A new home

Well on Friday we finally closed on our new house. Unfortunately we have not sold our current house yet. But we have had one showing a week since we released the past offer we had. So hopefully we will have a buyer sooner than later.
So now we need to decided when we are permanently going to move into our new place. Currently we are splitting our time between both houses. I laughingly like to say that I now have a summer home and a winter house. The funny part is our new house is only about 10 miles south west from our current house.
Another decision that we need to decide is if we are going to do any remodeling before we permanently move in. The house is live able but could definitely use some updates. It would be wonderful if we were able to do at least some of the fix ups before we were they full-time. If we are able to do any remodeling my plan would be to start in what will be our girls rooms. I would love to be able to get their new rooms done so that they can settle into their new rooms as soon as possible.
Wish us luck and I will keep you updated as we continue on this journey set before us.

Boot planters.

I love to garden and our potential move has put a damper on my gardening. So I decided to do some planting to spruce up our deck. We had some old boots laying in the woodshed so I decided to take advantage of them and put them to good use. I looked up how to make boots planters and used http://crafting.squidoo.com/how-to-make-boot-planters-flower-pots as a reference point.

To start you need a pair or two or three of old boots.

Old boots from woodshed.

 Next you need to remove the insoles from the boots. After the insoles have been removed you need to take a drill and drill through the soles of the boots to make drain holes. Once that is done start adding dirt to the boots. Make sure you get it all the way down into the toe of the boots.

Adding soil into boot.

Once you have the boot mostly filled insert plant to check the height of the plant in the boot. Water the dirt to help it settle. Check the depth again and place plant in boot. Fill dirt around your plant.  And your boot is done repeat with the other boot.

Below you can see the three pairs of boots that I have made. I added my favorite flowers New Guinea Impatients.

Cowboy boots

Short work boots

Tall work boots

House drama, the good,bad and ugly.

So as you all know we have had our house on the market since about September of 2012, in October we accepted an offer. Well we kept our house on the market and had a few more showings but never received another offer as we hoped we would.
In April we heard from our buyers that they had accepted an offer on their house, so we got pretty excited and started the wheels moving on our end with our new house. We had a contract with them to close on June 28th but they were confident that it would happen sooner as in the end of May.
Well as we made it into the middle of May without hearing from them we knew the end of May was no longer going to happen. So we started packing for the end of June and so did they.  At the beginning of June we started to push to see what this were at. Only to find out that their buyer's bank screwed up and never scheduled an assessment. So they pushed and rushed one done. All this while we both were still planning on closing at the end of June. On June 6th we received some bad news.Their assessment had come in under the asking price and the owners dropped the price 3 grand under the assessed value only to have their buyer's pull out of the deal.
So this left us in a tight spot what we're we going to do? And what we're they going to do? We had them check into a bridge loan or other financing but they were unable to secure anything. Because we have held this contract for almost 9 months and could no longer afford to keep it we told them that the contract will express at the end of the month.
We did give them the option of extending the contract till the end of July with no contingencies. They did not accept it.
So now we on still on the market without any offers. So if anyone you know is interested in a six acres hobby farm north of Milwaukee, Wi let me know.
Now the time comes for us to decide what we are going to do about our new house. Do we purchase it and pay that this house sells sooner than later or do we pass on this huge opportunity? Another option would be to rent this house out month by month till it sells. Time will tell.

Sorry for the Long Break.

Sorry for the long break but let me explain why I have been away and not posted in  while.

So here goes at the beginning of April we heard from the people that they finally had an accepted offer on their house. So that got the ball rolling on the sale of our house. We still are not sure on our closing date, it could be as early as the end of May or as late as the end of June. They also asked if we would let them rent our current house two weeks before the closing date so they can paint. We decided that we would consider it once we had a closing date. I am not real interested in renting our house out but we will see.

Well that was at the end of April. At the middle of May we called our realtor to see what was going on since we hadn't heard from our buyers. They were in the process of getting a loan commitment. Well we finally got that from them only to find out that their buyer's bank screwed up and didn't get an appraisal ordered. So they put a rush on an appraisal and had one done the end of last week and were still pushing for closing at the end of June.

We received a note from our realtor yesterday saying that the appraisal was at the bank and we should hear back yesterday. So we called today only to find out that their appraisal came back a little lower than the offer price so our buyers dropped their price lower than the appraisal and then some. Unfortunately their buyer's decided to walk away.

So now we are waiting till the end of the week to see what our buyers are going to do. They can either get a bridge loan or carry two mortgages till theirs sells. We have already told them that we are not going to extend the contract that we have had with them since October.

Once we hear from them we will have to figure out what we are going to do. It is so frustrating because we could have moved into our new house anytime since August. Since things were moving forward we have really started packing and moved more stuff over. This coming weekend we had planned on moving our hay, tractors, farm stuff and large swing set. Now we once again are in holding.

So please send out a prayer to have this all move in the right direction! I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason but this one is hard to deal with at the moment.

Welcome to spring in WI!

We had a beautiful warm spring weekend here this past weekend it was up into the upper 50's and then there was tonight. I was putting my girls to bed and heard a loud rushing sound, So I ran to the window and peeked out to see a windy blowing snowstorm. What! It didn't last long and didn't drop much other than  temperature. But it did confirm that I am ready for spring. I even saw our first crocus  this afternoon. Someday Spring will come. I well post soon about our St. Patrick's day and Easter fun.

Toy control needed...help!

So this is the chaos that my kids have created in my living room. They have this little corner of our living room but it seems to be growing and trying to take over.

So I knew it was time to do something otherwise my children would take over and my living room would be lost in the jumble of toys.  I decided to take action and foil their planned take over. (Insert evil laughter hahaha)

Now to address what to do...I had been considering getting a unit you can put the canvas bins into them. My dilemma comes from whether or not to do all this organizing and redecorating because of having our house on the market. Finally  decided to go ahead and do it. So off I went to buy a new unit. I found one I liked and for a reasonable price at Target. (I love Target by the way.)

So after a couple nights of clearing and reorganizing and getting rid of some stuff here are the final results. What do you think? I will say I am happy with the way it turned out and the kids are doing a good job of keeping it up even have more room to play. :)

Mother daughter date.

Last Saturday my oldest daughter and I had a morning date. We started out our date out at Home Depot. Why Home Depot you ask, well the first Saturday of every month they offer a Kid's workshop. At these workshops kids get to build a given project for free. They are given a Home Depot smock, a project kit, and a pin for their smock. There are long tables set up with all the tools, safety glasses and paints the kids may need to do their project. This is a great way for the kids to learn building skills. They learn to use hammers, screwdrivers and other tools that are needed to make the projects. These skills are skills that the kids can use later in life when they have their own homes.

So the project this last week was to build a race car. We had to glue pieces together, then nail then together, put the wheels on and then decorate the outside of the car with decals. Our car turned out great and my daughter had a lots of fun. She loves getting the pin at the end and the feeling of being able to have something that she made herself.  I would highly recommend it to any other family.

The second part of our date was to go to Marcus theater's Kid's Dream film series. They offer a movie on Saturday or Sunday morning for a great price. So off we went to the movies. The movie last week was Hotel Transylvania. It was a lot of fun and we both enjoyed the movie and the time we spent together.

Why do I think this was such a fun and great day with my oldest? Because this gave us some time to spend together just her and me apart from the rest of the family. It also shows her that she is important to me and I love . It also gives her quality time with me away from her little sister.

So my advice to all is to take special time with each of your children alone. Show then how much they mean to you.