Got Books?

Anyone have books laying around that you've already read, or will never read, but you don't want to just give them to Goodwill? Try joining Swap.com--I've been a member for several months now, and it's pretty easy--just make a list of the books you have, and a list of the books you want, and Swap will match the trades up. You can even print your shipping label from their site, so you don't have to make a special trip to the post office--(I've tested it out, and the website gives me the exact same price as the post office if I take the book there to mail.) Happy swapping!

Christmas and more

First a quiz question--can you guess what S is wearing on her feet? It's not shoes or slippers or anything that was actually designed to go on your feet...scroll to the bottom for the answer.

The Sunday before Christmas--thanks Grammie for the kids fancy clothes! R has already removed his beautiful sweater--it is gray with white zig-zags on it, so R calls it his "lightning sweater"

And more Christmas clothes from Granna.

We bought our tree from Wal-mart this year--won't make that mistake again. It was dead after a week, and these are only some of the needles it had shed by the time we took it down on Christmas day.

This one is for Grammie and Aunt Stacy--remember the dress P is wearing?

Hat and scarf dress up time

"Rice time", aka "keep 'em busy while i get something done time."

Here's the answer to the quiz question--they are the arm covers to the car booster seat on the floor in the background. I had washed them (thus the laundry basket) and S found them and put them on her feet. Clever girl.

A New House (we hope)

So we've been trying to buy a house for exactly one year. Probably 90% of everything being sold in our area is a short sale; we put offers on many houses, were finally selected by the seller for a house in July, waited 6 months for the seller's bank to approve of the short sale, which in the end was rejected without a counter-offer. Which put us back to square one in December. This house came on the market then (another short sale) but our offer was quickly selected and has been moving at a good pace ever since. The closing date is between Feb 10-21. We're hoping all continues to go smoothly so we can finally enter the exciting, scary world of homeownership.

My apologies to anyone who isn't in our family: what follows is a lot of pictures that will likely bore you, but our family members (who all live far away) have been wanting to see them and this was just the easiest way to share.

Ok, for some reason I didn't take a picture of just the front of the house, so you'll have to piece it together from the next 3 photos.

Here's a view of the front door from the livingroom. What follows is what you'd see if you turned in a circle to your right.

Now we'll walk through that doorway from the picture above, and this is what you'd see--the dining area.

Now turn in a circle to your left, for the next 3 pictures.

Now we walk through that doorway from the picture above, and turn around to face that kitchen/dining area. The master bedroom is to the right of this picture, and that is a bathroom door on the left.

Here's the master bedroom, there is a bathroom to the left of this picture. The hot tub doesn't work and is supposed to be removed before we move in. Do you like their paint job? I think they just painted around their furniture :)

Master bathroom

One of the 3 kids' rooms.

The back yard

So that's it, we'll let you know if it actually goes through or falls through--if you think of us you can say a prayer that we will be making wise decisions!!

It's not too late for Christmas carols

R's spontaneous rendition of "Angels We Have Heard On High."