Too much to do!!

To answer your first question, yes I do realize that it has been 2 months since  I have posted. But I have a good excuse!! Carlos and I bought our first house!! Now granted, this has only been going on for the last month, but oh boy, has it been a busy month.

Carlos and I had been having our eye on a house out in the Sylmar/Lake View Terrace area since the end of August. The house wasn't being sold as a "traditional" sale, aka, seller lists house, buyer buys house and 30 days later, its now their house. This house was being sold as "probate". Now I don't have a full understanding of probate, but from what I get, it means that grandma died, and didn't leave the house to one particular person, so the house had to be sold and the profit had to be shared amongst all of the beneficiaries. Some probates have to have a court confirmation, and some don't. This one did have to have a court confirmation. Its just the courts way to making sure the house gets sold for a fair amount, and no one gets away with something they shouldn't be. When we first eyeballed this house, we discovered that someone else had already put in an offer on the house and it was waiting for court confirmation. We waited and waited and for a change of pace, we waited some more. We then discovered that the court date would be November 19, at 8:00 AM. We found this out about a month before the date, and oh boy, was that the longest month of my life. The day before we were suppose to go to court, my mom and dad called me and told me about this other house that they just found. It had only been on the market for 3 days. They wanted to take Carlos and myself out to see the house, and oh boy, was I mad. The house was right around the corner from the other house we had been looking at. Why would you be showing us other houses the night before we are suppose to go to court? I was so upset. Why cloud my dream house? But we went out and saw this other house. I liked the house, but it didn't have the backyard that "our" house had. It has a lot more space than the house we had been looking at, but it didn't have the same size back yard. It was a newer house and it didn't need as much work as the other one too. While we were in the house, there was 8 other couples going through it too. I didn't like that too much, because I felt like I was being starred at the entire time. Finally the day came, and we went down to court. Now, I don't know if you have ever been in a court room, and hopefully, I hope you never find yourself in one, but it is very very difficult to hear in one. People are shuffling papers, and the people who are talking are faced away from you, so you can barely hear anything. So, we waited for our case to be called, and finally it was, and without hearing anything, someone walked up, and then about a minute later walked out of the court room, and they called the next case. Um.... what just happened here?? My dad rushed out of the court room to find the attorney who was just in there. We find out that the family continued the case until December 20. Oh great, we have to wait another month. I was just beside myself. I wanted to be in a house before Christmas. I couldn't think of being another month in our little 800 sq. foot apartment. I couldn't think of spending another Christmas in our tiny apartment. So that morning, my dad and I decided to write up an offer for the house that we saw the day before. I didn't think that we were going to get the house, but I thought it would be something to keep us entertained while we waited for court the next month. The next day, my dad submitted the offer and we waited. The next day, the Realtor who was selling it, emailed all of the people who had submitted offers and stated for everyone to submit their "Best and Final" offer. So we submitted our best and final offer and waited again. The next day, we found out we got the house. Um... what? I was sitting in the middle of In N Out when my dad called and told me and I had to prevent myself from screaming my lungs out. I was so excited. I didn't realize at that moment that it would be the beginning of the craziness.

During that point in time, Thanksgiving happened. Oh man, Thanksgiving was a busy week for us. My oldest brother, Mike, and his girlfriend, Jackie, and her two boys, Parker and Preston, came to visit us for the holiday. It was a ton of fun. We went to Disneyland the day before Thanksgiving, which I do not recommend, unless you have a death wish. It was SOO busy. I didn't think it was going to be that busy, but oh boy, was I wrong. We took a family Christmas card picture on Thanksgiving

Mom and all of the kiddos.

Logan, Me, Carlos and Connor

Then played with Connor's stomp rocket. That was a lot of fun. We all took a turn launching the rocket up into the air, including my mom and dad. The kids got a kick watching all of the adults make themselves look like idiots!

Up up and away!!

Its good!!

After the craziness of Thanksgiving cleared, we had to get right back to packing and moving. But first, Ann and I went over to my moms house and help set up Christmas decorations. I love doing that. Its one of my favorite things to do. It took us an afternoon, but we got it all done. I set up the tree, put up the lights and hung all of the ornaments, while Ann set up the outside lights and set up the decorations in the other rooms.

Connor in front of the tree

Grandma show Connor and Logan where each of the ornaments came from

I was tired after I set up the tree!!

Grandma and her two Grandbabies. 

Connor asking when Santa is coming

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, when escrow was opened, I put my 30 day notice in at my apartment. That felt SOOO good. Knowing that I only had 30 days to be cramped up in that little apartment!! During that month, we packed a little, had Thanksgiving, and then packed a little more. We had a rough time packing, because we had no place to put the packed boxes. I didn't want to leave the packing to the last minute, but I didn't want to be sitting on boxes for the next month. Finally, we had access to the house, but we couldn't move in quite yet. We had to have the place tented, to remove all of the termites. That took a couple of days, and then moving day was here. Carlos and I had done a good job on moving most of the boxes of there on our own, but we still needed to move all of the furniture over there. We got all of the furniture over there, and thanks to my family for helping me unpack all of the stuff. We got most of the boxes unpacked the first day and our house was actually livable. It felt so good.

The kids LOVE the extra space. They actually have their own play room. The kids sleep and bathe upstairs and then play down stairs. This helps minimizes the toys around the house. Now keeping the kids in the play room is the difficult task. They like to run around the entire house, which usually doesn't bother me, but right now, since the house has no furniture, it echoes all of their screams. The kids have the backyard to be playing in too, but its was raining all last week, so we didn't get to use it all that much. This week, we have used it plenty. We brought the play structure from my parents back yard out this past week and they have had a lot of fun.

Logan is 14 months old now. He is my little smiley baby. He just loves when people play with him and run around with him. He especially loves his big brother. Him and Connor are inseparable. They love to be with each other all day long. Logan came to sleep with Carlos and I the other night, and when Connor woke up and noticed that Logan wasn't in his crib, Connor ran into our room, at 6:14AM, and screamed "LOGAN IS GONE!" Logan then poked his head up from under the sheets  and the fun ensued (at 6:14 in the morning...).

Connor is 3 and a half. Goodness..... Where did my baby go? He is into Star Wars big time. Carlos sat down with him a few months ago and watched the entire set of Star Wars movies. To this day, I still don't know how Carlos got him to sit there and watch all 6 movies. I can barely do that. He has to have all of the toys and such that go along with the movies. He does everything with those toys. They go with us to the store, they go in the bath, they go to school, they go to church, they go everywhere. He is going to preschool 2 days a week in the morning, and he loves it. He wishes he could go to preschool everyday with his friends.

Carlos is on winter break for 2 months. He likes the time off because it gives him the time that he wants to do things around the house. We have a lot of landscaping to do in the back yard, and by landscaping, I mean tearing out a bunch of plants. Carlos likes to tinker with things, and this gives him the time to do so. He will start back up his diet after the first of the year to finish losing that last 20 lbs. He has done well with keeping the 50 lbs he lost off, but struggles on not returning to his old eating habits. He weighs himself everyday and doesn't let himself get away with too much.

I have been keeping myself busying with a bunch of baking during the Holidays. I love to bake. I love to eat even more! We had our first official dinner party on Christmas Eve. We had Carlos' family over for dinner and it was fantastic (if I don't mind saying so myself). It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to having many  more dinner parties.

I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and we are sending you Happy New Year wishes. Stay safe!!

I am hoping, now that the dust has settled, to return to posting on a regular basis, but no promises. I am trying to keep myself busying around here!!

Happy New Year!!