Goodbye homeownership...for now.

So I was REALLY hopeful last week that I would be blogging this month all about closing on a house and that I would be posting cheesy pictures in front of a "SOLD" sign....but, not the case.  OUTBID.  Dang is an understatement.  I hope this cute $81,000- 3 bed 2 bath- with yard, fireplace and awesomness went to a more deserving family who really wanted it and really needed the low monthly mortgage, safe (looking) neighborhood and yard. 
Boo-hoo a lotta bit, but it's ok.. 
And P.S. new homeowners, sorry for posting a picture of your house on my blog. 
 
AND NOW---we look for a rental.  And I think that's the worst part of this situation.  I didn't enjoy house hunting...but I really don't enjoy apartment hunting.  It's def time though to get into our own place.  So we are on the hunt and hope to be moving into our own place anytime really, like now is alright with us.  Or like September 1st, but tomorrow is even better. :)  Sooo hey, if you have recommendations on great areas, decent cost for rent, like 600-700..and pets (one chihuahua) are accepted.  PLEASE let me know.  

Our (RIGHT NOW) Dream Home

House hunting has not been fun.  I don't enjoy it.  I possibly could very much though...if our price range was up $20-40,000 more.. :)  Yes, that would be fun!

Cade and I have driven past a lot of houses and through plenty of neighborhoods in Boise, Meridian, Kuna and Nampa.  MOST have been quite sad neighborhoods, some have been "do-able", and a few have been just alright.  We were getting quite excited about the alright neighborhoods.  Neighborhood has been a huge deal for me.  I don't know what I'll be doing in the future, if I'll be able to stay home with my kids, or if I'll have to work.  At this point I want to stay home and will stick with that plan for as long as is possible.  It would be nice to feel safe in my neighborhood, be able to take walks with the kids and not feel nervous or creeped out.  In our price range though, it would seem that we aren't able to afford warm, fuzzy, safe neighborhoods.  And really, some houses have been alright..but I haven't loved really any of them.  Do we buy a house just because its "the right time to buy"?

Renting doesn't solve the problem though.  It's possible renting could cost more than a mortgage, especially when you have a pet..

DEAR NEWLYWEDS-
Don't buy a pet until you have bought a house.  Landlords no likey, resulting in your options becoming very limited.  But not only that, if you are in an apartment with a dog, you have to take it out to go potty and that's just not fun.  Even more not fun when you realize you have a baby on the way who could possibly be sleeping when the dog needs to go potty.  Super. 
If you decide to buy anyways, and then find a great place that finally accepts pets..enjoy a wonderful non-refundable pet deposit and/or possible monthly charge on your rent. 

I would have probably held off on the cute puppy had I realized all of this....(oh well, we still like our dog).

Renting is kind of a bummer deal when you think about putting money into nothing instead of your own house.  There are other cons to renting but at the same time, when you rent you aren't buying a crappy neighborhood and stuck there for 5-10 or more years.  If it isn't a great place, you can move in a year or less.  I like that fact.  But either way, I just haven't felt confident.

There are decent houses right now near our price range but they are short sales and I don't feel confident about going through that process just yet.  Maybe in the future.  I've kind of given up on the idea of buying.  Houses are going fast, investors are buying like crazy, and whats left is not what I want to be stuck in for 10 years.

Since I had no confidence in either direction we still went and looked Friday at a $59,000  two bed & one bath townhome for sale, mostly just out of curiosity, and hated it...but it lead to a conversation with our realitor where we decided to give a certain location another shot.  Cade and I headed that way and drove through a couple of neighborhoods and thought maybe we'd like to look at a few of the houses that we saw.  The just alright kind of houses and neighborhoods.  After calling our realitor the next day one house was already pending and the other two I think ended up being short-sales. 

A little while later our realitor gave us a few other houses we might want to look at out that way and one I immediately LOVED, and didn't care to even consider the others.  So we drove to the house and felt so comfortable in the neighborhood.  Loved the neighborhood really.  She showed us the house later that day and I loved it even more.  By a long shot the best of any of the houses we've looked at or driven by, and oddly, well in our price range.

