Mom's Wedding Weekend

Jesse and I at Packwood

Is that a baby bump?!

We went to my mom's wedding last weekend in Packwood! It was a very warm and sunny weekend. We arrived super late on Friday evening as Jesse had to photograph a wedding in Graham. I went with him and it was nice to have some time to read in his truck as there was no cell service. We got to Packwood around midnight and basically just went to bed.

Saturday we got ready, people put out decorations, and then more getting ready. Wedding was at 3pm and it was right on the river. It was lovely. After the wedding we ate, hung out, had cake and a toast, and relaxed. Everyone had a wonderful time.

The next morning we all cleaned and packed up. On the way out of town Jesse and I stopped at an antique shop to further our quest of getting a cup/saucer on our little travels, as well as look for the older cast iron. They had a few cast iron skillets, and I picked out a nice looking Wagner. I've been on a quest for the glass like bottom that the Wagner/Griswold pans have. Jesse also found the only bone china cup/saucer in the store and we bought it! I've been slowly trying to build a tea set for 8. Now I have a set of 4 cup and saucers and one 3-tier serving platters. I am well on my way!

Will Our House Get Lender Approval?

We have been patiently waiting for the house we put an offer on in May to get approved by the seller's lender. Last week we were told all the documents had been turned in and we just have to wait for an answer. One of the last items we had to sign was a 60 day close once we got the lender's approval. Which is putting our closing date towards the beginning of October. 

Our original closing date is August 5th which is still an important day for us. If we don't get lender's approval by this day, we have two options. 

1. We decide to keep waiting for this house. Everyone is required to file an extension and our close goes from 5 months, to possibly 8 months? Not really sure how long of an extension we would file, so I can't be sure.
2. We decide that if the bank hasn't approved it by now, we are done waiting. We have enough money for a down payment on a non-short sale house and we could find something else with a 30 day close. Do we really want to close on a house when we are approaching the holiday season. Also, do we really want to be moving when I am 6 - 9 months pregnant. When we sign an extension we really don't know how long it could drag on for, and that extension may run out and then we would be back to these 2 choices again.

So we have 6 more days to wait to see if the bank finally gives us an answer or if we have to make a decision. I hope we get an approval by Tuesday as I would really love to get this house and we have already waited 3 months. We have already spent a lot of time imagining what we will do with it, so I am crossing my fingers and praying we get the approval.

Week 12

I'm already 12 weeks! I can't believe it! Technically I'm 12 weeks and 4 days, so almost 13 weeks. Time seems to be flying by. 

How many weeks?: 12 Weeks

How big is baby?: Apricot or Plum

Gender: Unknown! I just made the anatomy scan appointment for September 10th and have now planned to do a gender reveal brunch on September 13th. We won't even know until we cut open the cake! Is it blue or pink cake?!

Weight Gain: I think 3 pounds.

Maternity Clothes: Definitely not wearing any yet. Most days in the summer I wear flowy dresses and I am really not big enough for those clothes yet. However, I bought some shirts (2 nice & 2 tanktops) at Zuliliy today. I probably won't buy any more for a while, but I am trying to not make it too expensive all at once!

Nursery: I only have my ideas for now. It will be elephant themed (my favorite animal) with grey and white colors. Once we know the gender I can see what other splash of colors I want to add. We haven't moved into our house yet as it's a short sale. Sounds like it will be another 2-3 months. BUT the room will be painted a light grey.

Symptoms: I still have an upset tummy for the first few hours I am awake. Some days are better than others. I seem to have a bad case of pregnancy brain as well.

Cravings: Carbs mainly. And cold foods. I have been so hot lately with the weather, I just want cereal with cold milk, fruit Popsicles, etc. Nothing too crazy. I haven't really had the "I need this food now" craving.

Sleep: I haven't had as many dreams in the last week or two, but I am still getting them. I feel like they are affecting my sleep, and I hope they aren't very often. I wake up at least once to pee usually around 2:30am.

What I Miss: Cold roast beef sandwiches. 

Best Moment This Week: Getting some baby items! We got a Mariners onesie at the baseball game. I won a raffle on a FB BST group for a Aden & Anais swaddle blanket. Jesse also then decided to get us the Elephant dream blanket from Aden & Anais because it's so awesome. Friday I picked up 2 baby items from my sister's auntie that she gave us and Saturday morning we got a few things at garage sales. Wow! So many baby items for one week!

What am I looking forward to?: My appointment on Thursday. I am getting the genetic screening done and I will be able to see baby! Yay!

Next Appointment: July 31st at 3pm for the nuchal translucency screening. This includes blood work and an ultrasound.

Back to Not Working Weekends

This was my first weekend after quiting my second job where we were actually home. The prior 3 weekends were: camping, camp, and camp. This weekend was awesome! So relaxing and fun. It's nice spending the weekend with my husband and not working. :)

We went to a Mariners game with Jesse's work. We won 4-3! Go Mariners!

