We're moving!

Life has been lots of change recently with the new baby, and now on top of it we've sold our house and are ready to close on the new one. Selling this townhouse is kinda a funny story. We rented a storage shed and were moving things into it to try to get things staged and ready to go on the market. When we did our financing we actually prequalified with both houses so we weren't in a huge rush to sell, but we don't really want two mortgages for too long. Ok, so my mom had come down to help me clean and pack and we had pulled everything out of a back closet and had a HUGE mess. I had laundry everywhere and boxes and well...junk. My mom was in the garage organizing things and I was talking with her for a minute when we saw a lady drive by looking kinda lost. I went in to take care of Megan and left my mom outside to keep going. A few minutes later she opens the door and says "Julie....I'm showing someone your house." Ok people...my house was a MESS!!! I was upset!!! I was soooo embarrassed, but what do you do?!?! So I apologized for the mess, told her the living room was the kitchen, then realized...no...the kitchen is over there...not here...oye!!! My mom was feeling bad and when I said "this is the kitchen" and was pointing to the living room she knew I was flustered. I proceeded to show her through the house and was dying when there was even underwear on the floor. We were upstairs when Norman came roaring up the stairs chasing the dogs. I was all "Ummm...hi babe....we're showing someone the house." She left and hadn't gotten any contact info so we thought that was that. About an hour or so later she came back and got our information and we were actually in contract that Wednesday. Who would have thought!?!?!? We actually sold our house without staging and before we put it on the market. I decided that this means that I have to go back to work :( Oh well! I guess work is good for me. Now we're teasing my mom that not only is she a cougar, but now she's a realtor too. Who knew she was a woman of so many talents?

Lots of changes

Well, you would think that having a baby would be a big enough change for us, but we like to take things to the next level for some reason. I went to the hospital on a Sunday to be induced and the week before (like Wednesdayish) Norman had a great idea about what we could do for babysitting. You see, we'd wondered if I would go back to work, or stay home. We've been bought out at work and within the next year I should be able to work from home full time. We had decided that we'd look at getting a nanny so that when I was working from home Megan would be home with me, but I would have someone else watching her so I could get work done. Norman crunched the numbers and we can get a lot of house for the price of a nanny. Norman's sister and brother in law are coming to Salt Lake to go to school and were looking for place to live. They have 3 kids and needed some place cheap. Norman figured out we could buy a place with a basement apartment and they could live there for free and babysit for us. It's a win win plan and we were very excited! Within a week of having Megan we prequalified and started looking at houses. This whole thing has been crazy! So last year we refinanced this house and it ended up that the loan officer at our credit union was in our ward (we didn't know that at first). We ended up with a stellar loan and our tax guy and financial adviser commented on how good of a loan it was. He ended up being our home teacher and we decided to use him again. Then we asked him about a Realtor. He suggested a name that would have been the last person I would have chosen. I had nothing against him, but we had been in the singles ward together and so I just wouldn't have picked him first. I hadn't ever talked to him in the ward or anything, but I'm weird so I just wasn't sure I would have picked his name out of a phone book. Anyways, we called him and started looking on Tuesday. Tuesday didn't really go well because we were just starting and I was emotional and yah...it was a lot to wrap my head around. I was in tears by the end and thinking that maybe moving wasn't the best thing to do. My mom reminded me that it took them weeks to pick out a lawnmower and to be patient. The problem is we are kinda under a time crunch. I go back to work the middle of June and I can't go back to work without someone to watch Megan. For a while I was ready to throw in the towel and not go back and just stay home with Megan full time.

We went back out on Thursday to look at houses and our realtor lined up houses for us and then one house he said he wanted us to look at, but it wasn't technically on the market yet. We looked at the first house and it was great, but needed to have the basement finished and was towards the top of our price range. We pulled in to the second house and our realtor explained that this house wasn't on the market yet because he actually owned it and was currently renting it to 6 bachelors. Here's the story behind this house. He bought it on a short sale and he and his wife were planning on living there for their forever home. She had been going to school so they were living in a condo downtown. They found out they were pregnant 2 December's ago and were planning on moving into this house once she was out of the first trimester and wasn't so morning sick. In January he was called as bishop. He explained that they were going to move and they were told that they shouldn't move and that he should stay and be bishop. Considering he's only been bishop for about a year and he's got 4-5 more years left, they weren't going to be moving into this home anytime soon. The thing is, the market still isn't great and even though he's a realtor, to sell this home with another realtor would just cost too much and wasn't worth the hassle where they had renters. Along come Norman and me and it was a PERFECT fit. There are renters in it so it's hard to get too many pictures, but here are a couple. It's a lot of house, but there will be 2 families living there. It's 5200 sq feet total, but the basement alone is about 1600 sqare feet. It's move in ready, but we're going to need to do some updating. The house is in good condition, but needs some TLC where it's just had renters in it and was a short sale and empty before that. Luckily, it's in an expensive neighborhood so we have lots of room for upgrades. I'm not happy that we will be on the hill, but we need a house with an apartment and this one has a full walk out apartment which will be great for Katie and Caleb so they don't feel like they are in a dungeon.

Here's the outside

We're just working on getting all of the details done, but we're under contract and getting ready to put our current house on the market.

Our week at home

It's starting to set in that we have a baby now. I was at the point in my life where I never thought I'd get married and then "bam!!" I was married. Then I thought it would take at least 6 months to get pregnant and "bam!!!" I was pregnant. A lot has happened really fast. I wouldn't change any of it, but phew...it's been fast.

On Wednesday my mom and I went to Sears to have Megan's newborn photo's taken. The girl taking our photos was pregnant with her first and very excited to have her new baby. Our appointment was at 11 and they didn't have any more appointments until 3, but I didn't know that until we got there. We were there for soooo long!!! Megan did really great at the end, but at first it was a bit rough. We had enough time to do several outfit changes and nurse her several times. It was a long day, but I'm so happy that we have so many great pictures to choose from.