Our New House

This morning we finally closed on our new house. After looking for houses for almost two years, we are finally the proud owners of a three bedroom, two bathroom ranch in Crestwood. The third time is definitely a charm. Before Ellie was born, we almost closed on a cute, Victorian home in Webster Groves. From the moment I saw the house, I fell head over heels in love with it. The feature on the house that sealed the deal was the bay window. I have always loved bay windows and I was excited to possibly have one in my first home. The pictures online of the house were straight out of a fairytale and they certainly did not foreshadow what was to come of the house. When we went to visit the house, the pictures ended up being quite deceiving as they often are with pictures of house for sale online. The house was like a construction zone and the owner was doing a lot of work during the visit. I still loved the house so we decided to go ahead and make an offer. Inspections invevitably turned up problems that were deal breakers for us so we closed the door on the house. We took a break from our house hunt to welcome Ellie into the world and we continued living in our townhouse. As we enjoyed her first year of life, our lease renewal began creeping up on us. We decided to take another stab at finding a house and we quickly found some promising homes to visit. After a few weekends of looking, we found another house we wanted to make home. Just as we began to write an offer, a deal breaker ended another deal for us and we started over at square one. I did some more research online and found five more houses to look at. Three or four houses in, we found our home. Inspections went well and although the appraisal caused some concern towards the end, we finally made it to the finish line. We signed a million papers this morning and we were handed the keys to our new home. We cannot wait to finish the moving process so that we can put the finishing touches on our first home and settle in our neighborhood.

Closing One Chapter, Beginning Another

It has been a hectic month in our household as Lasz has been working unfortunate hours at work due to some unforseen testing on old products. He has been sleeping during the day while Ellie and I continue on with our normal routine. The house appraisal has caused a few bumps in finalizing all the details on closing our new house. We are dealing with the bumps and anxiously awaiting the arrival of September 12th. We have finally begun packing and are beginning to see that we are going to need a lot more boxes to complete this task. Needless to say we will be a lot happier when the move is done and we are in the new house. The move and the temporary new work schedule are not the only things making our month crazy.

Ellie Grace will be turning one on August 31st. We have been planning the birthday party with the generous help of our good friend, Erin. Who knew all the work and details that go into planning the birthday party of a one year old. Crazy! Luckily we have checked off invitations, presents, cake, location, cookies, and decorations. It is still crazy to think about a whole year passing with our precious baby girl. Each day that passes brings a new learned skill or another amazing addition to her bubbly personality. It seems like just the other day she was sleeping the whole day away and now she is laughing, dancing, climbing up stairs, eating real food, say mama and dada, and so much more. Ellie has been such an incredible addition to our family and we count our blessings daily.