We're Moving!

It finally happened at the end of June - we sold. We said that we would give our place till the end of June to sell and I think that the sale went thru June 25th- if it had fallen thru like our previous deals we would have been finished but it didn't!! We refused to go looking for houses until everything on our place went thru - it sold on a Friday and we went looking Saturday morning. There were only two houses in our area that we could see - one we were hoping would work out but it would have required too much money to do what needed to be done so we went off to the second one. Actually at the second one the lady wouldn't let us in b/c she didn't know we had an appointment and asked us to come back on Sunday(not a good move, just do a five minute tidy and let people in or they may never come back) so we went off to the third. I wasn't sure of it at first b/c I could see that behind the house was stores and since one of our biggest problems about selling our place was that you could see IGA right behind us I wasn't interested in more stores - I wanted green space ideally or at least other houses. Anyways, while waiting for the other realtor to let us in we walked to the backyard and LOVED it. There were tall trees on the other side of the fence so you couldn't see the buildings right behind (plus they are apartments, so houses), we loved the size of the yard - the biggest one we had seen in our area since looking in September. It had a trampoline and a play centre. The outside of the house looked nice - except for the roof that looked ready to leak at any moment so we weren't sure what to expect on the inside. We were pleasantly surprised when we walked in - the people had updated the main floor wonderfully - it didn't look 21 years old. It had a family room, living room, dining room, bathroom and laundry room on the main floor and then three bedrooms and a games room upstairs. One of the houses we had put an offer on back in Feb. had a games room upstairs and we loved that idea but hadn't seen a house like that since. So we knew that the house had had an offer on Wed. and that they had two or three more people coming to see it later that day so we wrote an offer on it right away and it was ACCEPTED!! We were so excited as houses in our area were starting to go in one day, have bidding wars and go above asking price.

That brings us up to today. We have been busy decluttering and packing over the last few weeks and tomorrow morning we get the keys!!!! We CANNOT wait!! Tomorrow we are cleaning the carpets upstairs and painting Callia's room. The boys room is a Canucks room with a very well done hockey mural on it so it's going to be left. We'll paint the rest of the house as needed but the colours are perfectly fine for right now.

I am so excited to have a yard for the kids to play in and for a quiet dead end street for them to ride their bikes on. I am most excited that their toys will not have a permanent home in my kitchen but in the toy room upstairs - I know that they'll spill over into the rest of the house but at least my kitchen isn't their permanent home. I'm looking forward to having an extra eating area (however, it may be bare for quite awhile). I'm looking forward to having friends over and the kids playing on a different floor. I'm looking forward to making our own decisions regarding our home and not having strata telling us what we can and cannot do. I'm just looking forward to more space!

However, there are some things I'm a little sad about. The biggest one is not being able to walk to school. I think it's great to be able to walk to school - gets energy out, fresh air, good for the old environment, nice to chat with moms waiting at the door but there was not one house within walking distance for sale. Weird, since that was something we prayed about so I guess it wasn't meant to be. I am happy that when it is pouring rain I can just dump them off at the curb and we don't all have to get soaking wet and on snow days we'll just stay home! On sunny days we may park at our old complex and walk with our friends. I'm also sad about leaving some of our neighbours. Who am I going to call up when I'm half way done a recipe and have run out of something? Who will the kids play with when they go outside? We've had tonnes of good memories in our home - all of our kids have been born here (not literally here but you get my point), we've made so many memories. I get little sad when I think that Christian and Callia won't even remember this place - oh well, we'll make lots of new memories in the new house.

Anyways, that's the reason I haven't written on this blog - been busy packing either for holidays or for moving. Gotta run and get ready for the day!

Busy, Busy!

So two mornings ago I woke up and decided to check our freezer b/c our fridge had been making a funny noise. I discovered that our freezer had defrosted and everything was thawed. So, I got dressed and by 7:10am I was barb bqueing 16 chicken thighs. After that I bbqed 12 pork chops and made taco meat out of 1 lb of beef. Oh, I also cleaned everything out of the freezer, got myself and four kids ready for school and out the door by 8:30. I got home from dropping two kids off and made a curry out of stewing beef and stuck that in the crock pot. By 10 am all the meat was cooked, packed up and put away in our downstairs freezer. Thankfully the Sears dude came out and was gone by just after 10am. Then me and the two kids went to a local farm to pick up a yummy strawberry pie for my mom's bday (thankfully hubby was able to pick up my mom's present, since the appliance man delayed me). At the farm I asked if the strawberries would be around till next week - nope, I asked if they would at least be here till the weekend and they said, "we hope but not sure" - so I ended up buying 15 lbs of strawberries. I went to a store and bought stuff to make jam and a pie and then went to pick up Aiden fr. kindergarten. Came home fed three kids and a half hour later walked back to get Ethan. Phew! The afternoon was supposed to be spent cleaning the house since we had a home inspection the next day but instead I was cutting up strawberries and the kids were mushing them. I made jam, washed a lot to freeze and stuck some in the fridge just to eat - I think the pies are not going to happen. Went out for dinner with my family - YUM! and then they all came back for a game and pie. When they left I tidied up and cleaned the kitchen.
Day two - of busy,busy. B/c I bought those stinken strawberries, which really are stinken but very yummy I had to clean everything else by noon. So, with Callia down for a morning nap and the boys either watching a movie or playing computer games I cleaned. All I could think about was whether or not this deal goes thru on the house this is the LAST time I have to clean my place for someone coming to look at my home! By noon, the house was cleaned, the kids were dressed (so was I), picnic lunch packed and we were on our way to the zoo. Ahhh, the insanity was over. We had great time at the zoo - there for about three hours. Came home read, played outside, Rich got dinner together (not too hard since all the meat is precooked) and life was good. Oh, after dinner I then went out to Costco to shop and on the way home from that found out that our house sold!!!! YIPPEEEEE
Now, today we get to go and look at houses and there is no more "IF we sell our place" it is sold. We can go and buy whatever we love. So, fingers crossed and more importantly a lot of prayer later we are hoping to find the perfect house for us!! Exciting!!

