It's PLUNGER Boy!

My husband is such a kid... what am I to do with him? Last night I heard Theo laughing hysterically. Come to find out... my husband was chasing him with a plunger, yes, a plunger. Not only that, Peter went on to demonstrate its incredible suctioning power... on our eldest son. Can't believe I married such a nut! He always keeps me laughing tho. :)

After watching what I caught on film, Peter exclaimed, "You've gotta send this to my dad!" So here it is, Grandpa, posted especially for you. But you'll have to go to my facebook page to view it because it wouldn't load here for some reason. 

P.S. This is the same plunger we bought after Peter's dad recommended us getting one to suck out the dent in our car. It did a pretty darn good job. 

Quick House Update

Friday we met with our super-indendent, aka the foreman, to talk about elevations, yay! The permit was approved today, Monday. We're having our pre-construction meeting tomorrow, Tuesday. And they're going to start digging on Wednesday - hoorah!!! That's the update for ya. Wish us luck!

Visiting The Pumpkin Patch!

Yesterday we visited a pumpkin patch. When Theo saw the first pumpkin, he exclaimed, "Ball!" He then ran to it and gave it a kick! Well, it does look like a ball. Silly boy. Once we had picked our pumpkins, we got picked up by a wagon being pulled by a tractor. Theo thought that was cool. And best of all, he made friends with the dog, "Fffff, ffff!"

And here I am with 4 weeks to go, give or take.

This last one is of Theo, taken just this afternoon. He had a hard day at church, conked out half way through and stayed sleeping for over and hour after we got home.

Until next time then...

Pregnancy Update

I am 35 weeks now, according to my estimate. According to the ultra sound we did at 12 weeks, however, I am 35 weeks and 4 days. Slight difference. That would make 40 weeks land on either Nov. 18th or the 22nd. Let's just say about a month from now. This pregnancy is so much different from the first one, mostly in my degree of morning sickness. I only throw up about twice a month anymore! At this point with Theo, I was still throwing up once a day, at least, which means 30 times a month - compared to two times a month this time around. The only correlation I have found that directly affects how sick I am is stress. Eating certain foods (like alkalizing foods and foods with protein or magnesium) certainly help, but after 2 months of keeping a detailed record of everything I ate, how often, and other factors such as whether I got outside for a walk that day, got a nap in, how much I slept at night, things like that... The only direct correlation FOR ME was stress. It could be hormones leveling out as well, but I have no way of measuring that. Anyway, I've rambled enough. Here are my most recent pregnancy photos, taken 9 days ago.

Our baby is head down (most of the time). She likes to keep her bum in the upper left corner of my ribs. (I'm referring to baby as a she, but she could be a he! Only time will tell.) Theo has been playing with his little baby doll a lot more recently, and he is so sweet to her. He cuddles her and sometimes even brings her to me when she's hungry and wants to nurse. I can't wait to see him interact with his new brother or sister.

Last week my midwife, R, gave me the ritualistic foot massage, which was heavenly. But then she gave me an unexpected back massage. I melted! That was, hands down, the best massage I've ever experienced. I'm in no rush to get this baby out. If baby comes at 42 weeks, that just means I get two more massages, ha ha! I don't feel huge or uncomfortable really, so I'm okay. I'm enjoying these last few weeks to focus solely on Theo. But my midwife thinks baby will come a little early. We shall see. ;)

Chugga chugga, choo choo!

This weekend we took a train ride with my family to celebrate my grandma, Omi's 90th birthday. It was a nostalgic experience for Omi since she grew up riding trains all the time in Germany. On the ride we got to see the beautiful scenery, including green fields, brown mountains, a blue lake, and even horses and cows. Theo moo'd at the cows even. But I think his favorite part were the bouncy bench seats! 

After the train ride, we had a bite to eat at Dairy Keen (not Queen) in Heber, where Theo spent every minute wow-ing at the electric train and playing with the Thomas trains provided by the restaurant. On our way back to the car we spotted a park with swings across the street. We had to go.

It was a fun weekend with my family. We're glad we got to celebrate Omi's birthday.

We Got The Lot!!!

More good things have happened in the last week:

#1 - We got the lot!!!
The owner was quite friendly and laid-back. He was a little concerned about our house being the only one on the street NOT built by Cadence. It might look out of place. We assured him we will be doing hardie board and color on the exterior, and not the boring earth-toned stucco. We told him we'll be doing 2X6 construction, a 3-car garage, finishing our basement and the driveway (Cadence's "standard" is to finish only half the driveway, how retarded). We sent him an electronic copy of our floor plans so he could see for himself. Apparently he was satisfied because he accepted our first offer! (We offered what he asked because we thought it was fair.)

