Back Home!

Ok, here is my report from the houses we saw today. We looked at 3 and drove past another one. That one I am going to go down and see on Tuesday without Chris. If I like it, I will have him drive down to see it too. I wrote out this report for my sister, and it was a lot of typing, so I am just going to cut and paste it here.

1st house: Broad St. It is a huge old victorian home, there is as much space as they claim, and more. The neighborhood is actually quite crowded. It is a small side street, but not a dead end, and every lot is built on. At the back of the property there is an alley that runs down to a ball field, so I am guessing that on game days that gets a lot of traffic, though it wouldn't be fast. The yard was full of snow, so it was hard to see just what it was really like, but it seemed plenty big enough for the boys. The deck is just as pretty as it looks in the pictures, and has gates that lock at each of the steps - very nice! The front porch is great too, with a porch swing. The kitchen was great, with new stove and refrigerator, a double sink and seating at the island. Lots of cupboard and pantry space. There is a laundry room on the first floor with a laundry sink, and a butler's pantry between the kitchen and laundry room. There is a mud entrance to that area, with vinyl flooring. The second floor has 3 bedrooms and a bath, plus another small room that they had just installed a ton of closet organizer type shelving. The third floor has a den area at the top of the stairs, and 2 more rooms, plus a half bath. It also has one more room that isn't finished to be used as storage.

So here is what is wrong with the house: #1 and biggest problem, the windows are old wooden single pane windows. No storm windows or screens. We are not even sure the windows open. There are a/c units in some of the windows, so I suspect at least some of them do not. #2 is the bathrooms. On the second floor, the bathroom was just carved out of a bedroom, and the tub runs part way under one of the windows. There is no shower, just a ring overhead with a curtain. The sill on the window is in bad shape from water damage. Nothing structural, just ugly. I would definitely plan to redo that bath. The other full bath is on the first floor. It is off of the laundry room, and is tiny. Maybe 2.5 feet wide, with the sink right in the door, so you have to squeeze around the sink to get to the toilet. A pg woman would not be able to get to the toilet. That bath has a shower, not great but ok. Other negatives to consider: The paper is obnoxious but not hideous, we would live with it just fine after suffering in this house, lol. Parking is a short driveway in front of a garage. It is supposed to be a 2 car garage, but those would be 2 very skinny cars. Because of the snow we could not be sure just how wide the driveway really is, but for sure the van would never fit in the garage. We would have to work out how to get both cars into the drive. The laundry area is about even with the upstairs bath in terms of quality. Kind of icky. I'm not sure how easy it would be to fix it up. Heating is gas forced air, and it has city water and sewer. I am very afraid of what the heating bill for a house that size would be. The basement is dirt. No concrete or anything, straight dirt. Yuck. Last, the roof is slate, and seems that it might have a leak at one corner, it could be expensive to fix up.


We are seriously considering this house anyway, soley from the standpoint of space. There was a lot of work done to it, but the windows are a major issue, as are the bathrooms. Ok, that's the report on house #1.

Ok, #2, Canal St. This house was soooo nice, but much tinier than they claimed on the info sheet. We measured out the rooms and I can only barely get to 1200 sq ft. Not only that, but there is not a single closet in the whole house. No joke. The ceilings in the front half of the second floor are only 6' 3" high. Chris had to duck to get through the doors. There are two staircases, but both are narrow and enclosed, and turn the corner at the bottom, so it would be difficult to get furniture up them. There are french doors in the master bedroom (for a future deck, I guess) and we'd have to get all the furniture in through those. Also, there is a water problem in the basement; they have a sump pump, but Chris didn't like the looks of the whole thing. There is a concrete floor, but the washer and dryer would be down there and it is icky. I think if we were to go with this house, we'd have to bid low and plan to add on immediately.


That said, there are so many pluses to this house. The kitchen is brand new and beautiful. No appliances, so we'd have to buy those. The yard is absolutely perfect, and the view is great on all sides. Both bathrooms upstairs are new and very nice. Most of the windows are new vinyl; only 4 small windows in back are aluminum, and the back door doesn't have a storm door. It was plenty warm in there when we visited today, even though it was set to 60.


I really really really liked the character of this house, even more than the Broad Street house. That house had an air of genteel poverty to it. This house was very pretty inside, since they did all that work to it. I just wish it wasn't so small!!!! It would be perfect if it were bigger and had closets.

