Soon to be homeless

There has been a lot going on in the house situation. Our realtor told us to price our house $17,000 less than we wanted to. She said we would never get what we wanted for it. We sold it in 3 days for full asking price!!! It was listed on a Tuesday at 4pm. By 4:45 on Tuesday people were driving down our driveway. We had 5 showings in 3 days and accepted an offer on a Friday. We are set to close March 31st. As in 24 days from now. Which would be all fine and dandy if we had a house to move into!

We have a plan. We put an offer in on a house that is pretty much the SAME EXACT THING that we have now. Remember those list of must haves?! Yeah not so much. It is 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths. And I am losing major space in the kitchen. The plan is to live there 2 or 3 years then upgrade to the big house we really want. By then I will be working again and we will have more money. The nice thing about this house is the neighborhood. The biggest reason for us to move was to get into a neighborhood with lots of kids. This neighborhood is only 4 years old and is packed with kids Madison and Cooper's age!! I am VERY excited about that. The good thing is that we put in an offer and it was accepted by the sellers! The bad news is is that it is a short sale so the bank has to ok the offer. The offer was put in a month ago and we are still waiting.

There are no other houses out there that we are interested in right now. It is all riding on this one house. And chances are good that if we do get an ok soon that we won't close before our house closes. That means we will be homeless soon! We have a few options. Nothing ideal.

Option 1: Move in with Father in law and his wife. Nuff said there.

Option 2: My Mom offered to move out of her house and let us live there. She lives 40 minutes away from us in the middle of nowhere and her house is about 500 sq ft. Not happening.

Option 3: Ryan's friend owns a rental house around the corner from us. They have done nothing to get it ready to rent but have said we can stay there till the house comes through. Haven't seen the inside not so sure I want to =)

Option 4: We own an apartment complex and we can move into one of the empty ones. Apartment living with a 2.5 year old and a 5 years old will not be fun.

Our contract with the bank is good until March 15th. We NEED to hear soon!

Fear of the unknown

Ryan and I put our house up for sale on a Tuesday evening and by Friday evening we had accepted a full price offer!!! We definitely did not expect to sell our house in 3 days. And the buyers want to close by March 31st. Which is all dandy except we haven't found a house yet! I have to move out in less than 2 months with no where to go! My father in law offered to let us stay with him and his wife. They have a nice finished basement and the kids and Ryan and I would all have our own rooms so that would be nice. My Mom offered to move out of her house and in with a friend and let us stay there and we could always stay in one of the apartments we own. Lots of choices and none are really ideal.

We decided to look into building. We could pick our neighborhood and the house and all the features which is very appealing to me. (Ryan would prefer to buy a short sale or foreclosure!). We were dealing with Ryan homes. Which is not the best quality but you get a lot of house for the money. We were stupid and filled out their pre qualifying paperwork and royally screwed ourselves! Once they found out we didn't have any bills they REFUSED to go down on the price at all. They actually told Ryan that we could afford to pay for it but we just didn't want to. No kidding the thought of a 1300/month mortgage is NOT what we want! And who the hell are they to tell us what we can afford?! So we said enough of that and are back to looking at existing.

When we started looking we found a great house in Perinton that was perfect but we found out that Ryan can't have his trailer there so that is a huge bummer. Now our primary area is Canandaigua and Farmington but there is NOTHING out there! And we are not just going to buy a house because we have to. I would rather live in an apartment till we find what we are looking for but it is so frustrating! The other area we are considering is Macedon that is pal-mac school system because there taxes aren't too bad (the part of Macedon in the Gananda school system has taxes that are outrageous!).

Ryan and I also talked about the private school thing again. And after 4 years of looking at schools and finally finding one we have decided to send them to school in which ever district we buy in. We don't want to have to stress about paying for school and not be able to take the kids on vacations and buy things.

So fingers crossed that we find a house soon!!!!!!!!!!!

Needs, wants and updates

So the house I mentioned in the previous post has been sold. No big deal. We weren't crazy about the brick front of it anyways. We have found another house in Pittsford that we are waiting to get inside of. The house in Pittsford is a short sale*. I had no idea what that meant until yesterday and it means that the people that owned it owed more on it than it is worth. So the bank has the house now and it is on the market for $20,000 below assessment. So IF we like it maybe we can get it even cheaper!! Because right now the bank is just losing money on it!

When we moved into the house we are in now the big things I wanted were a master suite, 2 full baths, an eat in kitchen and a dining room. What I got was a small bedroom and 1 1/2 baths and an eat in kitchen. So.... lets try this again! This time what we NEED are
1) 3 bedrooms- preferably 4
2) Eat in Kitchen
3) Dining room- I would love this extra space for when our families are over
4) A backyard that is big enough for a pool and a swing set
5) Space that would be a playroom for the kids
6) Space that would be an office/scrapbook room for us
7) 2 full baths
8) A master bedroom -with walk in closets would be nice!
9) A spot for Ryan to park his big enclosed trailer
10) Two car garage
And it would be nice to find a house on a cul-de-sac. For some reason I just think that this would be really nice for the kids to ride their bikes and playing without worrying about too many cars. I would like for the house to be at least 2000 sq ft. And moving closer to where the kids will be going to school would be a big plus as well. Oh and a black top driveway would be heaven! Right now our house is 300 feet off the road and to blacktop the driveway from the road back to the shop would cost $10,000!!! So that never happened.

The house that we found in Pittsford has 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths and is in a cul-de-sac and has a backyard that is big enough for a pool and swing set. Hopefully soon we can get inside to see the rest to see if it meets our needs!

