Nothing to do while babysitting? Is that possible?

Ok so my sister-in-law Jana asked me if I could watch her kids for her....she got called to Jury duty. I was happy to.....when I got there and her oldest-Sheridan was still at school. Teriesa immediately attached to Ashleigh and they along with younger brother Nathan traipsed off to play together. The youngest cousin-Cooper attached to Preston and they went off to play together. I literally sat in their kitchen for the first like 15 min wondering what I should do....everyone was getting along and everyone had someone to play with and I really had nothing to do. So, I read a magazine. Then I started listening to Dr. Laura. Then I decided I wanted to get pictures of the kids and what they were doing...so here they are...

Preston and Nathan eating some candy

Teriesa and Ashleigh---best of friends!

Cooper and Nathan

Hugs.....Cooper is so sweet...always wanting to give Preston hugs. Love it!

Preston just hanging out...he loves this chair!

Teriesa, Ashleigh and Nathan playing in the dirt...they had fun making mud pies for the orphaned kids that were sitting on the snow bank behind them! haha

Preston and Cooper playing on the beds...

Are you taller than me? Ash and Teriesa measuring each other...I think Teriesa wins!

Teriesa
The girls got in to some make-up...this is how they look after putting it on by themselves!
Ashleigh

Nathan wanted a picture of him too.....he's so cute!!!

Thanks Jana...I know it was probably nice to get out-even just to jury duty, but really I had a lot of fun!!!!! :)

Hallellulia

I love our new lender. He calls us daily with updates. He's ordered title, he's ordered the appraisal, we are FINAL approved-contingent upon verifying Nick's employment income. As long as Nick's VOE and appraisal comes back good then we are as good as gold and will get the house!

We decided a couple days ago that even if we don't get the house we are going to put in notice at the apartments anyway-we just can't stand living here any more.

The latest thing---the water heaters between our apartment and our neighbors started leaking over the weekend and on Monday they fixed it, but my Monday night all the water that had leaked out decided to make its way in to our apartment. When Nick stepped in our front closet to find the leak there was so much water it went up and over his foot!!! SICK!!! They came on Tuesday and sprayed mold killer and told us to just keep soaking it up with OUR towels and that it should be dry in a day or two. Meanwhile our place smells like puke---like mold and no ventilation, etc. I HATE being here! I am trying to find any and every excuse lately to be out...like yesterday I was VERY happy to watch Kevin and Jana's kids for them and then just drove around Utah County for another 3 hours after that! I realize that was a waste of gas, but I just couldn't bear to go back home. And when I did get back home the smell was worse than ever. I opened the back door to get some fresh air in...turned on the ceiling fan, sprayed Fabreeze everywhere and cleaned everything else as much as I could. It will be a WONDERFUL day when we can move from here! These apartments are trash!

Anyway, so everything is still moving forward with the house and we are getting so excited!!! With our signing date moved up to the 13th...that means we only have 2 WEEKS til we are officially home owners once again! wow! I know this time is just going to fly by and I realized today and I need to get boxes and start my packing process!

The good thing is-once we sign the papers and the currents tenants move out, we'll still have just under 2 weeks to get all moved out of our apartment so I can take my time, I can take trips out there daily with stuff and put it away as we go-I think I'll be less overwhelmed by doing it that way. And, it'll give me time to clean this DIVE so that we can get our whole deposit back! Ahhh....can't wait!

I really don't enjoy mornings...

I have never been a morning person. I always like to stay up late and sleep in a little. That's why my working in the evenings works out well for me...I don't mind staying up late! Well....It used to work out well cause my kids never went to bed before 10 or 11pm and would sleep in until 930 or 10am the next day. lately though, Preston has decided that he wants to wake up when daddy wakes up...which is like 7:15am. :-( NOT good....once he's awake he starts asking to eat-and there is NO shutting him up until he gets some breakfast! It's not like with Ashleigh-I could give her breakfast, turn on the TV for her and go back to bed for a couple more hours...NO, Preston has to be "monitored" while he eats cause ultimately something is going all over the floor. So, when Preston wakes up at 7:15, I have to wake up at 7:15. I am REALLY not happy about this new arrangement, but I am dealing---sort of. 'Yawn'

Wow...talk about a very stressful Wednesday!!

Looks like my nerves about our house financing was justified.

Nick sent a message to our lender (I'll call him K) about some things he told us that just didn't quite add up to us. He called to talk to me and after a verifying a few things from the e-mail, he told me that he probably wouldn't be able to do our loan. He also told me that the appraiser was at the house today and K called him and told him to stop doing the appraisal-the appraiser apparently said that he'll still have to charge half his fee then since he made the trip out there. I told K that the charge had better NOT be billed to us, since we were clear all along about Nicks base + commission income and if K had chosen not to hear that than that bill falls in his lap!

Of course I freaked and stressed, I mean, we put down earnest money and we were losing ways to back out and get our money back...plus, we had already paid money for an inspections. If we don't get the house I don't want to be out all this money simply because our lender didn't listen to me!

I called our Realtor, I called Nick, etc....I then called one of the other lenders who has seemed really honest and upfront the whole time-I'll call him J. I explained the situation to J. He very calmly told me that K is a broker-and that brokers are at the mercy of the lenders that they use. He educated me on how the house buying process works-step by step-and I realized that K had been very shady with us and dishonest and we would have probably been screwed over in the end! Thank goodness for J for telling me the truth.