#3 was the Blackberry Rd house, the split level, and yuck, we wrote it off right away. The driveway is as steep as it looks in the picture, that is not an optical illusion. It is also very short, so not really good for the van. The inside is dark, and the entire property is the side of a mountain, all sloped and wooded. No real yard to play in and no where to ride bikes.

I didn't take any pictures today; it had snowed overnight so it was hard to get around in the snow. The first 2 houses are unoccupied, so no one had shoveled. I wish I had remembered to wear my boots.

Our First Trip to Scout Out Houses!

Tomorrow morning we are all driving south to go house hunting! Chris and I are going to drop the older boys off with Grandma and Grandpa, then driving out to York to meet with a realtor and start looking! We have 3 houses to see tomorrow. I had hoped for more, but only 3 made the cut between Chris and me. I did find one more today, but it was too late to schedule a showing for tomorrow. I may go down myself during the week to get a look at it.

We are leaving at 7:30 in the morning (that means we are planning to leave at 7:30 and will be doing well if we leave by 8 lol), driving 2.5 hours south, dropping off the boys and driving another hour east. We will be meandering our way back west, from house to house, and end up back close to the in-laws'.

The last house I just found today is almost around the corner from them; I'm deliberating whether I want to live that close or not. It is literally 5 minutes from their house. Would that be good or not? I'm not sure; as a newly wed I was doubly blessed to live 4 hours away from both sets of parents, but I am pretty established as a wife and mother now. Would I be able to hold my own against them? I have to keep in mind how Christmas went. I would be deep in "enemy territory" LOL. Would it be worth the conveniences? I'll really have to consider that.

On the way home we'll be lighter by 2 boys; MIL is keeping Noah and Caleb for a week. Next week we will go down and pick them up, and drop off 2 more. She is still working at the elementary school, but FIL retired this year, so he will be home to watch them during the day. He is very excited to have them coming; it seems he is pretty bored with retirement already, lol.

I hope to take some pictures on this trip, and if any of them come out well, I'll post them here. I'll definitely be writing a report on how the trip went!

A New Bed

Today I moved Levi into a new bed. Well, not technically a bed, but a mattress on the floor. It's where we used to have the crib, but the crib is in storage so I had to make do. Levi has been too big for the bassinette for probably 2 months now, but I didn't have anywhere else to put him. Today I decided that he is just too big to be safe anymore. He is rolling and spinning all over the floor, and I didn't want him tipping the bassinette over trying it in there. He has also been getting up on his knees sometimes; just not when he is on his hands too, lol. On top of that, he is about to get his top 2 teeth. On top of the cold, that has made him pretty cranky. He is a pro at spinning in the exersaucer, though, and he is very proud of it!

Here is a picture of Levi sleeping in his new "bed":

Snow and Snot

Well, the big storm came; it doesn't really seem like a lot of snow, but that is because it is so cold that the snow is very fine and powdery. Light to shovel, but it also just blows right back across the area you just did. I am getting really really tired of this cold weather. How long has it been since we've seen a day above 25? Ugh. I hate cold.


Something else showed up at our house this morning. Everyone except Chris and Levi is sick. Runny noses, headaches, upset tummies (probably from the post nasal drip), coughing. We had already planned to be staying home from church today because of the snow, but at this point even if it were 40 we'd be home. The boys all laid around under blankets and drank hot chocolate and ate soup. Some were too tired to eat and we had to really push the liquids to keep them from getting dehydrated.

Troyer was about the same as he has been all week, not any better, not any worse, but Noah and Caleb are miserable. And poor Micah woke up in the middle of the night with a fever. Levi is cranky but doesn't seem sick; he may just be picking up on the mood of the others. I feel horrible. I felt the cold coming on most of the week, but I had been hoping it wouldn't catch me. But when I woke up in the middle of the night for Levi and tried to go back to sleep, I couldn't get warm. Last night after chat I took a hot bath, but I guess it didn't help. I tried to take a hot bath again today, but ran out of hot water. Chris had each of the boys rotating in the tub, and Troyer used more than his share. I tried to take a nap after the bath, but was freezing again. I just hate that, when I am snuggled up in the flannel sheets with a warm blanket and a comforter on top, and can't get warm. Now I am hot and sweaty. I prefer it this way, lol, but I know I am just due for another round of cold later. I had orange juice and hot chocolate this morning, but the post nasal drip has my stomach upset now, and I haven't been able to eat anything all day. Ugh, I hate being sick!

