Hello again, welcome back! I feel like I am never going to catch up with all the things I have to share with you guys, it's almost funny (and not the ha-ha kind of funny). I still have a few things from the old house that I am not sure if I am going to share or not, we will have to see what happens. It seems likes such a waste not to share, but then there is so much new going on that I don't know if I will have time. First world problems over here.
Today I am sharing the story of how we almost didn't move and actually moved four days later than expected. This will just be a quick, cautionary story for you guys about how you should never close two houses on the same day. We were told that this really wasn't THAT big of a deal prior to everything, but guys.... trust me. Don't do this.
(Our First House)
We were set to close our old house (first house) on July 7th and use that sale to buy our current house (new house) on July 7th as well. Prior to moving day Luis and I moved anything that wasn't being used on a daily basis into a storage unit, so that on moving day it would just be furniture and essentials. We had an extremely tight timeline, but thought we could do it. We rented a truck and had a ton of people help us move everything into it by lunch time.
We started to get antsy around 3pm when we hadn't heard anything from our lawyer and called him. This is where we were told that somehow the financing from our buyer was rejected and they would not be able to get the keys to our new house that day and that the sale was now in question. Guys, I have never been so scared and upset in my whole life.
We decided to leave everything where it was and stay with my parents for the weekend, leaving the animals in the empty house and going over a few time a day to let the dogs out and feed them all. Luis and I took the Monday off work, had our helpers meet us at the old house after lunch and waited. And waited. And waited. At 4:45 I drove over to the lawyers office and started to cry in the reception area while waiting to talk to our lawyer because we still didn't have word on if we would be getting the keys or not.
(Our New House)
We got the keys at 5:01pm on July 10th and had the entire truck and storage unit unloaded by 7:00pm that night. I can't even tell you how hard our friends worked that day for us. Oh, and did I mention that both of the kids and myself had fevers and a really (REALLY) bad cold? Yeah, it was a good time and I was pretty much useless for that part of the move.
Apparently the credit union that our buyer used is notorious for not checking paperwork and not getting things submitted on time. It ended up working out quickly for us, but this little hiccup ended up affecting 6 families total because the people we were buying from had to stall the purchase of their new house. And so, and so on, for 4 more families. Such a crazy and scary thing to happen, and as we were going through it everyone just kept saying "the chances of this happening are so small" and "it's always a possibility, but I've never actually had this happen". Not very helpful people.
So moral of the story? Don't close two house on the same day. Bridge your mortgages if you can, and if you can't see if you can crash somewhere until you get the keys to you new house. This was my public service announcement that will hopefully save someone from having a mental breakdown in front of all of their friends and family.
Kerby
Hi everyone, sorry for disappearing on you for so long. It has been a crazy few months of getting things done that aren't really blog related, house maintenance and things like that. And if you follow me on Instagram you will know that we are moving from our first home!
We had to started getting this list of things done because back in March we decided that we had outgrown our current house and needed to move. The plan was to spend a few months getting the house ready and sell the house during the fall. We contacted a real estate agent to in March for a few reasons, 1. What our house was currently worth (we could guess all we want) and 2. What she suggested we do versus leave alone and not waste the time or money on. Long story short, we were plugging away at the list of things to do before we listed the house and she told us she had someone that really wanted our area and wanted to have her come through. This was only the beginning of April and we still had so much to do, but we decided that it might help narrow any problem areas for us.
We had the viewing that weekend and had an offer from them the same day at full asking price, so we accepted her offer and started our house search! Once we started, we realized that the market in our town was crazy and almost every house was being sold like ours, before it ever hits the market. We had a few weeks that were scary where we thought we would have to rent a place because we could not find anything we liked, but we ended up finding the perfect house. We didn't hesitate to put an offer in quick and buy the house, we didn't want to lose it.
Please forgive me for the terrible picture above, I realized after we got home that I never took a picture of the front of the house!! This is off of the real estate listing, and wouldn't flip to full size for some reason. As you can see, we have our work cut out for us. This house needs lots of updating, like our first house did, but we are more than ready to turn this house into something amazing.
And that's all for now! We are currently packing everything we own, which is way too much stuff, and are moving at the beginning of July. Hopefully we don't get lost in all the boxes.
Kerby
Hello one and all! Can you believe it's the middle of January? That means we have almost completed the first month of winter, only a few more to go. I do love the winter season, but hate that it coops the kids up for days on end. Nothing is worse than toddlers that are sick of being in the same house for days on end.
