Our Little Helper

Sam wanted to help put up the window treatments in his room!

Moving Day!

After five very long and stressful months we have finally sold our house and moved! This has been a wild and crazy adventure and I hope we don't experience anything like it again for a VERY long time. A brief travel back in time to catch everyone up.....

One Sunday afternoon in April we were out riding through some neighborhoods near our old house and started seriously considering moving. We had initially been thinking that a move was at least a year or two away but with the housing market starting to recover and interest rates at an all time low we thought it was worth a shot to see if we could sell our house now. We wanted to try and sell it by owner to save some money and we knew that was going to be quite a bit of work on our part but nothing could have prepared us for the days ahead!! After only a few days of working around the house the sign was out in the front yard by the end of April.

Week after week we would get multiple calls about the house and showed it quite a few times. The worst was when someone would setup a time to come look at it, we would clean the house from top to bottom and then they would never show..I mean, come on...how rude!!! We got quite a few calls from people driving by but thought we might get more exposure if we could put the house on the MLS. We paid a relatively small flat fee for a listing agent to put the house on the MLS and after that we started getting calls from agents.

By the 4th of July we had a contract on our house (contingent on the sale of the buyer's current home) from someone that was moving back to Mississippi and had just been driving through the neighborhood and saw the sign. We got a great offer and were set to close on August 12th. In the meantime, we had fallen in love with a house in a nearby neighborhood and put an offer on it contingent upon the sale of our house. A few days before closing we found out that our buyer's contract had fallen through and they would not be able to purchase our home after all. Boy were we upset..to say the least! What do you do with a garage full of boxes and no buyer?!

We did the only thing we could do, unpacked enough to get the house ready to show again and kept on trucking. About a week after we were supposed to close, we got a call from an agent wanting to show the house (finally this flat-fee listing was paying off). His clients looked at the house twice before we left on our Chicago trip and while we were gone we got a phone call informing us that they wanted to make us an offer but they wanted to wait a few weeks. We were a bit discouraged and very worried we were going to lose the new house we wanted but what can you do? We ended up receiving an offer around the 1st of September and had a contract to close on the 24th. The couple buying our home did not have anything to sell and we felt very good about it but after everything we had been through we were a little skeptical and nervous about packing up again.

We waited until the week of closing to finish packing and closed on the sale of our old home and the purchase of our new one back-to-back the morning of the 24th. We felt like two large elephants had jumped off our backs when we walked out of that attorney's office. What a great day it was and all of our hard work had finally paid off. We spent the weekend moving out and getting everything over to the new house.

The picture of two VERY helpful movers...
And the sign in the yard of our new house!

The week after we moved Sam and I both got very sick and have been slowly recovering ever since. We are almost unpacked and settled but still have some pictures to hang and odds and ends to put out. I will try to post pictures soon once we get everything in it's place.

I really thought I would be more upset about leaving our old house than I really was. We had built the house and moved in right after we got married. I brought my precious baby boy home from the hospital to that house and had many wonderful memories there. I guess the best part of it is that I love the people inside and the memories we made more than I did the things inside or the actual house. As long as I could take those sweet souls with me then all was still right with the world. The good news is, all of those precious people are here with me at the new house and that is what makes it home to me! We could not have made it through this five month process without the tremendous amount of help that our parents gave us - thank you for everything!

Happy Birthday, Banks!

Today, we had a wonderful time celebrating Banks' 2nd birthday. It seems like just yesterday we were all waiting at Woman's Hospital for his arrival - my how time flies!

He had a Sesame Street party at the Flowood park and we enjoyed lots of good food and playing outside with friends. After the park, the family continued the party with a pizza party at Bobi and Papa John's house.

Banks loved blowing out his candles...
and Sam was very interested in helping him ;)

Happy Birthday Banks - we love you!

Tooth #9

Lower Left First Molar

What A Tough Life....

Lazy Boys

Happy Birthday, Rusty!

Our sweet pup Rusty (or as Sam so lovingly calls him - "T") turned three today. For the past two years we have celebrated by treating him to an ice cream cone from Chick-fil-A so we decided to continue the tradition this year and give him a bonus gift for putting up with all of the "love" Sam gives him.

As you can see, he was very excited about his bonus gift - chicken nuggets! I sure hope our vet Dr. Kennedy doesn't get word of this...but hey, can't a pup splurge every now and then?

On a serious note, Rusty is truly a fabulous pet. He is gentle, loyal, patient and full of love for his baby Sam and I promise the little boy you see below loves his pup to pieces!

Thing 1 & Thing 2

The Big Tub

I thought it would be fun to let Sam take a bath in the master bath jacuzzi. We filled it up enough to turn the jets on and he thought it was the funniest thing. Getting to bathe in the big tub is fun!

Tooth #8

Lower Right Lateral Incisor

Sam's First Football Game

Thankfully, Sam recovered quickly from his fever virus and was ready to make the trip to Oxford. How could a boy miss his first Ole Miss football game?

These two boys sure were excited about going to the game together!

But all of the excitement finally wore this little man out. He took a pretty good rest during the second half and woke up to find his Rebels losing! Oh no! Even though the outcome of the game wasn't what we had hoped it would be, we had a great time in Oxford cheering for our team. Hotty Toddy!

You Know Your Child is Sick When....

he falls asleep eating lunch!!! Bless his sweet heart! Other than this snooze break, he acted pretty good most of the afternoon. We even went and bought his first pair of tennis shoes and he couldn't stop running around the store. A little after dinner, I noticed he had slowed down a good bit and when I felt of him he was burning up. We headed to the after hour's clinic and when the strep test came back negative the doctor said it must just be a fever virus. Hopefully he will feel better soon!

Sheriff Sam

Lili and Sam went on a field trip today to the Rankin County Sheriff's Department. Lili's friend, Mrs. Linda, works there and she introduced Sam to the Sheriff and made him a Junior Deputy!