February 21, 2010

We are now settled into this rent house for the time being. We met with our builder this last week for our preconstruction meeting to make sure that the plans that the builder received are the same plans that we signed off on. Everything was A-OK. The ground on our lot has been “cut” but concrete hasn’t been poured, yet, because of all of the wet weather. We get a few days of good weather in between wet storms but its not enough to dry the ground up. So, we are hoping it will be this coming week.

A few years ago, when both boys started going to school all day, I decided to work part-time instead of full-time. I just couldn’t see myself working those extra hours and paying the extra money for just a few hours of before/after school child care. When crunching the numbers, I ended up with more money at the end of the month by working part-time without childcare costs than I would have full-time with that expense. Well, starting this month, I am now working full-time again. BUT, I still get to take the boys to/from school. The majority of my working hours are at my home office and a few days a week I spend a couple of hours at the Global Software office for meetings & such. I LOVE it!!! I get up & take the boys to school, work for a couple of hours at home, workout, shower, work for a couple more hours (at home or go to the office), pickup the boys from school, evening activities, then I work for a little bit longer after they go to bed. I get MORE work done from home than I do at the office! I still get the flexibility to do what I need to do as a mom and also keep up with my professional skills. It’s the best of both worlds!

The company I work for is based out of Canada and I handle the accounting for one of their divisions, Global Software, here in Oklahoma City. But, I have added on the accounting for another one of their divisions that is based in Texas. I really do enjoy it.

Now time for some pictures:

January 30, 2010

Kaleb was a little camera happy this day and went around the house taking various pictures. He snagged this one of myself & Kameron, my little lovey-dovey boy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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February 6, 2010

After having one bathroom in the house for the last 9 years, we FINALLY have a 2nd bathroom in this rent house and the boys still insist on using our bathroom! They are combing their hair for their basketball game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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February 6, 2010

Kameron getting his “guard on” at his basketball game… HANDS UP, KAMERON!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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February 13, 2010

Kaleb getting his “shot on”. TWO!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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February 19, 2010

It’s Friday night & I let the boys stay up late. The house got really quiet and I came into the living room to check on them and this is what I found… they wore themselves out!

 

 

 

 

 

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February 20, 2010

My neice, Anna, plays on a competitive fastpitch softball team. They had a fundraiser Spaghetti Dinner where over 100 people came to show their support. Some of the men of the team (dads, uncles, cousins, friends, etc) dressed up as women and had a “talent show”. It was HILLARIOUS! The “woman” with the most money in “her” bag at the end of the evening won the Softball Crown. (faces have been blurred for humility reasons, ha!) On the way home, Kameron says “Mom, those were really men, right? Then, how did they have boobies?” I was laughing too hard to explain it to him!

January 2010

WOW! I think it's time I clean the cob webs off of this blog. I have some friends that post pictures of the week on their blogs and I always enjoy scanning through those. So, just to get started, I am going to give a review of all of January.

Boy, was it a month! Just to catch you up to speed, we are building a house in Mustang but we couldn't start the building process until our house sold first. We sold our house 3 days before Christmas. I spent the rest of 2009 (the last week of it, anyway) searching for a rental house. I wanted to stay close to their school because I didn't want them to change schools mid-year. We found one on the south side of OKC. The first 2 weeks of January were spent with various inspections and packing as much as I could (without packing up the things I'll need before we move). The inspection went really well. I was told that was the best inspection he has had in a long time. But, the only problem we had was our electrical box was a "Federal Pacific" which was discontinued about 30 years ago because of fire problems. Insurance companies are no longer insuring houses that contain these electrical panels so our buyer was not able to obtain homeowners insurance unless it was replace. Well, we had a $750 repair cap written into our contract with her so we said we would replace it. It ended up costing more than the cap so we split the difference with the buyer. But, it was just very stressful in the meantime with inspections, appraiser, funds, repairs, coordinating the move, utilities, replacing carpet in one bedroom, replacing kitchen floor, painting, moving... all within a 2 week time frame. OK, I'm getting myself all worked up again just typing about it. :) Moving on...

So, we are now in our rental house until June 30th. Our home is expected to be completed around end of May. However, things never go as planned so I'm expecting it to be prolonged to mid-June. That works out perfect for us... as long as we can close by June 30th to get the $6500 tax credit then I'm happy. :)

Now, for some pictures.

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January 1st, 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

My niece, Anna, & nephew, Jakob, spent New Years Eve with us. We played games until midnight then went outside to bang on pots/pans and lit up the night with sparklers.

All 4 kids decided to turn Kaleb & Kameron's bunk beds into a club house. Blankets were draped, pillows stacked, tables brought in from other rooms in order to make it all happen.

 

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January 5, 2010

  So, as we are preparing the house for closing and preparing to move, our heater decides to give us problems. Ugh! After stressing out about it and then Bryan troubleshooting the problem over the phone with my friend Dave in Michigan (he's a heat/air guy), it was decided that a tech will need to be called out because parts were probably needed. The tech arrived about noon the next day (the house was quite chilly by then)... $350 later our heater was fixed!

 

 

 

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January 14, 2010

Also, while all of this selling/moving was going on, we had to get our selections made for the house we are building. We had a deadline to get the brick and interior colors & fixtures picked out so that we could get on the schedule for ground breaking in order to meet our June 30th deadline.  The decision was a bit overwhelming (so many choices!). This picture shows a sample of items that we chose. We are getting SO excited!

 

 

 

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January 23, 2010

I had a great video of Kameron playing Star Wars on the Wii... but I am having uploading issues. Hopefully I can get it on here soon. It's funny to watch.

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January 29, 2010

We had another winter storm come through. This is very unusual for Oklahoma... record-breaking 14" on Christmas Eve and this time around it is 1/2" of ice followed by about 4" of snow. The weathermen are talking about another smaller storm again later this week. We'll see how it pans out. But, still very unusual for us to have this much winter activity. Of course, the boys love it! They got out of school Thursday & Friday and went through many pairs of socks while playing in the snow. Bella loves the snow.

 

 

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January 30, 2010

  Jake & Anna came over again today and all 4 enjoyed a game of Twister. Kameron spun the wheel and Kaleb sat on the couch and laughed at them. I'm not sure who won but they had alot of fun!

 

 

 

 

 

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Congrats if you made it this far! I've got it on my todo list to update my blog more so keep checking back. I won't make any promises, though. *wink*