*When we bought our first house it was also foreclosed upon. We seem to have a knack for it! Our first house cost only $32,000!!! Yes, it was a steal! The house we are looking at now is $160,00 which with a down payment for our current house would put the mortgage and our living expenses with us living off of one paycheck for everything! That would be seriously awesome!

An update on my Mom. Her brain tumor has grown 2 cm in one month so it has to come out. She is scheduled for surgery on January 14th at Strong. She is a nervous wreck about it. I'm pretty sure she will be staying with us for a bit while she recovers. (She lives alone). My brother and sister in law are flying in from Hawaii on the 13th so that they can also be here while she has the surgery. So prayers please!

A hunting we will go

Ryan and I bought our house in 2003 and at the time it was just the two of us so our 1500 sq ft house with 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths seemed so big! But now we are bursting at the seams!! When Madison was born she got the big bedroom and the other bedroom was an office that we turned into a playroom for her. We then finished off the basement into an office. Then we had Cooper and the playroom became his room and the basement was refinished yet again into a playroom. Which left no space for our computers. Ryan's desk top is in our bedroom on a folding table and my laptop stays on the floor in our bedroom or on the kitchen counter. It really isn't working for me anymore. So we always said that when we needed more space we would add on.

To add a master bedroom and bathroom over the garage would cost $20,000 and that is with Ryan doing all the work himself. So it really makes the most sense financially speaking to buy a bigger house. So today we drove by 16+ houses and we only found 1 that we liked. Right now we have 7 acres so I am having a hard time with the 0.5 acre size lots!! They seem ridiculously small. But the house we found is in a neighborhood which would be great for the kids! Right now we live on a street that really doesn't have many kids so it would be great to go outside and have close neighbors with kids. That is a big plus to me. The house we found is in Perinton and is 2600 sq ft and 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. So it is much bigger than where we are now. And it would only be a 15 minute drive to Penfield for the kids school instead of a 35 minute drive! And as far as the outside goes I guess as long as there is room for a swing set and a pool that is really all we need. Oh and the best part is that I would get a scrapbooking room!!!!

I have a call into the realtor to see the inside of the house. We were hoping to go sometime this weekend to check it out and I think we are going to start by listing our house on craigslist and see how that goes. Wish us luck!!

Recap

There has been so much to do with the holidays and just stuff in general for the kids that blogging has taken a backseat.

Cooper is getting way too big. And I know that he is growing up but when I saw this picture I just couldn't believe that he is so big!
Cooper has been talking about himself in the 3rd person lately and it cracks me up every time! The other day I was driving to Tar-jay and he says "Where is Cooper going?" and I told him then he says "Where is Cooper going after that?" He does it a lot lately and it makes me laugh =) Last month Cooper and I went and looked at a preschool for him and he was so excited! As I checked out the school he jumped right in and started playing. It was nice but I really like the preschool Madison is in so I have to decide if I just pick him up early every day or look at more schools. The one we looked at was fantastic until I asked about parent participation and she told me that they don't really do that. I left a message about another school and the lady called back and said "I understand you are looking for DAY CARE" and I said I'm not looking for day care I am looking for a preschool and she says "Oh that is what I meant". Ummm yeah no thanks. I don't know what I am going to do with him for preschool yet. I wish I didn't love St Johns so much!!

Madison had a Thanksgiving feast at school and I was pleasantly surprised. She is very shy. She wants to join in and play but is just so shy. Her teachers have been pushing her to interact with the other kids which is great. So at the feast some of the girls were building with the blocks and she jumped right in and started playing!!! This is huge for her. She was also talking to a little girl at the pool the other day and when someone asks her a question most of the time she will answer them now. I picked her up from the school the other day and she says to me "Abby and Jenna are my best friends!" Oh how that made my heart smile!


My little kiddos are growing up so fast!

It fell on the floor.

The other day Madison and I made apple doodle cookies. And I told her that she could have one if she ate all her dinner. In our house if you want a treat you have to eat good meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then you can have a treat after dinner.

So we were upstairs getting Cooper up from his nap and she said that she needed to go downstairs and get the dinosaur she had made Cooper. I asked her to grab my phone while she was downstairs. After a few minutes I called down to her to see what was taking so long and she said that she was looking for my phone.

She gets back upstairs and I look at her and she has crumbs all over her face! I asked her what she had been doing downstairs and she told me nothing like 5 times. (Now I was laughing so hard that I could hardly talk to her!) So she finally says that a cookie fell on the floor and she had to clean it up!!! And by clean it up she meant she had to eat it. I was absolutely dying with laughter. However, she didn't get any more cookies after dinner!

Now that is a BAD week.

Apparently my family is falling apart. I got a string of bad news all in the span of a week. It was actually more like a few days.

Shana's autopsy results came back. They said she died of cardiac arrest due to massive lung failure. Which is kind of obvious. According to the doctor there was a genetic anomaly that contributed to that but I still have not heard what that is.

Dawn, my SIL and Shana's mom, was told that she may have cervical cancer. She had an abnormal pap smear after my nephew was born (4 1/2 years ago). She buried her head in the sand and ignored it and now has to have biopsies and all that jazz. I still haven't figured out why they told her she MAY have cancer. I know that her pap smears are coming back abnormal but it is hard to get accurate medical information out of someone that isn't familiar with it!

Sarah, my SIL, has a lump on her thyroid. She had a biopsy done on it and has to go back for more tests in 6 months to see if it has changed at all.

And to top it all of my Mom was having some vision problems and went in for an MRI and was told she has a small brain tumor. She has to go back in 6 months to see if it has grown or changed then they will decide what to do.

Is that enough drama??