Pictures of Our New House!

It's taken a while... but I've finally gotten pictures of all the rooms and can post. I don't have any of the outside yet... maybe at some point I will take a few! 

The toy room...

The kitchen... there are now child gates on either side of the kitchen!

Emily and Peyton's room...

The kids' bathroom..

Kyle and Colby's room...

From the toy room looking down the hall and kitchen to the living room and dinner room...

Mommy and Daddy's room...

The laundry room / storage room... (Sorry it's sideways!)

Mommy and Daddy's bathroom... (again, sorry about it being sideways!)

The dinner room... to the right is the hallway to the toy room and kids room and to the left is the hall to the master and the laundry room....

The living room... the front door is to the right of the picture...

Looking towards the kitchen and toy room...

We Moved!

I'm guessing most people know, but we moved last weekend!

Our new house is finally starting to feel like home for all of us. Kyle has finally stopped asking to go "home"...meaning back to our apartment!

Here are some pictures....

The playroom. Having all the toys in one room has really made up realize how many toys we actually have! They love the mat on the floor. Colby loves taking out the letters and shapes and putting them back in!

This is the view from the front door. At the end of the hallway is the kitchen. To the right is the living room and dinning room.

The living room and dinning room...

The downstairs bathroom...

The laundry hallway...

The mud room...

The kitchen...

The hallway looking from the kitchen to the front door...

The boys bedroom. So far, they are enjoying sharing a bedroom. It was a rough first week, but they are finally taking naps/rests and doing okay at night.

The upstairs bathroom...

Emily and Peyton's room. Her Toy Story stickers are now on the wall, along with Peyton's animal stickers. Emily is loving having her own room, but is also very excited to share a room with Peyton when he's ready. She keeps asking when we are going to get Peyton's crib and dresser.

Mommy and Daddy's room...

I just realized I never took any picture outside... Maybe this afternoon I'll take some and update!

One down... One to go...

On Thursday Brent went and did our final walk through of our apartment in Mason... our lease is finally over there so we are no longer paying rent for two apartments!

The landlord has supposedly been trying to find someone to lease our apartment since November so that we could get out of our lease... but she obviously wasn't trying very hard and failed! But we have a good God who provided for us so that we were able to keep paying rent for an empty apartment.

We still technically own our house in Delaware though. We've signed all of the paperwork and the bank was supposed to sign the paperwork this past week, but when they went to do the final property inspection before they signed the paperwork, they found that someone had stolen the AC condenser unit from the back of the house. Because we had already signed the paperwork, it is the bank responsibility. They have already ordered a new one, but sounded like they have to wait until it is installed before they will sign the paperwork to make the deed-in-lieu official. Our contact person is supposed to be figuring out if they can sign the paperwork sooner since the new unit has been ordered or something... either way though, we should officially be free of our house by the end of the month!

House Update

We were approved in the beginning of January to do a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure with our house. It basically is foreclosure, but instead of the bank suing us for foreclosure, we just sign our house over to them. It's supposedly a much faster process... we started the processes sometime in towards the end of the summer... I think...

Before Colby was born, we got the stuff from the bank to sign and we were just waiting for all the closing documents from the attorney to be ready to sign. We finally got them yesterday. We went this morning and signed them all in front of a notary and sent them back to the attorney!

So... as soon as they get the paperwork back and the title is transferred to the bank, we will no longer own our house!!! We are very excited about this... It's been over two years since we originally put the house up for sale!

Our Apartment in Mason and Our House in Delaware

Our apartment in Mason still hasn't been re-leased. :(

I was finally able to talk to our landlord yesterday about the status of getting the apartment re-leased. She informed me that since we have moved out two other two bedrooms have become available due to evictions. She said she thought she had both of them filled already; she was just waiting on the new tenants to put down deposits. Once those two apartments are officially no longer available, ours will be the next one filled... unless someone else gets evicted between now and then.

Because we are still technically leasing our apartment, it can only be considered available if there are not any other units available in the complex comparable to ours. We have been putting ads online trying to find someone to re-lease our apartment and have had lots of interest and given her several names. It sounded like the two people that she's waiting for deposits from may be people who contacted us saying they were interested in our apartment. Apparently because of a law against "steering," even if its someone we find, she has to put them in the next available apartment... and ours has to be last on that list.

