HELLO CUTE!

I want to win this set:

http://www.allthingsforsale.com/bento/animal-bento-giveaway/comment-page-6/#comment-772

WANT. SO cute.  Wouldn't Ali look utterly DARLING with that?  For one give-away entry, I am blogging about this promotion.

I just ordered from them recently and am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the package.  I only spent $25, including shipping, but I think I got a lot of stuff!  A bunch of cute food picks, two little Bento lunchboxes, two matching bands and some super cute butterfly shaped cups.  Ana and Ali will have the cutest lunches in their class!  Unless, of course, there is another student with a parent who actually has free time to get really crazy with the Bento creativeness.  In which case, go them! 

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

Erm, or rather, in a U-Haul truck...

We pick up the keys tonight!  The seller's have until 9pm to get all moved out and then will call us when they're finished so that we can pick up the keys.  The house is already officially ours ~ the sellers are renting it from us right now ~ but it won't feel official, like ours, until we have the keys and can come and go as we please.

I've been packing like crazy and feel pretty close to done.  I know that once the furniture and already packed boxes are out of the way there is going to be a lot left to do though.  All that is left is stuff we'll be using over the next two days, Nate's whole bedroom, half the kitchen and a bit in each room.  The basement is done {except for cleaning}, the bedrooms are all almost done.  Everything is down to little bits and pieces, mostly.  Still, lots left to do!  We pick up the truck first thing Tuesday morning and will be able to spend all day Tuesday moving furniture and boxes to the house before returning the truck Wednesday morning.

After going over the budget we decided that we'll buy furniture and such as we can afford it, a little bit at a time, and try concentrating on one room at a time.  That way we'll have some finished spaces to look at while the rest is still being worked on.  We really need furniture for the kids' bedrooms, but since we spend more time in the communal living areas we decided to work on them first.  We just bought furniture {secondhand} for the family room a few months ago, so that will likely be one of the last rooms we work on.  We're starting with the living room.

Now, I say "we", but really Mick is just paying for it.  I'm doing the decorating work and I LOVE IT!  I am having SO much fun shopping around for bargains to match the vision I have.  And I've found some great ones!  I've been haunting Craigslist and clearance racks and sales and have spent very little so far, but have the living room almost finished already.  I just need to paint the walls and the art for the walls and find a good upright piano for Mick to refinish to match the room, and find some good coffee and end tables and lamps. 

Next up is the dining room and it really needs to be done right away, because our current set is falling to bits.  I found a good table at Ikea, and adding 5 chairs and a bench will bring the total cost for the set to only about $600.  It's not a set which is going to last forever ~ it IS Ikea, which isn't always the sturdiest ~ but it is something that we need right away and the sets that are built for life cost 5-6 times that much, if not more.  So we can either settle for Ikea, do without or buy them on credit.  I'm committed to buying with cash and staying debt free [except the mortgage] and doing without a dining table with 5 kids is not an option I'm willing to consider.  The dining table is important to us.  We have dinner there every night, all together.  It's one of the few times each day when we are all together, sitting and able to really connect.  It's important.  And the Ikea set is not that bad, it's really pretty sturdy for Ikea.

I will share some before and after pictures soon, of course.

We are SO excited to be moving into our very own home.  It's amazing and we are so thankful and happy. 

Bits O' Random

The outlet is installed in the crawlspace, the drainage system is installed, the negotiations are done, all of the tiny repairs have been done!  Now we just have to have those areas reinspected and then we'll be ready to close!  According to the lender, we can close as soon as the sellers are able.  The date we put on the earnest money deposit was June 15th and there is a good chance we could close earlier than that.  The house appraised $2,000 lower than the selling price, so in exchange for the sellers dropping the selling price to below the appraisal, we did a few minor repairs.  Which cost less than $2,000 {$400 less}, so it worked out pretty well. 

Tuesday is going to be wildly busy for us!  At 9, Gunner has to go in for an ultrasound [he has been having some odd muscle aches, so the doctor wants to get a good look just to make sure all is well].  At 12, Nate has an appt. with his therapist.  At 2, I have my driving test scheduled.  And then we need to schedule the reinspection, hopefully for later that afternoon or the next morning.  Busy day!

I think we are going to have a Fourth of July BBQ at our lovely new house.  It will be perfect timing.  We won't be even close to unpacked by then, but we'll have enough furniture set up and enough dishes unpacked to invite a few friends over for burgers, salads and fireworks. 

I took the kids to Great Wolf Lodge recently.  I got a fantastic deal through a homeschooling group {thank you, Amoreena, for linking us!}, making it a great price.  My mom went with me.  Unfortunately, Mick had to work.  We want to go back again soon so that he can go.  It was a fun trip, tons to do!  Great Wolf Lodge is a big indoor water park and kid centered resort in Grand Mound.  Ben had a blast in the water and I barely saw Nate and Gunner the whole time we were there.  Ana loved the big water slides, though she was only able to go on them with an adult.  Ali didn't like the big slides, but found her niche in the little kid areas, with toddler/preschooler sized slides and splash grounds.  I didn't get very many pictures because the camera kept fogging up.  The waterpark is kept at 84* year round, making it the perfect temp for water play even if it's cold outside.  The resort part has a bunch of different kid activities and fun things for kids to do and enough adult oriented stuff so that parents don't get bored.  It was a pretty cool trip and we would love to go back soon!  With a group of 10 families or more in the off season you can get a huge discount, so we're going to try to arrange that for sometime in Autumn.

Benji is growing like a baby weed!  He is now officially walking.  He is a bit unsteady on his feet, but he can walk most of the way across the room before falling now.  He is quite impressed with himself.  His favorite food is yogurt and he loves music.

Random pictures [okay, never mind.  It won't let me post pictures right now.  Weird.]

I WAS RIGHT.

I'm just sayin'.  I was right.

The dryer?  NOT broken.  It's the outlet.  JUST like I thought.  Today we were hunting up used dryers on Craigslist and I had Mick call the landlord/maintenance guy to confirm, just to be really, really sure, that he had checked to make sure that the outlet was getting power last week when we had him come out to fix it.  Because when I tried the dryer a week ago Sunday and discovered that it didn't work, my first thought was the outlet.  And then Mick checked the outlet and discovered the wiring leading to the dryer was frayed, a tiny bit burnt and exposed to water.  And I called the maintenance guy to come fix it, and he came out and fixed the wire and said it was done.  So anyway, today I was running errands and asked Mick to call to talk to the maintenance guy, just to be very sure that he had tested the outlet to make sure there was power output.  And he called and he said that he had NOT tested it.  And that he would come out and test it today.  And he did and guess what?  NO POWER OUTPUT.

I'm irritated.  10 days without a dryer so far.  $19 spent on parts.  Countless time spent on the phone and in person and online looking up parts and repair options/instructions and talking with the appliance repair place about how to fix it.  $20 spent at the laundromat to dry clothing {and more hours than I care to count}.  And it was the OUTLET, which should have been fixed on the first dang day!

He's coming back out tomorrow to work on the outlet.  He has to rewire half the laundry room to fix the problem.  So if he can get that done I should be able to use the dryer again tomorrow evening.  No recouping of time and money spent though. 

At least we know our dryer still works!