Shhh, We're Hunting a Wascally House...

Well, we're offically looking to buy our first home!  We've got a realtor and we're signing papers with a mortgage broker on Saturday to get our pre-approval letter so we can start putting down serious offers.  In fact we looked at our first house yesterday however the house was not in an ideal condition for us to buy.  The roof had started leaking and created water damage, and the landlord seemed like the type who wasn't caring enough about the condition enough to ask the tenants to not smoke in the house.  It was going into forclosure, which is why we went to look.  We were interested in another house but since we couldn't go see inside yet, we did decide to at least drive by it to see the outside of it.  And good thing we did beacuse there was a busted out window so who knows how long that was broken, and there was a couch upside down on the front lawn and there was someone driving across the front lawn in their pickup truck.  Needless to say, we're not going to see that house.  We're going to see a few houses tomorrow; hopefully one of them is in great shape!  They are all within our price range, so hopefully one of them is the one!  One looks promising; it's alot of house -over 2,000 square feet- and their asking only $150,000.  It's in a very good neighborhood, so I'm sure there's probably already bids on it, so hopefully we can get in and put a bid in as well.

One thing though we've been tossing around is if we should apply for the $7,500 tax credit that's for first time home buyers.  Basically it's more like a interest free loan you can apply for by filling out a form with your taxes and in addition to your regular federal and state return, you will also recieve an additional $7,500.  And you pay it back by the IRS witholding $500 from your federal tax return for 15 years.  There's of course alot of stipulations involved such as income limitations, you have to have bought your house within a specific time period, and if you sell your house within a certain time and you make a profit, they can legally claim the money back out of your profit... a whole bunch of stuff but for most people, it's actually worth it.  I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty details here because I'm not a financial guru or whatever and I don't actually blog for a living, but here's a link directly that gives all the information about it. 

The biggest hurdle for us is that we NEED our tax return so we can use it as a down payment on our house, so we can't really wait around for the papers to be signed to get the money because the form does require you to give the address of the home you're buying or have bought.  We could file our taxes, and then amend it later, but unless our house needs work we don't plan on doing it.  The house we looked at yesterday would have been an ideal home for it; however between the water damage and the roof and the fact the family that lives in the house are all heavy smokers, it's too much work and Jeff's not handy around the house so it would have been a money sink and not an investment.

I'm not saying that everyone who reads this should go for it; however if you feel that in your personal situation that it will reduce stress and improve your house overall, go for it.  But be sure to talk to a financial person or an accountant before you do it because on the surface it may seem like a good idea but when you put it on paper it won't work out.

Anyway, wish us luck on our house hunting!

New Year Reminisce

Got this off of Monica's blog. I wasn't tagged specifically but I wanted to do it anyway to reminisce. I figured it would be a great way to kick off the year even though we're 16 days into it as my first entry.

20 Years Ago…
1. I was three and a half.
2. I had just acquired a new sister who I apparently enjoyed tying to the crib. Thank goodness Zoe never did this to Ruthie.
3. I liked sharing ice cream cones with dogs.

10 Years Ago…
1. I was thirteen.
2. I moved in with my mom at the end of my 8th grade year.
3. I was growing out of my tomboy stage.

5 years ago…
1. I had just turned eighteen.
2. I had just moved away from Virginia and here in Utah after meeting Jeff on the internet.
3. I was coping with and being an adult away from home for the first time. Wasn't easy I tell ya!

3 years ago…
1. I was twenty.
2. Jeff and I had moved out of his parent's basement and we were in our first apartment.
3. We became parents for the first time thanks to Zoe's arrival.

1 year ago…
1. I was twenty two.
2. I just gave birth to our second baby.
3. We were in a horrible apartment and wanting out of it.

This year so far…
1. We're in a new apartment that we love!
2. Zoe has learned how to sass back and causing me enormous frustration.
3. We've started the process of buying our first home!

Yesterday…
1. I went to Robert's and spent money on scrapbooking supplies.
2. I fixed the camera after Zoe dropped it funny, by dropping it funny myself.
3. I completed 2 scrapbooking layouts and nearly finished Ruthie's birthday card invitations.

Today…
1. I finished two more scrapbooking layouts.
2. I did a load of laundry, cooked dinner and got sassed at by Zoe.
3. Ruthie took some steps pushing her (Zoe's old) hippo toy for the first time on her own. Of course she was grumpy the whole time.

Tomorrow…
1. We're going to eat lunch at Souper Salad.
2. Go by Jeff's parents' house to figure out what happened to the web-hosting server computer.
3. Get back Twilight from Shayla and give her New Moon to read. Another Twilight addict in the world!

Next Year…
1. We'll hopefully be settled into a new house.
2. We'll have our car paid off.
3. Zoe stops sassing back.

I tag Linda and Valerie or whoever else wants to do this.

Our Christmas

Well, I finally got around to taking the time to post our Christmas pictures!  We didn't get alot of gifts for the girls, something we'll never do, but we did get enough pictures.

