Small Miracles

So. For the last few weeks we spent in our old house, and the first few weeks in the new house, Emma was being a little terror. We didn't pick up on it at the time, but we're thinking, in retrospect, that the likely spur of her terrible behavior was caused by the chaos in the house, with boxes and packing, and things constantly changing. We think she was just trying to show independence, and take control of her environment, and the way she did that was to throw huge tantrums every time she didn't get her way. I mean HUGE tantrums. Had me on the verge of a mental breakdown. That's when I sent out my SOS to my sisters and asked for advice from their experiences with THEIR kids. And I got some gems, let me tell ya. That's the great thing about being in a huge family - always someone to talk to! Always little nuggets of wisdom to be passed on, always a supportive shoulder to lean on. ANYWAY, I got some great advice that I was able to implement immediately. It was a little hard for me to swallow it all... realizing how badly I was caving to Emma and her rants, but I realized that I needed to start taking charge, and letting her, and showing her how to be independent in appropriate ways. And it didn't take long before we saw changes in her. Already, her tantrums have chilled WAAAAY out when she does have them, and they are few and far between, now. So, THANK YOU SISTERS!!

I just wanted to share one little example of Emma's progress. She had a Dr.'s appt on Friday, and she hates them. HATES HATES HATES them. She knows where we are, and what will happen there, immediately. So, it was ugly. But understandably ugly. She didn't throw a fit or anything, but she was crying and holding on to me for dear life the entire time we were in the exam room. When we got home, however, she was mad. She was mad at me for making her endure such trauma. I sensed a tantrum coming on, so I told her it was ok to be upset, but that we were home now and that she was safe. I then laid her blanket out on the couch so she could climb up there and cuddle with it. But, I guess she was still mad at me. However, instead of throwing her tantrum, she crawled up underneath the blanket, with nothing but her feet sticking out. She laid under there for several minutes, refusing to talk to me. But I was totally ok with it, because at least she wasn't flipping out!!

PSA

Things NOT to do, if you'd like to avoid getting punched in the face. By Me. Or maybe I'll send Bird after you:

1. Come up to my kid in her stroller at Target, and GIVE HER FOOD. Ummm??
a) You are a stranger. How do I know you're not poisoning my kid?
b) You are a stranger. How do you know my kid doesn't have allergies?
c) You are a stranger. How do you know I'm not currently trying to train my child to eat at prescribed times, and trying to get her to eat a wider variety of healthy foods, and NOT the jelly beans you are offering her right before we're headed home for lunch??


What the heck is it with people?? I would NEVER think of giving some strangers kid food in the middle of a store. Emma was just sitting there in her stroller, playing with my water bottle. She wasn't throwing a fit, and it's not like she saw the lady with candy and was begging for some. I get it if you're trying to be nice, but maybe ask me before you just hand her candy? Because guess what, when I took the candy away from her, Emma DID start flipping out. Wouldn't you? And the lady didn't understand why I wouldn't let Emma have the candy! She tried to give her another piece! And then when I told her to stop, she gave me a dirty look, told me I needed to "lighten up", and walked away.

Really? WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE IN HARRISBURG????

Beach

So, we had a beach vacation with Mike's family to Myrtle Beach, SC. Actually, we stayed in a sweet beach house, right on the water, in Surfside, SC, about 3 miles south of Myrtle Beach proper. It was sweet in every form of sweetness you can imagine. I'm still beat from the whole trip, so I'll get around to the details later. But here are some pics. Emma absolutely LOVED the beach. As soon as she woke up in the morning, she would go to the large glass doors and point to the beach and say, GO! It was torture for her to wait long enough to eat breakfast, and GASP! THE HORROR! For us to put a swimsuit and sunscreen on her. But once we got her out there... man she was just in heaven. Loved the water, loved the sand, loved going out in the waves with us. I was a little worried she'd eat a lot of sand, and drink a lot of sea water, but she did really good. Hooray!

About the house...

Before I forget -

Anna, we have wall paper in only one room in the house, the living room. It's a brown-ish color with a diamond pattern and a border at the top. The blue dining room is just a faux paint job, and actually it's not blue anymore, it's now Desert Camel, as is the family room and entry way. The kitchen is still white. Our bedroom is a FUNKY purple faux paint job with a border at the top. Once the border comes down, we will be painting it Gentle Rain, which is a very pale, soft gray color. Emma's room was just plain white, but we've painted in Pale Daffodil, which is the exact same color she had in her old room. We figured the more we could make it feel like her old room, the easier she'd adjust to the new house. We have wall paper borders at the top of the kitchen, the spare bedroom, and the half bath on the first floor (the walls in the half bath are the same as the walls in the master bedroom). We plan on leaving the wallpaper in the living room for now because it's not SO bad, but will be getting rid of it eventually. We do plan on getting rid of the borders everywhere as soon as we have the time.

Faith - I know I already facebooked you, but just for everyone else' sake, I'll say it again. You were so right. I am sooo sooo sooo in love with my new washer and dryer. The washer took longer than I expected, but then BAM! The dryer took 27 minutes to dry an extra large load. I almost peed my pants with excitement!

But, just so you don't think I'm bragging, Anna, I'll go ahead and tell you all that my dishwasher sucks Butt. Big time. In fact, my plates don't even fit in them. Anywhere. It is so bizarre. And it's like mom and dad's OLD dishwasher, where you have to actually use a sponge and soap to pre-wash the dishes before you put them in the washer. Sort of pointless. So. Bah.

I'll take more pics once we get things in their place, get furniture situated (OMG - Mike and I are actually getting bedroom furniture this weekend! Can you believe it?) and things put away so you can see the improvement with the paint jobs and whatnot.