I thought it was time to finally talk about Kaley's first birthday party, which was a Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star theme. I know most of my 2016 posts we about Kaley, but those should calm down a little now that I'm no longer doing monthly pictures. I knew right away that this was the theme I wanted to do, since I only get to pick a few for them before the start to pick for themselves.
I love the way that pink and gold look together, it is classy and girly all at the same time. This was such an easy choice for Kaley's first birthday theme, and since I picked it extremely early I was able to do most of the decorations in the summer.
I made the invitation in PicMonkey using the create option with a ton of trial and error getting glitter words to work. This was fun once I got the hang of it, and took so much longer than it should have because of it.
It's hard to see because the background of the invitation is white, done with shades of pink and touches of glittery gold (Trust me that it looks much better in person). I printed these invitations out on 4x6 photo paper and chose a matte finish so that it would be easier to read.
I wanted to have a star-filled night type background for the table, and I chose to use tissue poms as the clouds. I used light pink, dark pink and white tissue paper to make these. Then I cut out a million (not really, but it felt like it) stars in four shades of pink card stock (these were bought as a package and were in a gradient) and I used glitter scrapbook paper for the gold stars.
I hot glued the stars onto fishing line in random patterns that were roughly the same length and used the same amount of stars. A note, I taped the fishing line to the wall under the tissue poms, but also taped the stars in the middle and bottom to the wall to make sure they all stayed forward facing. To make it look a little less formal I taped extra stars along the sides to make it look a little more natural. Pictures do not do this justice, it was so pretty in person!!
Ans if you've followed this blog for any amount of time you know I like to dress our front window up as well. The living and dining rooms are attached, so it helps the two rooms flow together for the parties. I chose to make tissue paper tassels and hang them with some extra stars from the window.
I wish it was easier to take pictures of the front window so you could see how nice this looked in person. I also wished my front window looked a lot nicer than it does, but that's a problem for another time. I can't seem to find the pictures that I took for a tutorial, so I may make some more to show you guys. I will say that the regular tissue paper (pinks) was much easier to work with than the metallic tissue paper (gold).
For the cake smash portion of the party, I set a little area up for Kaley's high chair in the living room so that everyone could see. I put the same stars up for the background, and tissue tassels around the front of the chair. I printed out Kaley's monthly pictures to frame the stars, using gold washi tape on shades of pink card stock. Because I hadn't taken her 12 month pictures yet, I just used a picture from her cake smash the weekend before (watch for a post on that in the future!).
Now for the table and the food, which we decided would be a brunch. We were having Braxton's third birthday party and Kaley's first birthday party a few weeks apart and I wanted to be able to serve different food. Add to that the fact that this party was the week before Christmas, I wanted to make sure that people would be home early in case they had Christmas dinners to go to.
A mimosa bar was a must, but I didn't want to put it on a separate table. So I just put the glasses, juice and champagne at the back of the table on each side, away from little hands. You can see this in the pictures below. For the food we had: a fruit tray, croissants, carrot cake with cream cheese icing (just boxed carrot cake mix with this cream cheese icing), banana bread (recipe here), mini cinnamon rolls and a breakfast bake that my mom made (not pictured).
Yummy. That was what all of that was, and the cinnamon rolls lasted about five minutes after the kids found them. I didn't want to have too much food because it was a brunch, and this worked out to be the perfect amount of food. And all of it was so easy to make ahead of time and set out right before the party started.
Instead of cake I just made some cupcakes with the leftover cake batter from making Kaley's smash cake. I thought it might be a little early for cake, and there were tons of sweets on the table already. I think the parents appreciated this, though I'm sure the cinnamon rolls gave them a sugar high for a few hours.
I used two cake stands to make a tiered stand to put the cake and cupcakes on, which made a great centerpiece for the table. Some gold candlesticks and glitter vases filled with pink flowers finished the table off. I used leftover gold stars hot glued onto cake pop sticks for a little food bling on the cake, banana bread and carrot cakes.
And now some pictures of the birthday girl, who had a special little outfit for the day: a onesie with gold writing and a pink and gold tutu. I don't even care if she hated it, it was the most adorable thing ever! Don't mind the grumpy face, she was tired because it was her nap time right when the party was starting.
She had such a fun day, even though she was exhausted. Kaley decided to stick close to Mommy and even helped open her gifts, kind of. Once the party was in full swing she owned the place and had everyone laughing.
It was a great day and our family and friends spoiled her rotten, and even Braxton had fun stealing Kaley's toys and playing. It was so special to be able to celebrate Kaley's first birthday as a big event, just like we did for Braxton. Though I'm pretty sure that we will now start doing a combined party, since their birthdays are only 16 days apart. Way too much going on to do two birthday parties and Christmas.
