Spring 2013 - Grow baby, grow!

Hubs and I had been talking for quite some time about re-modeling, adding on, moving, building new - doing SOMETHING to our housing situation.  We love our first little house in town - it's our beginning, but we really wanted a little more space and another bathroom wouldn't be the end of the world.  We kept going round and round, not able to ever settle on a decision.  

New Year's Day, 2013, we decided to go for a drive and look at some advertised properties - see what was available for building new construction.  With a baby coming in about 5 months, we felt like we should make some sort of decision.  We drove around and looked at advertised empty land, but saw nothing we wanted.  Just before going home, Hubs told me about 20 acres just out of town he had seen, but it had a house on it already.  We decided to check it out anyway.  When we pulled down the driveway, we instantly felt at home.  It was a LITTLE farmhouse with several garages/outbuildings on 20 acres of wheat land.  The house was tiny, it was old, it was outdated - but it was AMAZING!  I'm not sure why we fell in love right away, but it just felt like home.  We explored what we could from outside, then went home to talk.  We called our Realtor within a day or so, and she took us through the house.  It's only about 1300 square feet, with a tiny kitchen, single bath with no shower, washer and dryer outside - across the driveway in the "pump house," but in immaculate condition.  We put in an offer and it was accepted - now we just had to sell our current house!

Our new place - property outlined in red.  Doesn't look too special from the air during the winter, but it's really pretty.

On the pregnancy front, I have been pretty sick.  Lots of nausea and vomiting, so the weight gain is going pretty slow.  Midwife says everything is fine, though, and baby is healthy and growing.  We are SO excited to meet this little one!

Four months in, and nothing to show for it....

Five months in - a bump is visible! Yay!  This is starting to feel real!

At the end of January we went in for our 20 week ultrasound, anatomy scan and gender check.  Baby looks awesome, is growing right on schedule, and....

It's a Girl!

I baked cookies with pink frosting and little pendants for our Sunday morning meeting.

Aunt Mary

The boys were okay with the whole "girl" announcement, since I brought cookies.

February and March were pretty much spent working on the house.  We tried to have it on the market more "as is", but winter is a hard time to sell a house - especially in a short time frame.  The people who were selling us the new place were gracious to let us try to sell our house first, but then a couple other offers were made, and we had to hurry it along to not lose the house.  Hubs ended up putting a new roof on the house and garage (saved money from hiring it out) by himself.  He had a couple of friends and family members help a bit, but he spent almost every evening after work on the roof.  In order to sell fast, we had to make quite a few repairs.  I painted inside, painted outside, caulked, puttied, hammered, etc - but Chance did the vast majority of the work.  I suppose being pregnant helped me escape some of the load?  We were sure glad to have mother-in-law help with painting, and family over a couple evenings to get things done on time!  All in all, we were able to sell with only one month of a double mortgage payment.  Glad that didn't last long!!!

Mid February, 2013

Not so obvious from the front, yet!

End of February, 2013

First week of March, 2013

End of March, 2013 - last baby bump pic in the old house!

Here are some of the Realtor's pictures from the listing of our old house - I didn't take any after all the work was done.  I wish I would have, but I was a bit preoccupied!  This was before we started packing, so here are some of the rooms as we lived in them.

Front door, entry, and sitting room.  Master bedroom is to the right of the entry.

Front sitting room looking into kitchen.  Guest bedroom is on the left.  Past the fridge is the entry to the living room, and another guest room.  Also, the back door with access to the back yard and garage.

Kitchen, looking into entry to living room.  Back door is in hallway behind the fridge, steps down to the basement are on the left.  Dining room is left of this picture, bath is also left.

Kitchen

Dining room

Bathroom