Saturday, March 26, 2011

Soccer

For months now Anna has been talking about playing soccer again so now that we are settled in our house, it was time to sign her up again (the last time she played was last year). We decided to try the Turf Tikes program at the Factory in Wake Forest again, this time with Anna being in a group without us and she is loving it!



Anna is often the only girl in the group and she is always smiling and skipping as she listens to her coach and kicks the soccer ball. At home, she always wants to kick her soccer ball and pretend that we are goals. I am so proud at how well she is doing listening and I love that she seems to be getting so much enjoyment out of it.

We have also learned that Maddie is not a huge fan of soccer :). She did well the first time, listening and participating but it was rather obvious that she wasn't overly interested in soccer and it lost her attention rather quickly. Today there was a total unwillingness to listen to her coach and so we left - she was content just to watch Anna. I asked her what she didn't like about soccer, she said the ball :). So we'll have to see what really catches Maddie's attention - I'm guessing something with music.

Monday, March 14, 2011

A New House, Our Home

At the end of December Erik and I started discussing a new home for our family. We loved our neighborhood, greatly enjoyed our home that we had put much time and money into remodeling but as we started thinking about wanting to grow our family while continuing to have a place for Erik to work at home (which adds to his job satisfaction) we began to look around. Actually... we began to look at one house in particular. Erik found a house just 2 miles from our house in a beautiful neighborhood that connected to the one we currently loved and it was perfect except that it was a foreclosure. By the time we had the appointment with our realtor we had already driven by several times, peeked in the windows and had imagined what the floor plan would look like (foreclosures don't give you much info). We knew that we would instantly know when we walked through the house if it was the one for us. We had looked at our budget and we knew what we could offer and what we couldn't. And so, after one visit to the house (which apparently most people go 3 times) we put in an offer - I like to say we are decisive :).

I previously didn't know a lot about foreclosures. Yes, the are an opportunity to get a good deal but the banks that own them seem to play by a whole different set of rules. The offer process was a nail biter and through most of it I had little confidence we would end up with the house. Then of course there were the documents removing the bank from almost all responsibilities and waiting for an inspection. Being sold in an "as is" condition, we knew the items identified on the inspection would not be fixed by the seller but if there were any major things wrong with the house we could bow out of the contract. Thankfully, the inspector found little more than a rusty garbage disposal and a few other odds and ends. Praise God!

And so, we moved. We have now been in our new house for a little over 2 weeks and it already feels like home. I feel like we have had visitors almost daily which is exactly what we love. We are loving our new house, our home.