#2 - We decided on a lender!
After meeting with a total of 7 different lenders, we finally found one who really knew what he was talking about. Not only was he knowledgeable, but he was also friendly and listened to us (for 2 hours!). Plus he was competitive with our other lenders' fees. We really like Derek Johnson.

#3 - Rural Housing Loan = No PMI!
We thought we wouldn't be able to do the rural housing loan after two previous lenders told us we wouldn't qualify. Well, we do - by a big margin actually. We are so stoked that we won't have to pay private mortgage insurance! Thank you, Derek.

#4 - We've got the construction loan started!
A week and a half ago we crunched all the numbers and were pretty discouraged to find out we'd be about a grand short of having enough down payment for the construction loan. We had three options: Put the house on hold for a month, put paying tithing on hold for a month, or ask family for a short-term loan. Ugh! We decided to pay the Lord first and considered borrowing from family. The day after we decided this, we found out that the money paid for the house plans and architect counts as a credit to the down payment, which means we definitely have enough on our own right now! I know the Lord blessed us for putting Him first.

#5 - We're waiting on the permit now!
We picked up the finished plans from the artchitect, and now they're at the county. My job now is to figure out who I need to bug in order to get the building permit passed as soon as possible rather than have it sit on someone's desk for a month.

In the meantime, we get to start thinking about wall colors, floors, cabinets and such. Here comes the fun part! I'm glad because I've felt like such a business woman lately.

Next post will NOT be about the house. It'll be about... well... our lives outside the house - mostly about Theo probably. :)

The tables have turned... again!

Well, Cadence was supposed to respond to our offer by the 16th, according to the contract that their agent wrote up. We didn't hear back until the 22nd! We were pretty frustrated that they didn't even communicated to us that it was going to take longer to respond. We were left in the dark. BUT it was during that extra waiting time that we realized it would be a very good idea to take our home plans to some other builders and compare their quotes with Cadence's. DUH! We're the ones in power here, we own the plans and can have whomever we want build for us. We have no loyalties. So Cadence responded the 22nd with a price much higher than we anticipated or even thought reasonable. We immediately schedule to meet with the builder himself that evening and talk to him in person rather than through a third party. In the meeting I feel we did a great job explaining ourselves and negotiating. We realized that in the contract where we asked for a certain discounts, the builder's agent had passed on her losses to him (ie, rather than reducing her profit from 6 to 3% of the home price, she put it as more discounts in upgrades, which would be a much bigger blow to the builder than to her, if that makes sense). We explained that to him, and he said, "Now that things are much clearer, I'll reconsider and get back to you tomorrow." Good. It sounded promising, and it sort of was. Well, he took two days to respond, another strike for him. He did meet our original offer, but with the condition that we add an extra 10K of upgrades. What? Nu uh! And we also found out that it would be an extra 4K just to finish the driveway. We countered his offer, of course. We felt he was trying to nickel and dime us! The day before his third counter offer, we met with Pantheon Construction, a company we had met with before find Cadence, but we walked away from them because we were wary of their stipulation of having us take out the construction loan. And we thought we could do without their agent and his fee. Pantheon quoted us a SIGNIFICANTLY lower price than Cadence (even with the agent's fee)! We were excited, but we said we were still waiting to hear back from Cadence's builder. The next day we heard back. He countered too high, again. So we declined and walked away.

We were glad to walk away from a price we were not comfortable with, and we weren't impressed at all, to say nothing of satisfied, with their manner and timing of communicating with us and meeting their deadlines. However, we were bummed to walk away from the wonderful neighborhood, location, and lot size! But - we still had hope because we were able to find the developer's contact info! (The builder's agent wouldn't give us the developer's name or number because it would be a conflict interest for them. So I called someone else and got the needed info immediately, ha ha!) I was able to get ahold of him this afternoon, and he said he would sell us just the lot without making us build with Cadence! And for a price we think is a great deal! If this works out, we're going to have Pantheon build our home. We're meeting with the developer tonight at 8pm!

(Today I also talked to one of my friends' dads because he is a home-builder on the East Coast, and he thinks everything sounds good and legit, which gave us a lot of confidence. We've also talked with Peter's great uncle, who has built 4 custom homes, and he's given us valuable advice as well.)

I've just never heard of anyone getting a floor plan from one party, getting the lot from another party, and having yet ANOTHER party build the actual home. Are we just super picky? Or do we just have strong enough wills to find a way to get what we want? So many times we've almost settled, almost. But then the idea came to me, "Maybe McArthur will sell us just the floor plan?" And then, "Maybe we can just get this lot without having to build with Cadence?" This has been such a process for us, and I'm sure we're not even half way done yet. But we're getting closer, and we're getting excited! Like I said in the last post, everyone we've talked to has somehow helped us get to where we are now. And we are indeed grateful.