We have a little bit more positive news about our house in Delaware. We are officially in the foreclosure process, but are speeding things up by doing a deed-in-lieu. Our "specialist" we are working with seems to be on top of things... she even responds to most emails within a few hours! It sounds like all they are waiting for now is for the title check to come back... and as long as it comes back clean (which is should), then she will send us all the paperwork to sign our house over to the bank.

So yeah.. that's our update. Hopefully by the end of the year we'll only have one "place of residence" instead of the three currently in our name!

An Update on a Few Things...

House
We decided over the weekend that we were ready to just be done with our house in Delaware. In December it will be two years that we've been trying to sell it. Brent called the bank yesterday to see what we need to do to do a "deed-in-lieu." This is kind of like a foreclosure, except we just sign the house over to the bank and don't have to do through all the normal foreclosure stuff. We are waiting for a phone call back from our short sale specialist before we can proceed. Hopefully this won't take as long as all the short sale stuff took.
As Brent was hanging up with the bank, we got an email from our Realtor saying there was someone possibly interested. So, I guess we are going to wait until we get a for sure yes or no from that person before pursing the deed-in-lieu.

Brent's Employment
As of October 1st, Brent will be employed part time by Shiloh Community Church! Yesterday he found out that he was going to be able to work part time at his current job for the time being. He will work Monday, Thursday, and Friday at Maxima and then Tuesdays during the day at church, and then we will be at church on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.
The plan is for him to find another part time job in the area of the church once we move so that he is not having to have an hour commute.

Housing
We have spoken with the manager of our apartment complex about getting out of our lease. She said that only way we can get out without having to pay lots of money is if a new tenant is found to rent our apartment. She has listed the apartment as available, posted adds, and is trying to get into contact with some people she has on a waiting list. She sounded confident that she could find a new tenant to sign a lease starting November 1st.
Next Wednesday on the way to church we are going to look at an apartment near church that will be available towards the end of October. So if it all works out, that would be great timing for us.

It's A...... BOY!
We did find out the gender of the baby, but didn't want to tell right away. I went back and forth on the decision so many times. In the end I decided that if we could find out, we would. But we weren't going to tell people right away. I decided that we would tell Emily and Kyle and talk to them about the baby using the baby's name, and once they were able, they could tell people. I didn't take Emily very long and she started telling people! She's one smart girlie!
So we are having another little boy....Colby Thomas :)

House Update

Two weeks ago, we got word that Bank of America FINALLY approved the offer for our house. A week later, the buyer backed out.

We've always had some issues with water in the basement... but our house is near the river, at a low point of the development, and the ground is pretty much all clay... so it was pretty much expected.

The buyer was told it was going to be a lot of money to fix it and wanted us to help pay (which isn't/wasn't possible). Our Realtor brought in a waterproofing guy and he gave an estimate way lower than what the buyer was told... and we had a plumber come out and verify that the plumbing was all like it should be... but the buyer still backed out.

We're not really sure what's going to happen now. Our house is still on the market and now has an active status again, but we haven't heard back anything from the bank. At this point, as much as I don't want it to happen, I think I'd be okay with a foreclosure so we can stop having to worry about it and deal with it. 

We've had to leave our utilities on ... and we just got our water bill. It's almost $80... and we haven't lived there for the whole billing period. I called to ask why and apparently its the minimum for just having the water  on. The lady said that the minimum price is for 0-500 gallons of water used... so silly!

 

A House and Ministry Update

Bank of America has had our offer since April... and we still haven't received an answer if they are going to accept it or not! Originally the offer expired the end of June, but the buyer extended it until the end of July. We learned yesterday that our appraisal and approval to participate have expired.. but no one is really sure what that means. Our attorney's office is diligently trying to talk to someone at the bank that can give us answers, but so far, all they get is voicemails and no one ever calls back. We're hoping to hear back soon... but not really counting on it.

We do have some exciting news in our ministry search. Brent had a phone interview a couple weeks ago with a church in Ohio. The phone interview went well and the church seems to be the type of church we are looking for. They called last week and invited us to come down for a visit and an in person interview. We are going the first weekend in August!