Let's all let out a heavy sigh...

It was late when I took this pic. Sorry. I was tired.
Master Bath. Tub is to the right, behind the door.

Master bedroom. Yes, those walls are purple. Very purple.

Master

Spare Room

Emma's Room

Bathroom

1st floor laundry room

Entryway

Dining Room

Living Room

Family Room

Kitchen

Kitchen

Ok, the Universe just wanted us to sweat a little. You know how I said about fearing The Jinx? Yeah. Well, I was fairly certain that I would never again in my life share good news with anyone ever. Why? Because the day after I announced our good news about the house to the world... we got a call.

Call #1: The house that we were supposed to buy went into foreclosure. Apparently the seller decided to stop paying the mortgage, because he had moved out and his soon to be ex-wife was staying in the house. So he just didn't pay the mortgage for 8 months or so. And nobody knew it. Now, yes this is bad, BUT the timing of foreclosure didn't make any sense. Apparently a mortgage lender can't send a mortgage to foreclosure lawyers if it is under contract. We'd been under contract for a month, when they sent it to foreclosure on Wednesday. So, the likelyhood that we'd get our house was looking bad. If we DID get it, it would probably be a good two weeks after we THOUGHT we'd get it.

Well, we thought it wasn't so bad. We were selling our house, and if need be we could stay with either set of the rents for a couple weeks, or even a month of two if we needed to find a new house.

Call #2: This phone call came on Thursday at 7:00 pm. At this point, the ONLY item left in the house was one bucket of cleaning supplies, and I was sweeping out the garage, the very last part of the house left to be cleaned. We were literally about 10 minutes away from locking up and leaving. Call #2 was to let us know that the buyer for our house was likely not going to be approved for her mortgage.


BUT HOW CAN THAT BE? We got mortgage confirmation from her on March 18, and we got our final HUD-1 sheet earlier that morning??? Makes no sense?? Well... apparently our buyer gets paid in cash, and her mortgage confirmation was conditional on her continuing to provide bank statements. Well, this Monday her mortgage company decided that they wanted a letter in writing to prove that the cash deposits were indeed from her employer. So, she provided one. So, she thought that was done and done on Monday. But NOOOOOOO her mortgage company underwriters decided that they couldn't approve the loan without the approval of the Head Underwriter. So, by Thursday at 7:00pm our buyers agent had called our agent and told her that they were still waiting for final word from the H.U., but that it was looking like our buyer wouldn't get the mortgage.

So, that meant that we'd have to move back into the house that we had JUST EMPTIED, and then put the house back on the market IN MID-SPRING while the market is saturated... EXACTLY the conditions we wanted to avoid by putting it on the market in January. UGH.

So, we went to bed Thursday not knowing if we'd actually close on our house at 10am like planned, or if we'd close on our house at all. If we didn't sell our house, we couldn't buy the new one. And at that point, even if we DID sell our house, we still didn't know whether we were going to be able to buy the new house out of foreclosure.

So we slept realllllly great on Thursday night.


Long story short, we spent all morning agonizing and fearing the worst, until we got the call at 11:30 am that our buyer had been approved for a mortgage! HALLELUJAH!!


AND


AND


AND


By some miracle of miracles, we were able to buy our new house out of foreclosure after it being in foreclosure for just TWO DAYS. This is unheard of!!


So, long story short, I will never be sharing good news on this blog ever, ever, ever again.

Did I forget to mention...?

No, I didn't forget to mention. It was like I purposefully neglected to mention that...

We're moving!! TOMORROW! ACK!

We sold the house after it was on the market for about 5 weeks (you were close with your guess of 1 month, Lauren!!) and have been getting things with the house wrapped up for the last 7 weeks. There was the inspection, and the FHA appraisal, and both resulted in us having to do some major, but not TOO major work on the house. And then there's been the packing. Lots and lots of packing. And cleaning.

But, I'm glad it's almost over. I didn't really tell anybody (family included) about the move until very recently, because I have this thing about jinxing myself. (ask Darin, she knows) I have been petrified that something would go wrong, or our buyer would back out. But the day is here (in a couple hours) and there's no turning back.

We'll miss this house. Sort of. Ok not really. We'll miss the memories of this being our first home, and of bringing Emma home here. But that's about it. Goodbye, money pit. Goodbye, house in which you cannot make any noise while Emma's sleeping. Goodbye, house with the really annoying neighbors who may or may not live across the street!

We're moving to a new house in Linglestown, so it's not far from where we are now, maybe about 10-15 minutes. I don't have pictures yet, but I'll try to get some up by this weekend. It's in a very cute development, at the end of a cul-de-sac. There are some things that will need updating, (like the blue carpet, everywhere) but generally it's in great shape. The kicker that will make all you ladies jealous??? The house comes with a pretty much brand spanking new GE front loading washer and dryer. Awwwwwww Yeaaaaaaaah!

So, I'm happy.

Whole Lotta Random Emma Pictures

Sometimes she gets really into her books
She loves to lay in this little nook between the couch and a gate

doubled over with laughter

She was laughing so hard, I'm positive she peed her pants!

Loves tubby time!

This is her "MMMMMMM" face she makes when she's eating something good

Naturally, I taught her how to do it:)

Yummy lasagna

She's so cuddly in the morning!!

just being a goofball!

Someone has someone wrapped around their little finger. But I'm not naming names.

Sometimes she needs privacy

Hey! Get outta here!

She loves to read with daddy

How could you not love this face?

And this one?

Oh, she's up to something

Just laying around

Stretching it out

I introduced Emma to Oswald this week. I can't tell you how much joy this brings me.

The End.