It is finished!

Well, it's all done folks -I have officially finished nursing my last bambino. Out of the last 7years and 8 months I have been nursing for four years and almost 2months and I am now done. It's not something I've totally loved doing - it was so hard with the first babe and for the first few days hard with each of the others - I never fully knew if any of them were getting enough, or when they were done (newborn stage) but they somehow all did get enough. Sometimes it was inconvenient, sometimes painful and sometimes never ending. BUT those are four years I would never do differently - the "drunk" look each one gives when completely satisfied, touching my cheek with their little hands, looking up at me and smiling as milk dribbled out of their mouths, holding my fingers, knowing this was what was best for the babies and really best for me made it all so worth it. As I think of having no more babies I often think but "oh, when I have grandkids I'll have a baby to cuddle, spoil, change, walk, sooth but I'll never ever nurse again - it really is finished. Callia was the best nurser - she never went thru a "didn't want to nurse stage" - she loved it right to the end. In fact she was the longest nurser at almost 14 months - she was hard to ween, she threw tantrums in the afternoon when it was time to nurse, she was miserable until I did nurse her again but over this past week we've gone from two feeds to one to now none and she is now fine - no tantrums, she gladly accepts her sippy cup. I already miss the cuddles b/c with busy mornings it's much easier to give her the cup then to sit and cuddle her. But we'll cuddle at other times. She was so funny with her nursing over the last couple of months - she would try to sit up, and she would lay in any position possible and hey unlike Ethan she never bit me! At 12 months I was sad thinking about nursing ending, even though I didn't love it but at 14 months I'm fine with it. I looking forward to dumping the nursing bras (maybe I'll keep one), buying something new and being able to get away for a night or two with a baby!! YAHOO!

Housing Dilemna....

We've almost done it - our place is almost sold. We have an accepted offer on the place and the subjects are removed on Sunday -only three more days - whooowhoo! Of course we've been down this road once b/f and it didn't pan out but I think this time it will b/c there is NOTHING out there that we want to buy. On Monday I went out with our realtor and every house I really wanted to see had sold but not taken off the MLS yet...errrrr. There are NO houses in our area, in our price range. They are either under our price limit, which is a good thing, but not such a good thing b/c they are too small for our family of six. Or they are HUGE and we need to rent out a basement suit in order to pay for the mortgage. I don't want much, just a nice house maybe around 2000-2400sq. feet, nice yard, close to our school, close to the bus for Rich but there are NONE!
On the positive side to all of this, and what gives me hope, is that I talked to our mortgage dude and the interest rates have come down so much since even Feb. that having to buy the HUGE house (which is actually the normal size for today) isn't quite as daunting. I wonder if people out there buy houses with the suites as just "extra" income to buy the "extras" or if they actually need the suites to pay their mortgage? We would need the suite to pay the mortgage - is that wise? With the "helper" though we would be paying less of our mortgage than we do now in the townhouse. Anyways, unless what I REALLY want - nice size house and no need to rely on renters - comes on the market ASAP then we're going for the needed rental - which I think I've found the house I want in that market! If the deal on our house goes thru we have to be outta hear by June 28th - which is why we are in a bit of a hurry to find something, plus in our area houses are flying off the market.
Anyways, what do you think out there in blogger land - do you think most people "NEED" the rental income to afford their mortgage or do you think they use it for EXTRAS?

Cone wars

We went to a park on the May long weekend and Rich introduced the boys to Pine cone wars - something he did as a kid. They made up two teams and they had to get to each other's tree to score points. I'm not sure if they had to get there without getting hit or what. All I know is that the boys had so much fun throwing pine cones at each other. There were a few tears (pine cones can hurt) but not many. It's fun to be able to do things with the kids that you did as a child. What is something you did as a kid that you can't wait to do with you kidlets?

Scaredy Cat...

I had to help her on the way down but not on the way up.

Callia is a funny little thing - when she becomes scared or doesn't want to do something she cries and shakes. Well this one weekend we went to the park and we tried her on the slide - she cried and shook. We tried her on her own and with Ethan - didn't matter she hated it. A few weeks later we went to another park and I tried her on the slide - not quite as much crying or shaking so I kept sticking her on it and by the end of it she was okay with it. The next day Rich took her and she only cried when he tried to take her off the slide - funny girl. The next weekend we took her to a diff. park and she went on the slide -however, not only did she go down the slide she had decided that she should be able to climb up it and she did. Our little monkey, who can't walk yet, walked herself up the slide at least a dozen times by herself without my help!! She has had some other funny fears the boys never had - grass and pea gravel - she has gotten over both since we're outside so much and around it.

A picture every year!

When Ethan was a baby I read somewhere that you should take a picture of your child every year wearing something of yours - this way you can see how much they are growing each year. So, b/c we had a boy first we decided that he would wear Rich's Liverpool jersey every year. For Callia we decided that she too would wear the Liverpool jersey every year but she would also get to have her picture with my wedding dress and/or veil since I don't have any meaning full shirts. Guess we could have gone with the bra? HA! So here are some of the shots we took with her and my dress - I think some could be really cute with some photoshop touch ups but I'm not in the mood right now to do that - maybe in a future post.