We're Moving!

It's been a while since I've done an update on the "big stuff"... and we have exciting news, so I thought now would be a great time for an update!

We still haven't sold our house. We've had several different people interested, but no one has actually come through and submitted an offer. We are officially listed as a short sale with Bank of America and everything has been approved, so we really are just waiting for an offer. Everything finally went through in January and we have until May 25th to sell our house or we will go into foreclosure. Hopefully we will have a buyer in the next two months, but we're not getting our hopes up.

We currently are not talking to any churches. Brent is still searching and looking at job postings and church websites on a regular basis.

When we were in Michigan last week, Brent had an interview for a warehouse job in Holt. It's not ministry, but it's something that would get us close to our families! Yesterday we found out that Brent got the job! So we are moving back to MICHIGAN!!!

We are planning on moving the first week of April. Brent gave his two weeks last night at Pat's and gave his two weeks today at Primos. My parents are going this afternoon to look at an apartment in Mason for us, so hopefully they will think we'll like it and everything will work out with that. We are still trying to figure out for sure what day we are going to head back to Michigan for sure, but we are thinking it will most likely be April 6th (Good Friday). My Mom and Mike are going to come out here and help us load up a moving truck and Mike will drive the truck back to Michigan for us. Brent's mom is planning on coming out to help us pack up and such too! We are still trying to work out the details. First we are trying to find a place to live and then we'll start to work on the other stuff.

A Ministry, House, and Health Update

Sorry I've been blow with updates about the "boring" stuff (aka- stuff that doesn't really have to do with Emily and Kyle).

Ministry
We heard back from the church in Ohio. They hired someone else. The pastor told Brent that he was very impressed with him and would recommend him to anyone...
The church in Ann Arbor told Brent that he is in their "Top 2", but that wanted to only focus on one candida at a time and they had already started talking to the other guy in the top 2, so they were going to pursue him first. I was stalking the church website and the other guy is being presented to the church the first weekend in February. They are also voting that weekend, so I'm guessing we should know something about where we stand the following week.
Brent is still sending out his resume and search for churches to apply to.

House
We have officially been approved for a short sale and are now in "Phase 2" of the process. From my understanding this is where we stay until we have an offer or too much time passes. If too much time passes, then we have to sign our house over to the bank in lieu of foreclosure.

Health
Brent is feeling all better. His CT results came back negative - meaning everything looked good. I think the best guess was to what was causing the headache was a sinus infection
I've decided for the time being I do not need to go back to see the neurosurgeon for my back. I'm feeling good for the most part. If I move just right or twist funny, it really hurts. I still am having some muscle soreness, but it is way better than it was and I am for sure having more good days than bad day. I am still using heat and my TENS unit, so that helps.
Emily and Kyle have been congested and had a cough for about two and a half weeks. It doesn't really seem to be getting any better or any worse and it doesn't really seem to bother them (except for the constant sucking their noses). If they are still the same on Monday, we're going to make an appointment with the doctor.

Please keep on praying for us!

Welcome 2012

The first two days of 2012 have been pretty low key for us. Brent had to work on New Years Eve, so we didn't make any plans. He got home from work about 10:00pm and we went to bed! 

We went to church yesterday morning, then came home, ate lunch, took naps, and enjoyed time together as a family.

Today Brent had to go into work early, and it's Monday, so he went to both jobs today. Emily, Kyle, and I hung out at home and played. We had a couple visitors stop by to drop stuff off, and Daddy played with the babies for a little bit when he was home in between jobs. 

Here are a few of the pictures we have taken so far this year....

Emily's favorite spot when playing in her room.... she likes to reach into her crib and play with Lilly. She's  only  allowed to play with Lilly in her crib... otherwise I don't think we would ever get Lilly away from Emily!

The normal sight Mommy finds after nap time! Two very happy babies!

I was trying to take pictures of Kyle and Emily... and Kyle just wanted to sit in my lap!

The rail in Kyle's crib... thanks to his new teeth :(

At one point they had a clean room.... that is, until they got out of their cribs took everything off the shelves again.