 

The first picture is Zoe's reaction to our exclaims of "Get up Zoe, Santa came and left you and Ruthie presents under the Christmas tree!"  She was embarrassed about it for some reason and decided to hide under the covers.  After about 5 minutes of waiting, Jeff decided to get her out of bed, and she brought along her Dora Pillow book to hide under.

 

Zoe was really shy about the presents until she caught sight of the giant penguin.  After that she was much more open to the idea of presents and opening them.  And there's Ruthie in the corner smiling at the camera.  The next picture is slightly out of sequence; however she was WAY excited to see a treasure chest with a blanket and a tent inside of it.

Here's the blanket that was in the treasure Chest.  She adores butterflies and the color purple, so that's what she got; a purple butterfly blanket.  The other side is a lighter shade of fleece in a solid color.  Zoe's always playing with the etch-a-sketch in the checkout, so we figured to ask Santa to bring her one.  She enjoys playing with it, but I think her favorite thing is to shake it to make the lines disappear.

The last thing Santa brought Zoe was a Smurfette doll that came with a one episode DVD (Romeo and Smurfette in case any of you were wondering what episode it was)  She enjoyed watching the DVD so much, we went ahead and downloaded the whole first Season for her to watch, and she's completely enjoying that.  The next picture is a present from her Grandma Teresa (my Mom) which is a laptop with letters and numbers.  The neat thing about it that you can set the age of the child on the laptop so it grows with your child.

 

 As you can see, Zoe's the most excited about CLOTHES!  I didn't get a picture of the other outfit, but it was a purple velour jumpsuit with a purple shirt; this one was a red top with pink pants, and again it was from Grandma Teresa.  Ruthie got this toy from Grandma Teresa; it's one of those things where you stick the toy in the correctly shaped hole (in case you couldn't tell ::wink wink::)

 

 These two presents were brought to Ruthie by Santa!  This was her first Christmas, so I don't think she quite understands what's going on, but she really did like the ball! It shakes and moves and sings when the baby plays with it; it's supposed to encourage the baby to crawl after it.  Ruthie likes to hold toys in her hand as she crawls around, so this ball will get her going to chase it.. or it's supposed to anyway.  She mostly sits and pokes at it.  Ruthie also really likes the seahorse, when you squeeze it, the belly lights up and it plays music.  She seems to be soothed by it, so that's a good sign.  Of course, she's staring at it funny because she's unsure exactly what it is; she's since warmed up to it.

 

 These last two presents are from Grandma Teresa once again; the first picture is of an outfit, and the second one is pajamas with the little girl cat from Aristocats.. I honestly don't remember her name.  Unfortunately, Zoe's quite fond of cats and was a bit upset that they were not her pajamas.  But she's okay with that.

The girls overall enjoyed their Christmas.  They got cute tutus from Uncle Andy and his family, and Zoe likes to play with hers; Ruthie really isn't that crazy about hers, but I do plan on getting pictures of the girls later on wearing their tutus, they're going to look adorable!

Merry Christmas!

... 188 cookies and two pies later.

Yes, that's right.  I've baked 188 Gingerbread cookies for gifts, and that's NOT including the 30+ that were not suitable for gifts.  Remind me to not do this again next year.  Of course, the cookies are delicious so, I suppose it's worth it.  Liz, I may try my hand at candy making after all... it's probably much easier than baking an insane amount of cookies!

Anyway, here's some more pictures of the Christmas tree.

 

  These were taken the other morning, natural lighting really helps show how beautiful the tree is.  I especially love my tree topper.  The picture on eBay did not do it justice, and I was very pleasantly surprised to see how beautiful it is.

 

 And here's what it looks like after Santa came to visit!  I got a package yesterday from my Mom; hers are the ones that are wrapped in green paper and also the decorated shirt boxes.  The decorated see through containers are our gifts to the family, and the rest are from Santa!

I can't wait to get pictures later when Zoe wakes up.  The only downer is that I still have one last pie to make; an apple pie, and I have to do a quick load of laundry as well.  Oh joy!  At 12:30 we're going to Jeff's parents' for lunch.  I'm super happy this Christmas because I did some digital work and got paid for it, so I managed to make enough money to buy something for Jeff.  It's great because I didn't have to use the money he earned for the family to buy him a gift.  It's not much, but I know he'll like it because I bought it for him.  But I won't say what it is yet.

Once again MERRY CHRISTMAS!  I hope your day is filled with blessings and joy!

Oh Christmas Tree!

I took some pictures of our Christmas tree. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get great pictures of it with the camera, so I only was able to manage to get good pictures of it. They don't do the tree justice though. I plan to get pictures of the girls in front of the tree in dresses when I can get to it though.

The first picture is of the tree with all the lights off. The second picture is with the light on in the living room area of our apartment. We put it up in the dining room area since that's the only place we have room for it; we don't have a dining room table, so why not put it there? I don't have stockings up either, since I need to make them; however Zoe does have a stocking, somewhere. I do have the fabric though!