Oh but the DOWNSIDE.....we have to bid on it and if we bid over the listed price, it has to come out of pocket.  (Yes it's a HUD home, but a nice one).  Sooo....realizing there are people out there who have more money than we do & shady investors who aren't suppose to bid on this house, but could still and get away with it...we still put our tiny sad little bid in yesterday.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited still.  It is exciting!  And so sad because I haven't figured out how I'm going to deal when we hear we were outbid on Monday.  I might already be attached, it's possible that in my head its already ours, and I may have already mentally moved my furniture and pictures in...I'm in so much trouble.  Oh the long week I have ahead just thinking about this.

Updates

Since blogging last....
-I'll be six months preggo this Friday.  It's getting CLOSE!
-Doctor confirmed we're having a little girl.  We're so excited!
-Name possibly picked.
-Getting HUGE and kind of freaked about it.  (Notice there is not a recent, 25 weeks belly shot here).  I need to invest more in maternity clothes, but the more I think about it the less I want to spend money on cute big clothes.  I'd rather spend on cute skinny after pregnancy clothes.  Can I hide out and avoid any cameras for the next 3 months?  I'll be honest though, pregnancy shouldn't take the full blame for my weight gain.  Bad food choices, traveling & bad food choices and lacking self control are mostly to blame.  I'll have my own work cut out for me in a few months, hellooo medifast.  
-Cade has been working in Logan a lot.  More hours for him- really great for us but also really lonely for me.  So I've made a few trips with him to Utah.
-We're just about a month and a half away now from getting our own place.  Living with Cade's family hasn't been easy (in the sense of not being completely on your own as a couple and soon-to-be parents) but really words can't express how grateful I am that they have let us live with them.  They've helped us SO much.  We've saved up some money but we'll probably hold off on buying a house right immediately.  Looking at short sales but hoping to find a good renting opportunity if a short sale takes up to 6 months.

AND some pictures of lately..

   

17 weeks here but I looked bigger in my 15 weeks picture.

Went to the park and played some basketball.  I have to say, I wasn't shooting too bad. :) Ok, the hoops are shorter, but whatever.  Memory lane..Cade and I went and played basketball at this park on our first date.  Awww. :)

Try One at Utah Air Show.  Rained out.

Try Two at Air Show. Much better.

19 Weeks

4D picture at 20 week appointment. (Peeking out from behind the placenta).  After our appointment we brought this picture and others to Cade's parents and didn't say right away what the gender was.  Cade's niece looked at the 4D pictures first and with disappointment said, "It's a boy." :)Haha, nooope.

Cade wanted to go for a ride.  I'm clumsy already, pregnant, clumsy & bike..didn't seem like a good match, sooo we pulled out my sister-in-laws bike!  Three wheels AND a basket in the back (to hold the dog of course).  I'm sure we gave a few neighbors a good laugh. :)

Blanket/bunny? CUTE.  Bought.

PINK outfit. CUTE. Put away....sadly.

Just a little shopping with my Mom in Utah 4th of July weekend..  Found these two items and loved both, buuut I exercised SOME self control and put away one of the items.  Bunny blanket won.  I figure she'll like that one more and for longer.

Kamilee Seamons Photography

Kamilee Seamons Photography

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kamilee-Seamons-Photography/170343379737322

And check out her blog: kamileeseamonsphotography.blogspot.com

"60% sure it is a..."

GIRL!
Yesterday was my 16 week appointment and my Doctor surprised me with,
"Do you want to see what it is?"
"...Uhpshmmyeah!"
I knew he had done this for my sister, but I figured that was a... -After three pregnancies with me, you've earned an early look- kind of thing.

15 weeks...am I really this big?

So I wasn't expecting it.  He checked, said that he couldn't tell for sure but that he thought it was a girl, referred to "it" as a girl, ("She's posing for you"), and then ended the ultrasound with, "I'm 60% sure it's a girl, 40% sure it's a boy".  To be safe, he told us not to buy any pink just yet though.  And we still refer to "it" as an "it" just in case.  Our real deal gender ultrasound is June 4th! :)  Pretty fun!!  Any peak at baby is exciting!  I'd post pictures but..."A face only a mother could love" is probably pretty accurate right now, haha.  Baby looks like an alien right now.  A CUTE ALIEN!
And yup...I'm taking cheesy camera phone and mirror pictures to document this pregnancy.  Dear camera, please tell me I wasn't so dumb as to pack you up and hide you in our storage unit.  These next few months are kind of a big deal...I need you to show yourself.
 

