment very much longer and take advantage of our sweet friends who are letting us live here, and continue to pay storage units on all our belongings. What do we do now?  Oh. my. goodness.  My brain is in a fog!  Talk about a stupor of thought!  I just don't even know what to do now.  we can NOT afford Lindon houses and there are very few available anyway.  So I know we will be moving out of this stake, I just don't know where or when.  I wish someone would just say, get this house at this time!  

So there you have it.  This is my life.  I love watching Walter.  He is such a good little boy and so dang cute!!!  He makes my days very happy.   We had a stake Christmas devotional last night that was very good.  The guest speaker spoke of Jesus of course, and he spoke for over 30 minutes without one note.  It was great!  A youth choir sang "Peace in Christ" and it was beautiful!  One thing the speaker said that I loved was "Sacrifice and suffering is a required course in this life, but growth is an elective." We are going with the grandkids this week to Luminaria (it's at Thanksgiving point where they do the big tulip festival and other things) a mile long walk through lots of lights!  Activities for the kids and of course they sell hot chocolate and donuts and stuff...then we need to ride the train up to temple square.  That is tradition!  Then we will be officially ready for Christmas!

Happy Grands...

Walter went with me to the bank, where they always give kids a sucker. He was so happy! If we all could just be as happy as a toddler with a blue sticky sucker! Then I found these huge gingerbread men cookies at WinCo. Since I pick up the kids on early out Monday, I like to do a project with them. So this time, it was decorate your own giant gingerbread man!! They had a good time being creative with them. It was a perfect Monday afternoon activity! I think everyone was happy!

Winter begins...

Winter is here! Good snow on December 2nd. I LOVE it. Wish I could see it better from the basement apartment but I can't. When I am at Amanda's I can see out the windows! I don't know why the kids like to play in the snow so much. I like to just look at it. Jacob was home sick from school so I went there to babysit. Walter enjoyed being at home and watching movies with Jacob. from a suitcase ha ha. We did get some great snow! We had a Christmas dinner at the church and Jaime Gillman who taught herself to decorate cakes, made the most beautiful winter cake! And it was as delicious as it was beautiful. I made sure to be first in line so I could get a piece of it! Can't believe it is December already. Still no house...it is hard to get in to see them in December, snow and all...but we see what we can.