We have decided to stop moving forward with K and switch to J for our lending needs. I had to make a stop payment on the "held" appraisal check that I gave to K-another NO NO! and I have to call him today to let him know that he will no longer be getting our business...and I'll be calling the company that referred him to us and let them know that he is doing shady business!

I am VERY disappointed, but glad that we got this figured out NOW rather than just before we were to sign the papers. Literally the stress I had been feeling for so long is gone. I am feeling better and happier and I know everything is going to work out now. I am chalking it up to a life lesson! Hope it's smooth sailing from here on out....we are looking to sign the papers now on the 13th of March. I hope so............

Excited...yet a little annoyed

By all estimations we have got the house...we agreed on terms, we had a great inspection, we got an approval from our lender, we've submitted all the necessary docs that they need, we've put down earnest money, we have a projected closing date of March 17-we already have the stinking truck scheduled to move! Everything seems to be in order...right? Well, I have my doubts and I'll tell you why... the way I always understood buying a house-you get the "Final" approval for the loan BEFORE you order the appraisal....am I wrong? Apparently so! To my surprise, we have to getting the appraisal by Thursday and only THEN will our docs, application, appraisal, etc.. FINALLY go to the underwriters to get the FINAL approval-which can take another 3 days....we may not even really know for another week if we have actually gotten the house or not!! Now I am flipping out-I have felt sure of this house from the moment I walked in to it so I know I just need to have faith, but it's REALLY hard when I know that something could still go wrong! Oh my heck-I am so nervous! Anyone...I need advice/comfort.... help!!!

Officially under contract

Yoo Hoo, after a week of negotiations, and talking to multiple lenders, etc.. we are officially under contract to buy the house we want in Eagle Mountain. We have our inspection scheduled for Tuesday morning and the appraisal should be sometime thereafter. We hope to close on March 17. Less than a month away! It's coming up quick but it is very exciting! This house is a GREAT deal and I just hope and pray that it all works out for us. We'll keep you updated as we know things.

Silly faces

Ashleigh goes-I want to make silly faces with you like you did with Arah mom...so we did. Funny though-she had the exact same silly face for like 4 of our shots. I finally told her she needed to do something different. :) It was fun.



I love my Ashleigh!!!!

Oreo's anyone?

I gave Preston an Oreo last night-boy who knew a single cookie could make such a mess! :) He loved it though and kept asking for more.

Thanks G'ma and G'pa Ballard

My parents sent Ashleigh some puzzle mail. She had so much fun trying to put it back together, but ended up needing daddy to help her. Her absolute favorite thing is getting mail so it was an especially great surprise to get such a full envelope with stickers, papers to practice cutting on, a letter puzzle, etc... Thanks mom and dad-she LOVED it!

Sick kid once again...

Man, this winter has been a hard one for our family! I think we've gotten sick more in one year living in Utah than 5 years in Washington! Since October-one of my kids-or both have been sick at least once a month! Its frustrating. Anyway, Preston got sick Sunday night and has been under the weather since. Yesterday-out of sheer boredom I took a bunch of pictures of the kids.

Ash in my sunglasses

Preston could not get comfortable and kept roaming the house for a place to lay-here's where he ended up-for a short while.

We had this bowl nearby in case he threw up...he didn't thank goodness, but in one of his fits of anger he hit the right side of the bowl-you see here-the rounded part and it made the bowl shoot up and the pointed part on the opposite side hit him just under his right eye...

Can you see it? There's a red spot just under his right eye. That is where the bowl hit him....the rest of the red on him is a rash or something that doesn't seem to want to go away.

Ashleigh wearing her Hannah Montana PJ's. She's such a good sport-not having me or anyone to play with while Preston is sick. I sure love her!

Another sick attack-poor kid was just so clingy and grumpy!

Preston and Ashleigh playing around

Preston not feeling well again...he likes the boppy to lay on.

Silly Ashleigh-good thing that bowl hadn't been puked in!

Distracted by the TV for a moment.....ahhh peace and quiet!

Trying to play together again...

Finally-dressed for the day.

Another sick spell....dang it, will this ever end?!?

Princess Ashleigh

Ok so, do you see how many red splotches there are on his face? Do you also see how purple his mouth is? Poor kid....his lips and hands were icicles!

Nick came home from work and I was napping-thankfully Preston didn't get in to any mess while I slept...he just watched TV and crawled on me.

Preston is doing much better today-he's finally eating again and for the most part is acting normal, but is still a little whiny and clingy. sigh. Hope he's completely back to normal tomorrow!!!

Outing in Salt Lake with the Kunz's

Matt and Arah planned on having lunch with some friends of theirs and we decided to tag along. They went to Rodizio grill. Yum! I am not much of a meat eater, but Matt and Nick sure are so they were literally in heaven there! Rodizio Grill is in Trolley Square in Salt Lake...

Ashleigh and Brinley on a Trolley

Waiting to be seated

Preston got tired of waiting...

And fell asleep on daddy's shoulder.

Still waiting...actually the wait was only about 10 min.

At our table now-Brinley playing around

Ash-always a ham...sitting with her daddy!

Preston and Ashleigh-cute cute!

Brinley with her daddy-Matt.

Preston finally woke up and enjoyed eating the rolls

Nick.....

After Rodizio we went to the Children's museum across from Temple Square, then we rode Trax to the gateway and walked to see the Planetarium. This fun ride both the girls had is walking back to our cars at the end of this fun day. I forgot to take pictures at either of the other places...hopefully Arah did.