Tim's Homecoming pictures

Here are the pictures from the airport. We were waiting for over an hour, so I felt that I had to take pictures. I didn't get pictures of everyone that showed up, I forgot to get a picture of Jeff's brother Andy and his family.


Here's the flight information on the board, as you can see it between the white brackets. Funnily enough, it never changed from saying "Departed" to "Arriving" or "On Time". And the next picture from right to left is Uncle Jim, Shayla (Jeff's sister), Aunt Anne and their grandaughter; I'm unsure what her name is though. They got to the airport before we did, but only by a few minutes.



Here's John (Jeff's dad), then Jeff and Melissa (Jeff's sister) and little Mason (boy) in her belly. Then, there's Zoe with Grandma Wendy! And in case you were wondering, Uncle Jim is John's brother. Wendy was walking around with Zoe in the airport, taking her up and down the escalator. Zoe got brave later on and decided she wanted to go for an elevator ride by herself, but that got stopped pretty quick by Uncle Devin (Melissa's husband).



Here's TIMMAY! Or Elder Hayford, since he wasn't released yet. Then the next picture is of him with his two friends Braeden (sp?) and Ben. They also recently got home; Braden served in Argentina, and Ben served in what I'm assuming San Jose, since he mentioned living by eBay's home quarters. Out of all of their group of friends, Ben was the only one who did not serve a Spanish speaking mission. He's probably feeling left out about that by now.

There's a bit of a funny story about Tim and Zoe. Zoe was running around and being crazy with the family when Tim came off the escalator, and then she spotted a vending machine with candy and ran over there. As soon as she left, he asked "Who's that little girl?" and of course, we responded with "That's Zoe." and he goes "Wow, she's huge!" It didn't help matters any that the family that was standing around the vending machines were a family of blondes! He was amazed at how big Ruthie was, and commented when he left, Zoe was that small -actually she was a bit over a year old when he left; about a week or two after her first birthday- and was amazed at how big Zoe was. Unfortunately she didn't recognize him so he tried to talk to her she hid her face or started crying. Melissa prepared Aidan for his homecoming, so he knew who Tim was and gave him a highfive. Braeden and Ben took off, and Andy and his family went home since he had to go back to work, and Uncle Jim, Aunt Anne and their grandaughter went home, and the rest of us went to SouperSalad for lunch/dinner (lunner?) since it was three in the afternoon and Tim hadn't eaten since 5 am in Tijauana, which was 6 am our time.

He was amazed at all the changes that were done to the house, and the dogs I think recognized him, so that was nice. Later on, Luke and his wife (they got married yesterday) came over and Jessica met Tim for the first time, since her and Luke started dating about a year before Tim got home. I totally called that relationship winding up in marriage, even though Luke thought I was crazy. All in all, it was great. We left Guitar Hero over there for Tim to play and within a few minutes, he was Rocking out better than Jeff! Amazing!

Christmas Tag from Linda!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper for sure, because I like to make it an artform.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial; I don't know how much real ones cost, but after a few years, the artifical one pays for itself.

3. When do you put up the tree? I put it up the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but it went without ornaments for about a week.

4. When do you take the tree down? I'm honestly not sure when I plan on taking it down.  Probably sometime in the first week of January.

5. Do you like eggnog? As a kid, I hated it.  I haven't had it as an adult so, that's still up in the air.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? My jewelry box when I was eight years old.  I still have it and use it!

7. Hardest person to buy for? Jeff, because he makes the money and I don't go shopping without him.  NOT THIS YEAR!  I bought his gift online!

8. Easiest person to buy for? ME!  Haha, just kidding; I'm really not sure, probably Zoe.

9. Do you have a nativity scene?  No, since we don't have the room or shelving to place it on, but I plan on cutting one out with my cricut and hanging that on the wall.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? I'm honestly too lazy to do either one.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A cheesy mug with hot chocolate.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story.  "You'll put your eye out kid!" gotta love the leg lamp too.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I started about a week before Thanksgiving.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I don't regift.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Food.  I'm not set on any special "Christmas only" foods.

16. Lights on the tree? White, I'm not a fan of multicolored trees.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Silent Night.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? I'm a stay at home person, but my dad wanted to fly us out for Christmas to see him in Virginia.. um no, not with the girls being this little!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Rudolph and that's about it.  Sad isn't it?

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We have a tree topper that's not an angel, nor is it a star.. more like a burst or something.  Hard to describe but very pretty.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? It's COLD.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? My tree is done in soft gold, ivory, pink and white ornaments with a matching tree topper and a gold skirt.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Turkey with all of the fixings.  Why is Thanksgiving dinner exactly like Christmas dinner anyway?

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? I already got my Christmas present; a Cricut Expression machine; but a few more cartridges wouldn't be minded.

26. Who is most likely to respond to this? I dunno, the only person who reads my blog is the one that sent it to me. LOL.