At least Chris is not sick, he has been doing a great job of taking care of everyone today. He has not given me a hard time at all about not being able to do much to help. I sure hope he doesn't get this.

Inspection is Over, Almost

Today at 9:30 our house was inspected, as part of the sale. There were quite a few people scheduled to come for this inspection, namely the buyer and his real estate agent, the house inspector, the exterminator to inspect for termites (Pennsylvania law), a Radon Inspector (who will have to come back on Monday to collect her testing device) and the septic pumper, who needs to pump out the tank before the house inspector can inspect it. I am pretty sure there was one other person here, but I can't think of who he was, lol.

The day started out very cold. At 7 am it was 0 degrees, and I had to go out and help Chris jump his car to get it started. I had my doubts about how the septic guy would fair in this kind of weather. Chris spent 3 days digging at the frozen dirt in the back yard to dig the lid up for him, but would the lid come off? Let me save you some time wondering and just tell you, no. My realtor had her husband come over last night and throw some hay on the hole to keep the lid from freezing. In my experience, hay is good for keeping off a frost, but not a deep freeze. I was right. I watched out the window when the septic guy got here, and he walked over and very disdainfully threw the hay off, LOL. Then he got out a pick axe and tried to get the lid up, but no luck. I give him credit, he didn't try very hard, for which I was thankful. He may have broken the concrete lid if he had tried too hard. He came to the door to ask if there was a way to get hot water out to the tank, but other than carrying buckets of water there wasn't, so I suggested he ask if he could come back next week when it warms up to almost freezing. He did wait and talk to the buyer and agent, but never came back to talk to me, so I don't know if that is what he is going to do.

I had originally planned to be out of the house while these people all came through, but since it was so cold and so darn early in the morning, I decided to stay home. I cleaned up pretty well, and then herded all the boys into the computer room and promised to try to keep them out of the way. I am pleased to say that the boys were great. Micah ended up coming down to watch "Hot Hot" which is his name for the Hot Wheels movie we have. He made me stay down and watch with him, so I sat on the couch with Levi and nursed. I could smell when the inspector tried out my stove top; he turned all the burners on, and I *never* use the large burner at the back, so I could smell the dust burning, lol. It took all I had not to jump up and make sure they weren't burning the burner covers, which is something that Chris does with some regularity, lol.

They walked through and tried most of the outlets, and flipped the light switches, and tried out the windows. They went through the attic and the basement. All in all, they were pretty thorough. Probably much more than the inspector we had when we bought this house, lol. They had a tendency to stand around and talk, a lot. About things not related to my house. Like the quality of water in a neighborhood nowhere near mine. Bleh, I was waiting for them to get out! The inspection ended up being 2 hours, I was told it would be about 45 minutes. One thing that really got to me was the furnace. They came upstairs to turn up the thermostat so the furnace would come on. Um, hello? It's 9 degrees outside! (up from 0 at 7 am, lol) Don't you think that if the furnace wasn't working it would be a *little* cold in my house? Not only that, but it had come on at least 5 times while they were there. Ah well.

Finally they all went outside to walk around the outside. After a while I wondered what they were doing, and it turned out they had left! They didn't even poke their heads in to say they were leaving. It would have been nice to let me know, since I was waiting until they were done to put Levi down for a nap. No one has called me since, either, so I don't know when I'll be hearing about the inspection, or if I will at all. I guess no news is good news, and there is nothing that needs to be done.

My realtor is going on vacation tomorrow. She is going on a cruise and will be gone more than a week. I hope I don't have any questions before she gets back! I also hope someone is going to contact me about the septic guy coming back.

Troyer has had a cold this week, mostly a runny nose with a little cough. He had lost most of his voice, but it is coming back. No one else was sick, I was hoping he'd keep it to himself. Well, I have been feeling like maybe I'm getting it, and now I'm pretty sure I am. This fall I have been lucky, though, and when I get a cold it's mild and doesn't spread to anyone else. I hope I can keep this one to myself too. Then this afternoon, Noah started coughing, and tonight he went to bed early. I hope he will be ok.