Updates... 

Baby--Currently, I am fourteen weeks! :)  I pointed out to Cade, the other day, "I'm three months pregnant!"  Followed by, "....I feel like I've been three months pregnant forever!"
That could be because I have a habit of counting ahead, like..: "In April I'll be three months along, which is how far along Vanessa Minnillo must be right now" Or..: "In two weeks I'll be three months along....which is how far along Vanessa Minnillo was when Nick announced it on 'Live with Kelly'".  Haha, something ridiculous like that. 
Cade reminded me though that I knew quite right away that I was pregnant.  And that is true.  I don't think time can fly by when you've googled something along the lines of, "Can you know if you are pregnant after three days?"  It's been a pretty long fourteen weeks :) but exciting and..scary!  Scary because I don't feel like just six more months is long enough to prepare for a baby!  It's happening though and that's exciting!  I think my biggest baby related stress has been naming "it".  How does anyone make a decision so quick?  I've always loved "weird" names..  Always thought I had a good few unique names picked out.  ..Now that I actually am pregnant, none of them are good enough.  This subject just might stress me out all the way to delivery.  Hopefully not though!  I am liking a certain name right now but it's not at all different or uncommon. 
We've experimented a little bit with gender predictions, just for the fun of it!  Chinese Gender Calendar says boy, necklace trick says boy, Intelligender says boy, I said boy (and I'll stick by that guess, but I do feel unsure in my guess quite often), Cade and pretty much everyone else who has made a guess says girl.  SO, we'll just have to wait and see.  Around 6 more weeks until we can find out!
I had my first baby related...um nightmare, last night.  I went to nurse my newborn, picked her up to find that she had teeth like a two year old.  And she was chomping those teeth like a piranha (I've got to stop watching "River Monsters".)  I think the stress of trying to figure out how I was going to nurse that child was too much for me and the dream ended there.  Soo silly.

House Hunting--Has been sad.  We found a house we REALLY liked and then were disappointed when we realized:
 1. We weren't ready to put down any kind of offers
and
2. The house was actually already pending.
Then we were happy to find out the house was no longer pending....but still so disappointed that we could not put an offer down yet.  We went and looked at it anyways...and now we have zero interest.  The pictures were very, not deceiving, but not telling.  Actually seeing the inside showed that there was a lot more work than we thought.  So now, anyone can have it, it's ok, we won't be disappointed.

Credit Cards--Almost paid off!  YES!  I highly recommend Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover if you are looking to do the same.  We cut up our credit cards in January.  I'm so glad we did.  We had no idea that moving back to Boise would be such a stressful time for us financially, that things wouldn't work out quite how we thought they would, and I realize now that if we hadn't cut up our credit cards back in January and still had them, we would have accumulated quite a bit more debt the past couple of months.  So relieved we made that decision, haven't had the option of credit lately and have been able to pay off most of our debt instead of adding to it.

The dog-- (As if you care) is getting spayed today!  Right now.  It only took us a year and a half & two tax returns to finally make it happen.  Booo...no baby chihuahua puppies for me.  I'll get over it. :)

October On My Mind

October is my favorite month.  I love the colors, the smell, the cool temperatures and the fact that the Holidays are right around the corner.  For those reasons and more I've always loved October.

I haven't ever been huge into Halloween or dressing up---example:

Steph dressed up and meee..not.

BUT I'm looking forward to it this year.

 Look at these CUTE "costumes".

 So cute and fun.  I guess I need to learn how to crochet or knit, whichever it is, and I have about 7 months to master it.  Ha.  IF I really were to make one of these costumes though, I'd have to probably make it especially tiny since OUR baby is expected to come only about a week & a half before Halloween.  October 19th to be exact.  Not a lot of time to grow into a costume. 









Soo, surprise!  Cade is pregnant.  Ok, I'm pregnant :) but Cade is right there beside me with sympathy pains and all!  We're so excited and I love October even more now.

Here is our little parasite..Isn't it cute?

(Ok, so the lady bug and winnie the pooh aren't Halloween Costumes, more like newborn photoshoot props...but you get the dress up idea!:))