A Small Birthday Party and A Ready House

I really did write this a week ago (today is 3/31), I just haven't had a chance until now to upload the pictures~ I know this is a must :)

What a wonderfully fun and eventful weekend we have had! Thursday night, Mom and Dad (Grandma and Grandpa) Heselton came into town for one of their long-weekend visits. They typically come down to NC at least 2-3 per year to spend some quality time with us. This time, it just happened to work out for them to come the same week Coby turned ONE, and just in time might I add...

About a week and a half ago, we received our repair request for our current home. It was a little more intense than we had planned for and showed us that we had had a rather poor inspector when we purchased the home. Long a short of it, we had to have a general contractor come and take apart much of the deck, replace a band joist, install flashing, and replace the deck, and this was just ONE of the repair requests. The rest of the list was fairly lengthy as well. Luckily, I have an amazingly handy husband and father who were able to tackle the list with much hard work, and now with just one repair remaining (new garage door to be installed tomorrowish), we are ready to pass the house along to the buyers in just a few short weeks! Yay for Dad and Alain!

Friday, Grandma helped me take Coby to get his haircut. I must say, while it was fun to watch someone else cut Coby's hair, I think I will be saving some $ in the future as his cut is no better than when I did it back before the holidays. He is still the cutest despite the new do!

Saturday, we had a few friends and family come over for a birthday celebration! Coby was adorned with many toys and gifts and what a fun time we had. I think our friend Coreen put it perfectly: Toys are not lost on Coby- he LOVES them and plays hard every moment he is awake! After his party and a nap, we all (Grandpa, Grandma, Alain, Coby, and I, Keith, Julie, and their 4 kids) grabbed some pizzas from our favorite local pizza place (Lilly's) and took it to a park to eat dinner and play. It was a wonderful day!

We are now looking forward to our trip up to Ohio to spend Easter with family and celebrate Coby's First Birthday once again with more of our families! We can't wait!

House Update

God is SOOOOOOO good! Monday evening we received word that Olde South Homes would build our house for the price we offered. We are of course ecstatic as we think about a home built just as we want it and even the little things we wished for: a SCREENED-IN PORCH! We are so excited. Hopefully it will be done sometime in July so we can move in. In the meantime, we are packing up for apartment life :)

ONE

Can you believe our BABY turned ONE yesterday?!?!? I think ONE might be one of those ages where pictures will be mostly "action" shots. I tried real hard to get a good shot of Coby in his birthday shirt (Thanks Aunti Joy), but he was just too busy for me. This is the story of my life and photography these days :) Oh well, it is a joy to watch him explore the world. We have lots planned over the next few weeks to celebrate our first baby's first birthday~ so of course we will have more pics to share soon. In the meantime: Happy Birthday Coby! We love you!

Waiting on Pins and Needles

So, it has been a crazy busy two and a half weeks living "under contract." We are so confident that God is good through it all though. Two weeks ago, we looked at 13 houses in one day and not one of them felt like the right choice. Then we looked at three more that monday and found what we thought for sure was going to be our next home. Long and short of it, the sellers wouldn't accept our contingency at "that time." Though they wanted us to re-submit our offer after a couple of weeks of being under contract so that our contract would be more solid. That being said, we were disappointed but hopeful. After a day or so, we were ready to hit the ground running again and see what else was on the market~ basically, we continued to have little interest in the houses coming onto the market. Anyhow, we decided since the sellers were providing us with extra time, we would speak with the builders in this neighborhood to see how much we could build the same exact house for (this neighborhood is not quite finished). So, after several meetings with our realtor and the builder's rep, we decided that perhaps we wanted to build instead. Basically, for quite a bit cheaper, we could build the same house and pick out all of the details. So, we are "waiting on pins and needles" going into this week. Yesterday, we spent two hours working with our realtor and the builder's rep to write up an offer. The owner will take a look at it tomorrow, and hopefully, we should hear by tomorrow or early Tuesday if we will call 4605 Lemongrass Lane "home" come late summer. Please pray!

Busy week of celebration ahead~ can you believe Coby is really turning one on Tuesday?!?!?! Promise to keep everyone updated in the process this week!