We are supposed to get a snow storm tomorrow, up to 10 inches. Church is cancelled, which is nice, but we probably would have stayed home anyway. The van stinks in the snow (see post below! lol). That also means our house hunting for this weekend is cancelled. Bummer. I may have to go down mid-week without Chris and start doing drive-bys, just to narrow down the list. We'll have to see how the weather goes. My MIL was going to keep 2 of the boys for a whole week, drop them off this week, pick them up next week, but now the weather cancelled that plan too. They are disappointed, and MIL and FIL are even more so. But maybe it's just as well, if they are all starting to get colds.

Ok, now that the news is out, more to report:

I know you were all waiting to hear about that, so now the rest of the news lol:

Levi is rolling! All over the house! On Friday morning he finally rolled from back to front on purpose. Once he did that, it just clicked and he loved it! Now he rolls everywhere. He is very excited to be mobile!

The weather here has taken a turn for the worse. Yesterday while we were out driving around during the house showings, it snowed some, and the temperature really dropped. It was slippery when we went out, but we had to be out until almost 5 pm. By then it was snowing again and very bad. I was driving on a back road and the van totally missed a turn. Luckily I had the option of going straight, and no one else was in the intersection, so I just slid through and then backed up and inched around the turn. Yikes, it was scary. When we turned onto our road, there was a cow coming down the road! I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stop then either and end up hitting it, but it turned down the drive to its barn, so I didn't have to stop after all. Phew! When we finally inched our way the rest of the way home, I went inside and called the owners of the cow to tell them it was loose, but it turns out the guy was in the barn feeding them and saw the loose cow come home.

While we were out yesterday I bought Troyer some snowpants, since last year's just weren't going to stretch over him anymore. He was very excited since it was snowing, he thought he'd get to go right out today and put them to use. Well, the temperature today was 19 and it was windy. Right now the wind chill is -5 degrees. Brrr! No way they are going out. They'd have to come in in 3 minutes! He's very mad at me now, LOL.

I am planning to make a trip to house hunt next Sunday. I hope the weather cooperates. I'm not sure what I'll do if I can't get the van down there. The inspector is supposed to come this week to inspect our house and septic. That means digging up the lid and pumping out the tank. I hope Chris can find the lid under the snow. He's not thrilled LOL Cross your fingers that the inspector doesn't find anything serious.

SOLD!

Yes, we sold our house last night! One of the couples who walked through on Saturday came back on Sunday and wrote an offer. We got our asking price, no haggling needed. It is very exciting! Now we have to get to work on finding a place to move to! Closing is set for March 31 so we have about 2 1/2 months to get out of here. :-)

Another Nibble

Just after lunch the realtor called me again to set up another showing. They will be coming over tomorrow at 4. Yikes, I am not ready! I spent all day today racing around trying to do 8 things at once all while trying to keep the boys from messing it all back up again. I vacuumed, and decluttered a few more surfaces, swept the kitchen floor, wiped down the kitchen chairs, washed dishes, put dishes away, washed a few windows, threw in a load of wash since Micah peed on the bath rug getting into the tub today (oops! lol), and tried to get my hallway as clear as possible. There is another big load of boxes for storage now down in the "family room" (we have never called it that, but that is what it is listed as). Whoever walks through the house will just have to understand that we are packing! It should be gone on Sunday. I hope. Chris spent each evening, after getting home late, shampooing spots of various rugs. They look great, sure, but I would have appreciated his helping with the decluttering. Maybe get that big blue tarp off the deck. Maybe straighten up the basement a bit so people could get through it. Tonight he came home and cleaned off his dresser top (well, I'm sure he thinks it's clean) and his desk (again, same thing) and then sat down to do work he brought home. I have to take the boys to a homeschool meeting tomorrow morning at 10, we'll get home sometime after lunch, and have to go out again around 3:30. Not really a lot of time for me to get anything done but last minute stashing. So I've been running around like a crazy woman trying to make the place decent. Chris just sat there with the tv on doing his work. Bleh. And do you think I am getting any credit for what I got done today? Nope. Because, of course, it doesn't compare to all the painting he's done. And because now he'll have to take the boxes to storage. Double Bleh. I'd like to see him get anything at all done around this house with a baby stuck to his boob! I sure hope tomorrow will go ok and I won't be embarrassed.

