Bad news... again

Once again, we've had a contract fall apart on our house. We were in the middle of negotiations, and the buyer walked. Rather than come back with a counter, or insist on her original request, she just walked. The inspection turned up nothing, except that our hot water heater and AC/furnace were near their life. She asked that we replace them, and we countered with a 1-year warranty. We didn't hear anything for days, until our agent received a fax for the disbursement of the earnest money. Apparently, nothing she said changed their minds to come back to the table.

I can't imagine how someone from out-of-state (as far as Cali) could just stop negotiations and start searching for another house. Once we knew how insistent she was, we were willing to replace the AC and water heater. But, that didn't even bring her back. I know it's a buyer's market, but are you just supposed to hand over your right arm without negotiating at all?

So, now we're 0-2, which looks really bad. And yet, neither were really our fault (the first buyer's house didn't appraise for what she needed, so she couldn't get financing to buy our house). I have no nice comments or deep thoughts, because my stomach is still on the floor, flipped over, and I haven't screwed my jaw back in yet.

Mother's Day

I'm just going to list my Mother's Day gifts:

• Spa Pedicure and lunch at The Chocolate Biscuit tearoom. (It was actually my Mom's Birthday and Mother's Day present, but I definitely benefited--don'tcha love giving those sorts of presents?) I failed to get a picture, but we ate with my sis-in-law, Mandy, and her Mama, JoAnn.
• Three roses from my hubby for the three years I have been a mother. (I'm waiting to see what happens as we have more children--will there be one rose per year that I have mothered each child?)
• A very special necklace and card from my son.
  

The card has John's handprint, in which he lists the 5 reasons he loves his Mommy (and these are his words, when Rob asked him why he loves me):

1. Snuggles
2. Hugs
3. Takes care of me
4. Takes me bye-bye
5. Makes my snack

Ain't it nice to know you are appreciated and precisely why? I love my John!

We have a contract!

Here's a short, picture-less post, brought on by Erin's comment on the previous post. We currently have a contract on our house. Woo-hoo! That's a little eruption of joy, because we know how the last contract ended--with us still paying the mortgage. We're afraid of counting our chickens before they hatch :)



But, we praise God for an offer that was more sensible in price than the last two, that allows us time to get everything together (closing is 6 weeks from when we got the offer), and that gives us security (the contract is NOT contingent on the sale of her house AND we get 2 days after closing to move our stuff out). Please join us in asking Him to give us peace about this whole situation and guidance in looking for houses in Bham. Pray that everything will go smoothly so we can finally close this chapter of our lives (even though we really miss our friends and our church in TN).

Catching up again

So, there seems to be a pattern here. Whenever I don't get a chance to upload pictures and go through them, I continue to put it off because I know the job will be overwhelming the longer it's been. And I refuse to blog without finishing the pictures. And then a month passes, and I have failed to blog! (Except for the "bug" post because I could find a picture of that on the internet.) So, here's the low-down:

I took John to a local Tax Day TEA Party, and he thoroughly enjoyed himself--he blew bubbles, waved the flag, played in the sandbox, tossed around a beach ball, and played on the playground. Other than having fun, he has no clue why we were there :) Here are a few funny pics, including my favorite sign there:

One of John's favorite places is "The Moo Place" (a.k.a. Chick-Fil-A). On Family night, kids dressed as superheroes or Princesses got a free kids meal. Since John is "in love" with Karson, the girl next-door, we took her with us. In the first pic, they are posing with the Cow. While there, they got their faces painted and signed up for the raffle. And... (drum roll please)... John won a super-big cow! That's him sitting by the cow in the second shot. Why did John have to win it??! We are living in an 800 sq. ft. apartment! So, cow sleeps in John's bed when John isn't in it :)

Finally, we have begun potty-training. I say "we" because I think I am being trained more than John--it's really time-consuming! The only pics I have are when we first started. Since John refused to sit on the big potty, or to even try the little potty for more than 5 seconds (and never going), we took some suggestions and sat him in front of a movie (so he would actually sit). Notice, he has a drink in hand, to help speed up the process. It didn't work--notice the second pic where he has closed the potty and used it as a stool to get a close-up of the TV, which is more than big enough for our small living room! Yes, that is Goofy Sports in the background, for those of you who are wondering. Potty-going has gotten a little better now. John likes to race to the potty and see who can go faster. But, he still refuses to go a lot of times (screaming, hitting, and kicking to keep from going). We're working on it! I'll keep y'all posted...

Have you seen this before?

I have been absent from the Blogosphere lately, and I promise to post some pictures soon to play catch-up and let you know what we've been doing. But for now, I will just give you this picture of a lovely bug that my son insists on keeping--in a Mason jar because his bug-box is in Daddy's truck, out of town.

I'm not really sure what it is, although some people seem to think it is a dung-beetle. I haven't exactly explained this to John because "poo" is a potty-mouth word at our house, unless you have to go... So, this nasty, black bug is living in a Mason jar (with no lid because I can't find one to poke holes in!) until I can convince John that he needs to go outside. ICK! Why couldn't we have kept the lady bug and roly poly we saw yesterday?!?