April Already!

Well, my days are running altogether, and need to get this blog updated!  I have so many photos to post and events to tell about, but never have the time to sit down at my desktop computer anymore to post.  I Instagram mostly nowadays, and sometime I will go back and get the longer stories posted on this blog. My only beef with Instagram is that there is no way to see what I shared directly with close family and friends. 

Let me start with the most recent I guess...

"Now we can start planting trees! How funny we ended up with this title company? #nopunintended"

We closed on our new lot yesterday!  End of 2012, I started feeling (and I think Kevin too) that we needed change.  Earlier in 2012 we had that job offer and an opportunity to move to CA (and possibly HI and Guam), but turned it down.  Although we felt like our decision was right at the time, I didn't really know just how right it was 'til now.  I always second guessed myself after that big decision, especially when I started feeling like we needed a change of some sort. Well, change did come, not just in the way I expected. I got called to be Primary President only weeks after we decided to stay here and found out we were pregnant with our 5th child the same week!

After Mason was born in December, somehow we found ourselves starting to look at houses for resale or lots around us.  Prices were still great and fairly low, but either the houses needed work, or the lots were just a little further than we wanted.  In April 2013, our ward split and sadly we lost Pop and Grandma from our ward.  Sad, sad day!  That was when I first mentioned to a friend that we were looking for land, and if she heard of anything to let me know.  I didn't think of it much again.

Since we have not finished our "pool area" yet, I thought maybe we should just put in a pool and stay in our current home for a long time, maybe even til our kids were grown, and put in lots of storage, add a garage, etc.  Our house works for us, although I would want a bigger, more open family gathering space for when the kids were older and all of our family was around.  Adding up the cost of all the improvements was hefty, and made us hesitant to spend the money to improve a house that ultimately didn't have the right floor plan and bones to improve upon, and in the end we will want to move anyway.  So back to the search.

Then one random Sunday after I said "we are not moving or buying land except if it was in our ward boundaries so that the kids wouldn't have to move schools, and keep the same group of friends" (tall order!) - we got an offer to buy a beautiful piece of property within our ward boundaries and within walking distance to the temple (just directly west of it!).  I was floored.  It was so random and out of the blue, that even Kevin didn't believe me at first.  He said I must be joking.  But it was true.  We had a few days to think about whether we were interested or not.  We were interested, but the price of the lot was more than we had planned to pay, but because of the awesome location and awesome neighbors and families who lived on the street, we felt good about it.

Well, the timing of the offer to buy the lot was uncanny!  We had also been thinking about what to do with our house in Utah, with no family lined up to rent it the next summer, and us not wanting to be out-of-state landlords.  In the end we decided it was best to put the rental up for sale, and participate in a 1031 exchange as an investment strategy.  As chance would have it, the sellers had some title-recording issues and were not ready to sell us the lot, which enabled us to do a 1031, and identify the lot as the exchange property.  After listing the Utah house on Zillow, putting up a For Sale By Owner sign, and creating a for sale blog, our rental house had a cash offer within TWO weeks!  The buyers were also anxious to close and long story short, we closed that sale in January. Shortly after that, our seller friends got the land title record issues fixed, and received their permits to build their new home on the south lot.  At that point both sides were ready to sign official papers for the land.  Appraisal came in lower than we hoped (eek) but we still felt good about the purchase, and here we are a few weeks later!

We will keep the land as investment for a time - and are so happy that we have that one acre patch of land in the most ideal spot to build a home (or profit on the investment!).

The Other BIG Thing

Well, the custom home site purchase was one BIG thing, the next photo explains the other BIG thing:

Most were confused about the above photo, so here's a more straightforward one:

That's better!!

Yep...surprise of all surprises!  We found out in late January that we were expecting our 6th child!  I had no idea, except for the fact that I had some head cold that wouldn't go away for a LONG time, and sudden aversions to food and nausea.  Haha.  I suspected when the nausea came that I was pregnant.  And of course I was.  I went in to see Dr. Beck on February 13th and he confirmed that there was indeed a  little babe growing in my tummy!  We told the kids and grandparents on Valentine's Day, and the rest of our family through private messaging on Instagram (see caboose photo with my due date) - with the caption, "Is it Thomas or Emily?"  Oh I have never had so much fun with announcing the coming of a new baby!

And this time, I feel good about saying this is our caboose.  That was confirmed when I went in for my second ultrasound - we are having a BABY GIRL!!!  We are now 3 for 3, like the Brady Bunch, so why mess with it, right?  It's the perfect ratio of boys to girls, and everyone is so excited we get to add another girl to the mix of crazy around here.

So fun! I am finally over my sick days which were not as bad as my other two girl pregnancies, but was certainly worse than my boy pregnancies. I guess I am just too busy to stay sick, and my body just has to do what it has to do to keep up with the normal (but yes, super busy and crazy) family routine! I love it though and cannot believe our kids are growing up (and we are getting older!).  It is going too fast, and a part of me is sad that the little kid and baby days will be over before I know it.

So there you have it ... a couple MAJOR life events, and more to blog later!