OUR LIFE IN 3D

The Home of Daddy's Day Dare! ~ I am just trying to stay above water

Happy Birthday!

Monday was Skylar’s birthday. ~Films at 11:00!

While we are waiting for some vids to get downloaded I just wanted to give you a glimpse of the last carefree day or two.

happy birthday skylar

Yes, little Skye turned 3 Monday. We had a low-key celebration at our house since she and her older sister have basically been receiving gifts over the past two weeks. Her birthday wish for her birthday dinner? Macaroni and Cheese, what else?

But mac n cheese was only the side, the main course you say? Peanut butter and jelly! And even then she still likes to pull the sandwich apart and lick the insides or pick them off with her fingers. Yes, we are still working on her fork skills. You should see what happened to poor Cinderella!

Licking the icing off Cinderella

Licking the icing off Cinderella

Skylar painted her chin with birthday cake icing and then went out to play with her sister and new friend from next door. Nice and low key.

Sunday was the kick off to her birthday weekend as some of her very special grand parents popped into town and had lunch with us. Skylar smiled and laughed and enjoyed all the attention as her grandmother tried to steal all the hugs and kisses. And then, true to form, they walked both the girls out to their car and presented the birthday girls with two life-size birthday bags. It was a great day!

I think they remembered how much Skylar likes her lip gloss…

What did you eat this time?

What did you eat this time?

Because she got another sampling if it again. And she loved it too!

Sitting here I just realized we never said thanks to both of you after the kids tore open their birthday booty so THANK YOU SO MUCH!! The girls loved their new princess jewelry and tents! We loved those dresses! You two are great and we are so lucky to have you in our lives!

The girls treated these grandparents to their best versions of some favorite Schoolhouse Rocks songs. Does anybody remember these? Saturday morning educational commercials? I won’t tell anyone how long ago they were on TV.

  • Conjunction Junction
  • Interplanet Janet
  • 3 is a Magic Number
  • Electricity
  • Lolly, Lolly, Lolly (get your adverb here)
  • Interjections

Mom is always interested in seeing our two girls excel in school and these fun songs really fit the bill. We loved these songs as kids and so far our girls really like them too. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know what adverbs are; or interjections. Heck I was surprised at a couple of the pronouns.

But when the girls get to school these things are just going to click. Like the way Dylan can now count by fives to this song. Ya gotta have fun singing them out…

And having fun with these songs this past weekend took me to a happy place after the last week or two. You see two years ago we went to Ocean City, New Jersey on vacation and the local theater troupe put on a Schoolhouse Rocks play for kids on the boardwalk that week.

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Truthfully, mom and dad enjoyed the play and songs more than the kids did that year. But listening to these songs reminded me that is our summer vacation again this year, as we hope the kids are big enough to get on more rides this time. The town is made for kids and young families. So my clan’ll fit right in!

Here is a peak at two years ago at OCNJ, the Schoolhouse Rocks songs and some of the boardwalk adventures if you want to take an impromptu trip right now.

Or if you are interested in more family dirt here is Part I…

More about the summer vaycay later. It was nice just to relive some of those memories.

Friends and family, I am still working on the videos of Skylar’s big day and pictures from Aunt Sue to give you the full scam this weekend as well as some fun things from Easter. Stay tuned!

Happy Birthday Skylar! And have a good week everyone!

Its never over till its over….

A quick update on the misadventures of our house sale and purchase.

I don’t know if I told you that we are in the process of purchasing a house. That’s right we found one that “will suit” and so we are trying to land it. With a finite amount of time left before we had to be out of our home my wife comes to the conclusion that finding the perfect house, or floor plan, is just like finding the perfect man…it doesn’t exist so we have to settle for one we can live with.

Thanks hon.

We ‘settled on’ a brand new home in a neighborhood close to work that has the great school system. It is a 5BR 4Bth house with a sun room. It has a smallish back yard but big enough to fence in and put our pool, although that may not be this year due to all this misc. things we have to buy or get or fix as we ‘settle’ into our new home.

new house

Here’s a pic of the house close to the end of its construction. There aren’t many pictures of the inside since it was just completed but this gives you an idea of the living room and how open it is….

a look at the upstairs

But if our journey sounded hectic before it just gets crazier and crazier. A new contract with 50 signatures, moving money, figuring mortgage payments, closing on our old house in the morning and closing on the new house at noon; or else there is no place for us to stay. Will the funds wire through on time? We can’t move into the new home until we pay for it, which is after we sell our old home to get the full deposit.