We went out for dinner afterwards to Bahama Breeze! Yum! I scored a cute winter sweater at the Nordstrom's yearly event. Yes... I know it's July! :)

Sunday was all about relaxing at home. Oh and grocery shopping. That's it! :)

Telling the Family! Our Pregnancy Announcement

Coming Soon... Baby Selland!

I haven't been on the blog in a while, but we have some important news to share! We are expecting our first baby on February 5th, 2015! We are super excited to welcome a little girl or boy into our life.

I can't believe in 2 days I will already be at 10 weeks! It felt like it was going to slow in the beginning for baby to look like a real baby inside, but now looking back time has flown and now we are practically 1/4 of the way done!! So crazy!!

We announced it to our families in person, except my dad, we Skyped him on Father's Day. We got everyone in person on video, and I will post it later.

We made our announcement publicly with this picture:

I have been feeling nauseous and/or upset tummy if I haven't eaten in over 45 minutes. I really got hit with fatigue, but it's actually starting to go away thankfully! I did also get cramping and my sense of smell is crazy.

We had our ultrasound appointment at exactly 8 weeks and the next appointment is at 12 weeks on July 26th. That is an OB workup.

Well, there you go. Baby Selland coming soon.

Garden Party

We had a pretty awesome Saturday this weekend! It started our very relaxing and then we cleaned up the house and did some chores. We headed to Home Depot for their Seattle Garden Party in Issaquah and got some really awesome gifts - gardening tools, garden hose sprayer, gloves, and seeds. Jesse was doing the social media thing for them and he ended up winning a Home Depot bucket with a utility belt, a trowel, and a $25 gift card. They let us paint pots and pick 1 of 3 herbs to plant in them. 

After that event, we headed to Tacoma to check out our new house again and get dimensions for flooring and paint. Now we just need to get some quotes.

Mutual Acceptance

Today was the day that we got the paperwork back from the sellers/broker. The papers are all signed and we are in mutual acceptance! The broker also uploaded it to a program that sends it to the lender. Now we just wait for the lender to approve the sale. This is very exciting. Our first step to owning our first house together is complete.

This Saturday we are planning to go to Home Depot's Seattle Garden Party in Issaquah. It sounds like a fun event, and we can also spend time in Home Depot getting ideas for our new house. After that we might be able to go to the house to take measurements. :) We also want to squeeze in time to go to a flooring store! At the end of the night I work my event job from 9pm-1am. On Sunday I work 12:30-6:00pm. Working everyday isn't really fun, but knowing we are buying a house and we can use any extra money to fix it up sounds awesome.

Next week will be great because it's a short week because we are going to Las Vegas!! Yay!! We will be there for 4 nights, 3 1/2 days. We arrive Thursday around 4pm and then leave Monday at 7am. I imagine it will be very busy there since it's Memorial Day weekend - one of the few 3 day weekends for working folk. Friday we have a Grand Canyon Tour and Saturday we have a Hoover Dam Tour. My grandparents down there own a comedy tour to those 2 places and this trip is my graduation present. I am finally using it 2 1/2 years later. I wish we could stay a little longer, but we are already having to take 2 days off from work. I will be posting pictures of our trip so stay tuned! :) We leave in 8 days! :)

Offer Accepted (Verbally)!!!!

Holy guacamole!!!! We found out today that they verbally accepted our offer. We hadn't heard from them at all since Tuesday and now it's Friday. The other broker went out of town on Thursday and Jeanne found out today around noon that our offer had been accepted. We are so excited!! It still has to get approved by the bank. We are confidential it will get approved because we are paying more than they had approved on a previous offer. When the broker gets back on town she is meeting with the sellers and getting us the written acceptance - paperwork and getting it to the seller's lender for approval.

The house is a 3 bedroom 1 bath (for now - wanting to make it a 1.75 bath) It's got a 2 car garage detached and it's about 1300 sq ft! :) The kitchen is a great size. It's a fixer upper definitely, but we are excited to make to work on it and make it nice. 

I will update later when there is more information.

Another Offer In - Waiting

We started the weekend off on Saturday going on another house tour. We actually found quite a bit of houses that met our requirements. We put an offer on the first house we looked at on Monday. It is a short sale, and according to the broker, the bank has approved the listing price (previous offers - financing fell through & decided not to move) and we were told the bank is very cooperative. It would be a 90 day close if our offer is accepted and everything works out.

On Tuesday we found out there was another offer on the house. Jeanne said the broker would give everyone until 5pm on Wednesday to submit their best offer, and the highest one gets picked. We revised our offer and submitted a higher one, and we are waiting to hear back on if ours was selected or not. If someone was higher, then we will just keep looking. I am not too worried because the market is giving us a better selection with the warmer weather. Although, we would be very happy not to have to keep putting offers on houses and doing bidding wars. It's an awesome house for a starter home, and we are just crossing our fingers. We will find out tomorrow what happened with our offer and then we can move forward one way or another. I'll post an update once we get an answer.