Oh, and I forgot to say Happy Birthday! to Levi, who is 5 months old today!

A Nibble!

I got a call this morning from the realtor, and set up our first showing for Sunday morning. They originally wanted to come this morning at 11, but ummmm with 6 kids to dress and get out plus get the dishes out of the sink and hide miscellanious junk, with 2 hours notice? Nope, don't think so! LOL Plus, she actually called twice, the first time I was in the shower; so I also had to get me ready too lol.

I will be limiting my online time during the day now, so the realtor can get through to set up showings, but I'll post updates at night when I can. Now I'm off to wash mirrors and dust!

Good Teeth

I am happy to report that my boys have inherited their father's good teeth. (Hey! He's good for something! LOL) My oldest 3 boys had appointments at the dentist yesterday morning. It was Samuel's first dentist visit, as this is the first year that he had any adult teeth. I am so proud of them all; I had to take all 6 boys in, and they were all very good. The dentist came out and asked who would go first, and Noah volunteered right away. He was done in a matter of minutes. Troyer went next, and actually walked back before the dentist came out and asked for him. Next came Samuel, who could have been understandably nervous, but he jumped right up and went back for his turn. No crying, no nerves, no complaining. It was great! And the dentist came out after they were all done and said "No Cavities!" Yipee! Thank goodness they did not get my teeth! I had at least 6 cavities by the time I was 10. Also nice was the fact that they didn't even do a full cleaning on the boys, so the total bill for all 3 only came to $75. Not too bad!

Our house is now officially on the market. We have spent the last week trying to get rid of all the clutter and dirt, and have made a good dent. The living room and family room/play room/dining room are done. The bedrooms are almost finished, just a few things need to be hid in closets or thrown in a box. Unfortunately, the most important room, the kitchen, still needs work. There is a huge pile of papers on the table in the center of the room, a bunch of clutter (that will soon be in a box) on top of the microwave, a whole shelf of school papers and resources that I had hoped to have put in storage but I just don't know how I'll do without those things, plus the floor did not get mopped. Chris did patch up parts of the floor along the edges that were missing vinyl. I guess it was the sort of thing that he wasn't going to bother to do before because we really need to just replace the ugly brown vinyl, but if we were going to do that we'd need to put in a new subfloor because the floor slopes, but we don't want to put that kind of money into this house, we just didn't think it would be worth the investment. So he should have just patched it up years ago. Uh huh, no need to get into that again, right? It looks pretty nice. He also shampooed a few of the carpets and scrubbed the bathroom, which looks great. He has some trim up in Troyer's room, around the ceiling, so it just needs to be patched and painted and that will look good (just paint the trim, btw, not the whole room; or not yet anyway).

I just took the boys' picture on the couch this morning. I think this one is the one I am going to have to use for the christmas pictures (yes, it is mid-January and I am still planning to send out christmas cards!) Everyone will just have to be happy with it! LOL

This morning it started out raining with a few snowflakes mixed in. The boys were jumping up and down, "It's snowing! It's snowing!" They were all set to go pull the sleds out and put snowpants on. I just rolled my eyes. Well, a few short hours later, I glanced out the window and saw SNOW! Several inches! The rain had changed completely over and I even saw a snow plow come by. Oops, LOL. I guess this time the boys were right! Unfortunately for them, it is already starting to melt again. But that is the best kind of snow, right? The kind that melts right after it finishes falling? ;-)

Just a Few Pictures

Here are some pictures of the room Chris doesn't want to paint:

You can see from all the shelves and big furniture that it will be a pain in the neck to clear out enough to patch and paint. But still, $10K? I'd do it.