The new toy shelf. It's in the closet so that Mommy and Daddy can decide how many toys Kyle and Emily get to play with.... until they figure out how to open the closet doors, then we will have to come up with a new idea!

Other updates...
The offer that we thought we had on our house fell through. When the people originally made the offer, they didn't realize that it was a short sale. At first they said they were still on board, but when it came down to it, they backed out because of the short sale.
Brent has a Skype interview with the church in Ann Arbor on Thursday evening.
We are still waiting to hear something back from the church in Ohio. They told Brent we should except to hear something in the first couple weeks of Jan.

Update on Life...

Last week I wrote that the church in Ohio had contacted Brent about a phone interview. His interview is tomorrow afternoon.... so if you think about it, please pray for him and the pastor interviewing him.

Other exciting news... we are finally moving forward with Bank of America with the short sale process. We were originally told in March that we didn't need to do anything with the bank until we had an offer for a short sale. We then found out in June that we needed to get approved first.... and we have been trying to get approved since June. We have been having all sorts of issues (the bank is stupid and keeps changing policies and losing paperwork and blah blah blah). Last week after still being given the run around, I emailed the CEO (after a friend suggested it), and finally as of Friday we are officially in Phase I of the short sale process!

To go along with that...someone submitted an offer last Tuesday! Unfortunately they weren't aware that we were doing a short sale. Our realtor contacted theirs and they said they were still interested, but have yet to return the short sale addendum to us, so we're really not sure what's going on with that....

My back is finally starting to feel better. I'm still having tingling in my arms and pain in my back, but it's better than it was. I've still been going to physical therapy three mornings a week. Tomorrow I go back to see the neurosurgeon, so we'll see what he has to say and if he wants me to continue with therapy.

A couple days ago Kyle figured out how to undo the Velcro on his helmet. After he undid that a few times, he figured out if he pushed enough on his helmet, he could get it off his head. So now when he has his helmet on, all he does is try to get it off. This afternoon, within an hour, Kyle had his helmet off five times. I finally just left it off of him. We are going to AI before we go to Michigan to get new Velcro put on his helmet, so hopefully that will solve the problem.

We're leaving in a couple days for Michigan! We're very excited to see family and friends... but not really looking forward to the LONG drive with the babies. I think the longest we've been in the car with the babies has only been two hours. We are planing on driving through the night, so hopefully the babies will just sleep. Please pray for us as we prepare to leave and as we make the long drive.

Ah! It moved!

We had to turn our heat on yesterday.... which means that we need to turn the humidifiers in our bedrooms. Because of where the plugs are in Emily and Kyle's room, stuff had to be moved around a little bit so that the humidifier could be plugged in. (Last time we had the heat on, Kyle and Emily were still sleeping in our bedroom so it wasn't an issue.) 

So... last night after the babies went to bed and were sleeping, I moved their room around. Yes, they were sleeping in their crib! They didn't even seem to notice that their bed was moving :)

 

Wouldn't It Be Nice...

....if money grew on trees?

The whole situation with our house is not a fun one. Our short sale approval is pending at the moment... A couple weeks ago, we were told because we have an FHA mortgage, that we have to go through a loan modification before we can be approved for a short sale. You would have thought they would have told us this six months ago when we started the whole short sale process with the bank.... but the short sale department doesn't really seem to have their act together. We've filled out the application for the loan modification and we have provided them with all the documentation they need to see that we are poor and can't afford to make our payments. Now we just wait.... our mortgage modification counselor called yesterday and said the underwriter had everything and we should hear back soon what they are willing to let us drop our payments to. Then, once the modification all goes through, we have to let the short sale department know and they will start looking at our account again.
In the meantime... we are officially in default on our mortgage as of September 2nd. We've had some expected (car insurance) and some unexpected (Brent's brakes, Keyla's new crown, a new breast pump(will be reimbursed for, but had to pay for up front)) things we had to pay for in the past month, and just didn't have the money for our mortgage payment. Luckily God has provided and everything but the mortgage payment was able to be taken car of!

