News

Well....I have so much to catch up on but I figure I will start with the new stuff and work my way backwards. My mother in law informed me the other day that I don't update my blog enough, so I figured it was a push to do so.

We have lots going on in our lives right now. Our biggest news....in a month and a bit we will officially be a 1 house family!! I can't believe it, we FINALLY sold our Tuscany house!!! I can't even tell you how good it feels. It was a stressful sale, but it worked out in the end. The purchasers low balled us in the beginning but our realtor held strong and got us really close to our asking price. We were very happy. Then they had a home inspector that was a little bit ridiculous. He took 8 hours to complete the home inspection. We already knew this house was a wild card with a home inspection, the last thing we needed was an extremely thorough inspection! (Good for purchasers, bad for us). Well, they emailed us after the home inspection asking for $38,000 off the price because that's how much work the house needed. (Turns out it didn't, they were just trying to scam us). We figured we were back to the drawing board and told them to take a hike. Well, literally, 5 minutes before the offer was supposed to be void, they decided to sign the waiver at the price we originally agreed on. Can you believe it? We had already accepted that we were not going to sell the house and we were going to be stuck with it forever, and then they pulled this! So thankfully, come August 5, the house will no longer be ours!!!

So long Tuscany!! We will miss your 3 car garage and my favorite kitchen we have had so far, but not enough to want you back!!!

So...now that Tuscany is out of our lives, we need to shake it up a bit, right? We decided we wanted a clean slate, and now we have listed our Chaparral house. The hard thing about leaving this house is leaving the yard. Our yard is AMAZING!! It is so big. You just don't get a yard like this in the city very often. So we decided that if we want to trade our house without trading our yard, we would look in Langdon (a small town east of the city). I feel very good about this decision. We have taken a lot of thought and prayer to come to this decision. I do think that Jeff does not feel the same about this move as I do, but he is not great with change, and I hope that's why. So...if we do sell our current house, we will be moving to Langdon. I've heard it all, "why?", "are you crazy?", "do you realize how much driving you will have to do?" . In answer to all of these question and any you might have, YES, I realize it all, we have thought this through. We would not pick up our kids and move them to a small town, away from their favorite cousins, all their friends and our excellent ward if we didn't think it was the right decision for our family. There are lots of kids in Langdon, there is a K-9 school with another school opening next year, the lots are HUGE, every person we have met there is nice, the ward is different, but we think we will like it and it's not that far from the city! We aren't moving to another country, it's only 25 minutes from our current house. Plus, Jeff's sister lives in Chestermere which is the same ward as ours. They live in his parents house while they go on a mission, so if they leave, hopefully his parents come back after their mission. Now, of course this move will only happen if we can sell our current house, so who knows?!

Clara is almost done grade 1! I can't believe it. She is growing so fast. She loves school and has lots of friends there. That's what gives me hope she will have no problems making friends in the new school. She auditioned for her school talent show that is this week and she made it! She's doing a dance routine and I am very excited to see her show the school her talent. She really is a great dancer, very poised and very graceful, plus she can drop down into the full splits (which is what I think separated her from the other kids in her class that auditioned and didn't make it). She is definitely a performer, that's for sure. She does very well in school, she reads well, she listens well, she is very creative. I sure am proud of her and I am excited to watch her grow and learn.
This is her after her dance recital which was last weekend.

Then there is Donovan, he's a ball of fire and he's my sidekick. He is so ready for kindergarten and has been for a while. He is dying for that social interaction. He waits all day for Clara to come home to play with him. Sometimes he tries to get Elliot to play with him until he realizes all Elliot wants to do is eat his toys, not play with him. Donovan is a good big brother though, he takes such good care of his baby brother and he helps me around the house so much. He doesn't always listen and you often have to tell him something 3 times before it actually sinks in, but it could be worse. He's an excellent reader and speller. I think he's almost as good as Clara is, and she is a pretty good reader herself. He's a lot of fun to have around.


Good old Elliot. He is 8 months old now. He is one busy boy. He's been crawling around for at least 2 months now, he's climbing the stairs, he tries to climb the ladder for the kids bunk bed and just yesterday he was trying to walk. He's crazy. He holds onto the couch, lets go and tries to get to the other side of the couch. Of course he just falls, but then he gets back up and tries again. I hope he gives up on this ambition soon, I don't think we are ready for him to start walking because I am pretty sure I won't be able to keep up with him. He's funny though because he will do something naughty and look over with the biggest, cutest smile and it makes it hard to do anything but smile back. He's a lot of fun and I am so glad we have him in our family, he sure adds a lot of excitement and happiness to our lives.

No matter what happens over the next few months for us, we are so blessed. I feel so fortunate and so grateful for what we have.