Its like for 18 hours we have no place to stay. We will be living out of our cars as we hand over the keys to our first home and await our funds to wire through for the deposit on our new home. What happens if the banks hold up on the sale of our house? No stress!

So we are figuring all that out. We have a long list of things that have to happen before we sell our house or buy the other. Home inspections, transfer insurances, bank appraisals, sign this, initial here, sign this that says you already initialed here, and there is a fee for that too. No stress!

My family was down for a week over Easter and Dylan’s birthday. That same week our dishwasher went out. Easter dinner….no dishwasher…except mwah! The alternator on my car also decided to quit. And it looks like our clothes washer wants to follow suit.  We just got done paying for the hot water heater that went out last month. No Stress!

So this past week our home’s buyer sends his home inspector to evaluate our home and look for hidden dangers. We waited 5 days for the results. No news is good news, right?

Finally our realtor gives me a call. She starts out by saying, ” We just got the report back from the buyer. I forward it to your email. Now I don’t want you to get upset when you see it.…” GASP!!

You know when any conversation is prefaced like that it is not good news. He submitted a 23 page article of things that needed to be fixed! GASP!!

She says “its not that bad. Most of these things are easy fixes.”

Sure enough it turns out the home inspector found lint in the dryer vent, tree limbs that need to be trimmed away from our roof, leaves swept out of our air conditioner. I can do that! Give me a break!

And then we see the pictures of the rotted wood beneath our kids bathroom. The inspector notes the wood rotted all the way through to the mortar of the existing tile in the bathroom floor. Our realtor says, “I don’t know why that toilet hasn’t fallen through yet the way these pictures look.” …..GASP!!

Mentally we have already moved into our new home. We are planning furniture and pictures on walls. Snap back to reality. If we haven’t put enough money into this house already these past few months now we have to tear out a floor and repair some rotted wood; rotted wood I never knew existed! No stress!

This money was already ear marked for new patio furniture at our new digs. Or a fence, or a pool deposit. Now I have to fix my house…again…and in a timely matter that it doesn’t screw up this whole house buying/ selling transaction that we have worked so hard to put together. No stress!

I made some calls. Did some appointments. One day I literally had 6 people after me at one exact moment between texts, phone calls, emails, and Instant Messenger. We found a good contractor that can do the work on the rotted wood from the crawl space below. It is going to snatch a lot of our pre-sale funds for the new house but what else can we do? Stay?

So we are moving forward again. The work on the house will start, and hopefully finish next week. We still need an appraisal from the banks on both houses, do our own walk through in the new house, get insurance for the new casa, and probably sign a few more things.

Then box everything up the weekend before, take apart the kids swing set (that won’t be easy on the kids) so we can move it and prepare for the big day at the end of the month where we sell and buy a house over the course of a few hours. …And then meet the truck(s) that have our things and unload and unpack in our new zip code that afternoon. No stress!

Our new address will be “Wild Indigo Lane“. It sounds like a cheap fruity wine, doesn’t it? We already met some of our new neighbors; all nice folks. We are currently accepting names and initial dues for ground floor prices on ‘Wild Indigo Pool Society‘ memberships.

So I wanted to open it up to all of you. If anyone would like to come by and swim in our future pool, swim up to the pool bar, relax in our hammocks, get challenged to pool volleyball and enjoy some burgers and dogs at our cookouts please click here on the pre-construction prices. Hurry! Memberships are limited!

And I promise the money won’t be used to replace some old rotted wood under our current home. Hurry! Lines are now open!

We are facing some tough times and hard decisions that need to be made quickly as we try to sell our house.Its been daunting for both my wife and I at times. New things to fix, sign this (these!), how to qualify, when can we move, where best to allocate our funds, mortgage payments we can afford, when do we have to be out, the list goes on. Similar to this latest post by the Leadership Freak, its time to hang on during turbulent times; time to sink or swim, and sail through this turbulence…

Dan Rockwell's avatarLeadership Freak

turbulence

I chartered a sailboat for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. It was clear, sunny, and we could see the shores of St. Croix, when the captain invited me to “take the helm.”