Thank you for sharing this year long journey with us, you will have to come back again next year to see what we do for the kids birthdays. It's anyone's guess at this point since my kids change favourites on a daily basis. I love planning and decorating parties, and am so happy that I have someone to share all the hard work and results with.
Kerby
Linking to:
Ginger Snap Crafts - Wow Me Wednesday #282
Hello everyone and welcome to the last monthly picture of Kaley. My baby is no longer a baby! She's now a toddler and growing up so fast every day, and I can't stand it! Sometimes when I feel like this I wonder how my parents feel, to have your child fully grown with a family of their own. Surreal is the word that comes to mind.
My little tornado never stops moving and is always keeping me on my toes. This month's picture took forever and this was the best one I was able to get, after about an hour of extreme frustration. Kaley decided to rip the backdrop down about six times during this photo shoot.
Kaley is such a great eater, I love that she will try anything and hasn't found much she doesn't like. After Braxton, feeding Kaley seems like a breeze! I know that she will eat whatever we eat, and I usually end up sharing most of my dinner with her (after she finishes hers). She actually shared most of our Christmas dinners with me, silly girl.
Every day it get a little harder to keep up with her, and poor Braxton is having to get very creative with how to keep his toys away from her. We've taught him to start playing at the dining room table, on the built-in's and even on the couches. Though, they are not going to be safe for long. Kaley's new favourite thing is to throw all of the toys out of the toy baskets and climb in the basket. Braxton loved to do this too.
Here is a sneak peek of her cake smash! I just can't keep up with how much she has grown.
Thank you for sharing this crazy year long journey watching our little girl grow. And if you missed any previous months, you can find them here: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten and eleven.
Kerby
Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season. May your days be merry and bright, your stockings heavy and your hearts full. I'm going to take some time to relax and spend with my family, but I will be back in the new year.
Thank you all for the great year.
Kerby
Hi everyone, and welcome back. This is the second last picture I will be sharing, because my baby girl will be one in two days! Can I just stop time now? Please? Pretty please?
My little baby is getting so big and bright. There is no stopping her when she sets her mind to something, and I love watching her think things through. She's our little tornado, and is a joy to watch grow up. And is it ever getting hard to take these pictures with her laying down, she just shoots up and runs away.
She makes us laugh continuously while at the same time so frustrated! I cannot believe the things that she gets into, every day it's something new. And it seems that she is continuously learning and finding ways around our blockades and baby proofing. Braxton was never a problem with this, and is always a practice in patience.
I forgot to include it on the picture, but Kaley had her first Halloween this month! She was too cute when dressed up, and completely willing to ham it up for the camera.
Kaley will eat and eat and eat. She is always willing to try new foods and will actually drink from a sippy cup. This is such a blessing after our picky eater (Braxton, I'm looking at you).
Well, that's all for this month. I'm finding it hard to write about Kaley so late after the picture was taken because I start confusing the months. Good thing there's only one left.
Kerby
Hello, hello everyone. And I have to say, holy am I late posting this monthly picture! I have had the pictures ready for a month now, I have just been lazy and busy doing other things. Oh well, better late than never!
I don't even know where to start with this little girl! She is so happy all the time, and is always making us laugh. She's friendly and such a sweetheart to everyone, including people she's just met. Even on her worst days, you can usually get her laughing and being silly again.
It's starting to get hard to take pictures of her because she is trying to do all the things so fast that she is constantly falling and bruising her poor little face. She actually has a shiner and a black eye from a recent fall into a coffee table as I write this. And the only way I can think of to stop this from happening is to bubble wrap my entire house. She just wants to GO.
She is so curious and wants to be part of everything. Naps are hard to come by in the afternoon anymore, she just can't miss anything that Braxton is doing. Her favourite toys are now soccer and "basket" balls, and she loves carrying around ball pit balls. She loves to throw the larger ones around and chase after them. It's stinking adorable.
And everything is a prize and edible. Doesn't matter what it is, it can be eaten according to Kaley. The amount of dog hair and leaves we rescue from her is just hilarious some days. It's rare to get an outdoor picture where she isn't putting leaves into her mouth.
That's it for this month since this is such a late post, and I have her 11 month pictures coming up. I think I am confusing and combining the months, everything is just going so fast. Hopefully you will come back to see what's new with Kaley for her 11 month picture. And she's going to be one in less than a month! I'm so excited and distraught that she's getting so big.
Kerby
