Update on the house

Well, I guess the house was not meant to be. Long story short, the owner ended up taking the house off the market, for reasons we know a little about, but not a lot. Oh well. After having a few weeks of looking for another house we have decided to stay put in our nice little house. We really are happy with it, our neighbors and the neighborhood in general. We will probably go back to our plan A of homeschooling, at least for kindergarten, and then we will just see how that works and make decisions from there.

We are back from a visit to Oklahoma, and I hopefully will get some of our pics posted from the visit soon, but maybe not till after my work weekend is through.

Suprise! I know....

Well, some of you might think we have jumped off the deep end, but to us this makes perfect sense. We put an offer on a house yesturday. Yes, I know we have not mentioned this possibility at all, that is because there was really no mention of the possibility of this until this last Monday. We have been thinking seriously about home schooling the kids next year in kindergarten. There are many reasons we have really considered this option, but one of the reasons for me is that we have not been all that impressed with our current school district. There is another district close by that has a much better reputation and is supposed to have some better resources than our current district for special education, and since Andrew has the speech delay and will be receiving special education through his IEP plan, this is very important to us. So, with all of that said and some recent conversations with various people in our lives we started talking about school next year and our options and then we thought, well you know we could just move into the district that we want to, and then there was a computer search on current listings, and then we found this amazing house that really seems like it will fit our needs and wants very well, and is very close to a school that seems to have some knowledge of kids like Andrew who need a lot of support with his communication. So after about three days of looking into the whole thing it has been a whirl wind activity that ends in us placing an offer on this house and we are currently waiting for the owners, and then the bank's response, as it is almost in foreclosure. It is a good buy for sure, as they have aggresively lowered the price of this home to keep out of foreclosure. If we get the house, we are planning on taking our current house and renting it out, for a while at least. Maybe after the market turns around we might sell, but really that is not a wise decision right now. It is definately a buyers market and not a sellers market. So, we will rent it for now. This process takes quite a while to complete, so we shall see, but in the mean time, here are some pics of the house and a little video.

The front of the house and the front door.

The living room:

The dining room:

The kitchen off the dining room, the window space with the table and chairs will become the computer desk, and the family room.

The half bath down stairs:

The stairs:

Nicole's room:


Andrew's room:

The kid's bathroom upstiars:

The master suite:












Whew. Who knows what we will think up next!

Fish Fun

We got to go to a U-fish farm, a fish hatchery with ponds for fishing fun! We went with our preschool and had a lot of fun. We had a tour of the farm, and then were turned loose with our rented fishing poles. Nicole didn't really want to catch the fish, and Andrew tried, but ended up letting me do most of the work. It was cool and we had some yummy trout that night for dinner. It was a pretty fun and educational experience for the kids. I was a little concerned about the kids getting freaked out about what would happen to the fish after we caught them, but they didn't seemed bothered by it at all. They even watched the man clean the fish! And no bad dreams or anything! Those are two tough kids!

Here is some video at home later that night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBDztgBpM_c

Not sure why I can't embed these anymore, but if you just click on the link it takes you right there.

Lastly, my twisted little mind kept having this go through my head that morning before we went, and even more after we were there. I know, I know... =0)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuuEDDyvzuE

Can February be gone already!?!

Here are a few pics from a snow fall last week. We had some fun in the morning with it, and then by mid afternoon it was gone! Things are starting to bloom and bud around here. We have had some crocus popping through the ground, which are pretty if they can only survive the kids. Oh well. Three of the four of us are pretty croupy right now, all except Steve. Guess my immune system isn't what I thought it was. The month was busy with our usualy school and speech therapies Andrew is doing three days a week still, Nicole is down to one 30 minute session a month. We started Andrew back on Occupational Therapy for his fine motor control and motor planning that our speech therapist thinks might help some too with his words. One can hope. He is such a trooper, works so hard for us. We have made a special "word box" for both kids some time a go, with special cookies they get after they have done their homework. Andrew will work, but also tells me, "It's hard for me" and wants to quit, but I tell him, "I know buddy, that's why we have to work on it." He presses on and gets his special cookies. I need to make him a sign "Will work for cookies!" I know, twisted humor, but whatever works! We also got the kids Leapster hand held games for our upcoming flight to OK to see grandparents, these are really cool educational games that work on fine motor control as well as number and letter recognition and early reading, writing and math skills. Wish they had these things when I was a kid! It is almost painless learning, anything to trick my little guys into learning is okay by me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2NWfbp2ojg