Even a former farm boy can steer the boat in calm waters. I felt more important than I was. But…

Leaders matter most during storms.

Turbulent times and threatening circumstances call for skillful leadership. People depend on you. Challenging times make or break you and those around you. Rise up.

Your response impacts their response.

7 Surprising secrets to sailing in rough seas:

  1. Give power don’t take it. Tough times paralyze powerless people. Stifle your inner control freak!
  2. People feel most powerful when they feel in control. I still remember the feeling of holding the helm. I wasn’t doing much but I felt in control. Focus on controllable behaviors not uncontrollable circumstances.
  3. Ramp up compassion; tone down harshness. Embrace the tension…

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Doggy Manners

I went to one of my friend’s house last weekend. He has the coolest dog! He is a super friendly dog but my buddy still loves to tease him. Its so sad its funny.

We were watching some basketball Saturday night and my buddy says, “Watch this…”

And he goes to the refrigerator and gets some snacks. Then he just teases this poor dog! Take a look:

OK….I embellish a little sometimes.  🙂

Thanks for dropping . Have a great weekend!

 

Walk Like An Egyptian….

So Dylan, Skylar, and Aunt Sue are all playing Princess Castle. The girls have their fav Princesses and are talking about their fav Princes….and marriage! 

Aunt Sue offers in, “Well when you are ready I can marry both of you”, holding the King Triton action figure in her hand. 

Dylan counters, while clearly misunderstanding the meaning of Sue’s offer, “Oh no! We are ONLY allowed to marry one person in this country!” 

Ya gotta love her. 

Reality kicked in a bit yesterday after riding the high of a bid on our house. We put a bid on a house this weekend as well (we need to move now) but our offer was so low, in the owners eyes, they didn’t even acknowledge it.

This house listed for $295K. The current owners bought the house 2 years ago for $265K. We offered $260K, planning on going up to $275K  if we had to. 

That wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t even good enough to make a counter offer.

I want to ask the owners if they know what house prices have done over the past 2 years of foreclosures? It certainly wasn’t double digit growth!

My wife and I have been looking in this neighborhood since last Spring, mainly for the ideal school system it resides in. We have looked at several houses in this very same road stay on the market, with their prices dropping regularly over the last 9 months. Remember that one house with a pool?  

Roma out

This house has been on the market as long as we have been looking. It started at the same $295K price and is now under contract for 255K. Big drop! I guess the realtor of our preferred house is not disclosing this gem, which is right down the same street from the owners. And that house had a pool! 

Another, larger house, that is closer and on that same road as the house we bid on, has been on the market for over a year. We actually looked at it last Spring. It has dropped from over $300K to the current contract price of  $259K.  Amazing. What have the rates been doing since then? They are not going down anymore. So go ahead Donald Trump, watch your house sit for awhile. And sit. You could have been moving while the rates were still low.

So going back to yesterday’s post, reality tells me we actually have not sold our house yet. We just have an offer. There are still a few more thi ngs to cross off before we…have to get out!

OK! I got that outta my system. Sorry for the rant. 

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We had a birthday party last night at our house! Among all the chaos and stress of hoops and obstacles in the month(s) ahead it was nice to see some happy smiles on the kids. 

My parents and the Great Aunt Sue were in town for the fun. And it was good fun for everyone. 

My parents aren’t getting any younger either. Dylan was helping them unload their car Saturday when they pulled in. She was slow walking bent over as she carried a bag up the steps of our front porch. Confused on why Dylan wasn’t springing up the steps like she normally does, Mom asks, “Dylan what’s wrong with you? Why are you walking like that?” 

Dylan, in her innocent nature responds, “I was walking like and old lady”, mirroring how my own Mom covered the stairs after an 8  hour ride in the car. No matter how wrong that was you couldn’t help but laugh knowing she didn’t mean anything bad by it.

Dylan, enjoy it now. In a few more years you won’t be able to get away with that remark! Except maybe with your Dad

For a quick look at some of the weekend festivities and gift box destruction check out the video below. 

Thanks to everyone for making this a great birthday weekend!

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