I Just Don't Understand My Husband

Ok, anyone who knows anything about him is right now thinking, "yeah, and who does?" But let me tell you what happened tonight. Tonight the realtor came over and we signed the papers and discussed prices and showings and all that stuff. My husband doesn't really like to talk to strangers, he's painfully shy and while he tries to overcome it so it doesn't cripple him in life, he willingly lets others take over for him in situations like these if he can get them to. So, as expected, he let me do all the talking tonight. The realtor gave us a price she thought was a good place to start, and I suggested a little higher as we weren't going to go down much further than what she started at. She was fine with that. Then she walked around the house to see the work that we had done. She was VERY impressed with how nice it looks now. Well, except for the 2 rooms that didn't get painted. Now that the rest of the house looks so good, they look hideous. She suggested that we go ahead and paint these rooms too. Of course I, being the woman of the house and the one concerned with these sorts of things, agreed that it should be done. Chris, meanwhile, was downstairs sitting in his chair waiting for us to get done with the tour. So we come downstairs and she tells him how nice it looks, but that he really should paint the last 2 rooms. He knows that I agree. I did mention to her that he really didn't want to do them. It's a lot of work to clear all the furniture out and take everything down from the walls and patch the nail holes and prime and paint wallpaper. He was soooo excited to be done with painting.

Here is why we need to paint one of the rooms:

The water damage is actually just from leaving the window open when it rained, and is from before we moved in. The old windows weren't installed right and the water filled up the sill and flowed over into the house instead of out the window. With our new windows it is not a problem; plus we replaced the sill. Now it just needs to be painted.

Here is what I don't understand about my husband: he is upset about having to do more painting. I can understand his frustration, but the realtor said it should be done! He truly believes it will not add value to the house or help sell it any faster. He thinks that anyone thinking of buying this particular house will already know it needs tons of work and they had better be handy or rich. I reminded him that the realtor had told us if we listed the house without doing any work to it, she'd put it $20K lower than now. I asked him, didn't he think a few hundred dollars of paint and a few months of weekends and evenings were worth $20K? He said, get this, No. Do you know the reason he has made me live in this hideous house for 8 years without painting? He claims it's because the boys would mess it up, but really it's because he just didn't want to do the painting. I asked him, "so you would rather leave the 2 rooms undone and take $10K less on the house?" and he said Yes. Ugh!!! And just how does he think he is going to be able to afford his 4 brm 2 bath house on at least an acre if he doesn't get all he can out of this house??? He had no answer to that, just that he didn't think paint was going to make a difference.

He sat in a sulk after the realtor left and then decided that if he has to paint this room he is not going to set the computers back up when he is done, I'll have to go without internet until we move. Keep in mind that we don't even have a house to move to yet, so this could be 2 months or more. How hard would it be to set it up downstairs in the meantime? How hard would it be to set it back up? Oh no, the computers would go to storage, and therefore would not come back out until we move. So I said fine, don't paint, be a baby. I'll call the realtor tomorrow and tell her that he just doesn't want to do it, and see what she says.

The Realtor is Coming!

Yesterday I called the realtor and told her to come on over, we are finally ready to sign the papers! She will be here this afternoon. We still have a bunch of clutter to hide, and some final scrubbing, like the tub and the kitchen floor, but mostly we are done. She said that the couple who was interested in the fall are still waiting for our house, and that we should have no problem getting the price we want. Yeah!

I found a picture of my kitchen from before we put in the new sink and counter, so I wanted to post before and after pictures for you to see:

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Also, I have some pictures from our Christmas trip:

The Boys in the Van Driving to Grandma's

The Christmas Bush (and yes, that's how it looked on Christmas Day, no ornaments and unlit)

And finally, I took some pics of the boys today. I took Troyer in to have his portrait redone, since the one he did in December came out blurry and I had to return it. It was another pita, so I decided then that I will just do a digital pic of them all and make prints to send out for Christmas cards. Today we did practice shots, since Levi was napping. I took a few of Levi then, when he woke up.

5 of the Boys

Levi

Here is Levi trying to see what the boys have to play with. I had put him down in the middle of the floor, and he scooted himself over to the side with the bins of cars, lol. He did officially roll over from front to back 2 days ago, and he did again yesterday, but he hasn't rolled today.

An Aside

I know I said I'd post about my Christmas, but honestly, it was so depressing that I haven't had the heart to go through it all again as I write it. I vented to both of my sisters, then brought the mood down in chat on New Year's Eve with the story, and I just don't even want to go there again. I can tell you it is nothing physical, nothing happened to anyone, no one is hurt or sick. In fact, the boys had a great time, and Chris had fun too. It was just me who didn't want to be there. Maybe later I'll get around to writing about it.

What I wanted to say today is: Woo Hoo! Congratulations Kmomof10, Kim!!!! So so so exciting to hear your news! Best of luck to you, and I hope all that m/s means twins!!! LOL