Happy Easter

This is the first holiday the babies have been out in the real world to celebrate. It wasn't too exciting of a day... The babies babies started the day by throwing up several times. We went to church, where they were both being fussy. After church we ran home so that I could pump, and then we went to Jim and Janet's (friends from our old church who attend the same church we do now) house and enjoy Easter dinner with their family. We came home and I fed the babies while Brent mowed the yard. We then played and cuddled and took naps as a family. It's so nice having all of us home together :) I think Sunday afternoons are my favorite for this reason:) And now Daddy is reading the Bible to the babies and getting them ready for bed!

Brent is now working three jobs and has a regular schedule. Monday thru Saturday he is working at Primo's from 11:00am to 3:00pm. Monday thru Thursday, he does to the dry cleaning place after Primos and drives their van and normally gets home around 7:00pm. Friday and Saturday nights he is delivering for Pat's Pizza.

We are officially going to Indiana for an interview. We leave the morning of Saturday May 14th and come back on Monday in time for Brent to be to work. Please pray for us as we prepare to go and try to discern if this is the ministry that God is calling us to or not.

Still no interest on our house... hopefully as the weather is nicer and such, there will be some more...

Another prayer request... my cousin Monty was killed in a motorcycle accident early this morning. Please pray for his parents, Jeff and Diane (dad and step-mom) and Gayle (mom) and his brother Dustin.

Little Piggies

Here's the birth announcement we made for Kyle and Emily.

Kyle and Emily are eating like crazy... it amazes me that a couple weeks ago we were having problems getting the babies to eat even an ounce and now Kyle is pretty much consistently eating 3 ounces at each feeding and Emily is eating 2.5 ounces are each feeding.

We don't go back to the doctor for another two weeks, so I don't know how much they weigh now, but I am sure they are gaining and growing!

Emily's belly button stump fell off last night! Now both of them can have real baths :)

Bath time tonight was better - neither one of them like to have their clothes taken off, but as soon as they were in the bath, the stopped screaming and seamed to be enjoying themselves. But then once I took them out, they started screaming again until they were all wrapped up in their towels. And then they screamed again when I put lotion on them... I think they just don't like to be cold. Emily got some more clothes today that fit her thanks to Great Grandma Johnson! She now has five outfits instead of three!

I tried nursing again today. The lactation consultant at their pediatrician's office had suggested that I try every couple days to see if they are any more interested and willing. Once they are, she suggested nursing one feeding a day for a couple days, and then slowly add more feedings. The first try, they both latched on for about five minutes at the same time. I was pretty excited - then Kyle decided he was done and wanted his bottle. The second time I tried I tried to feed them separately. Emily did amazing and latched on for 25 minutes and ate until she was full. Kyle on the other had... he was so excited to eat that he had problems latching on, so after 10 minutes of trying, I gave the poor boy a bottle so he would calm down. We're gonna keep trying - hopefully soon we won't be using bottles as much - Mommy and Daddy are sick of washing them :)

I am getting used to being home by myself with the babies during the day. It's not as crazy as I thought it was going to be... but I am sure it will get more interesting as Kyle and Emily start to get more active and are awake more.

Brent had an interview yesterday for a cleaning job - it went very well and he should hear back from them tomorrow. It sounded like they are willing to work around his schedule for Primo's, so that would be great! Please pray for us - that God would open up this opportunity or another one more Brent to have more income.

As far as our house goes... we dropped the price and changed the listed to a short sale. Please pray with us that there will be more interest in our house and that God will provide a buyer.

Still Waiting...

My ultrasound on Wednesday went fine... both babies passed with BPP and I actually got to see Kyle's face! Emily has moved way down and is ready to come out, so Kyle has a little more room to move around - and actually showed us his face!

My OB appt on Friday went well today - I was hoping I would get sent to the hospital to have the babies... but no such luck! My cervix is more dilated and more thinned out... but still only "early labor" - no active labor yet! The doctor said "any day now" so we'll see what happens...

We're also still waiting for our house to sell... Our realtor came over on Wednesday night to talk to us about our house and the response (or lack of) that we are getting. Many of the houses in our neighborhood that are selling, are selling for way less than what we are asking for. She thinks that we need to drop our price about $40,000 to get more interest. Which means it would cost us about $40,000 to sell our house. We are in the process of contacting our mortgage company to see what we need to do for a short sale.... so we'll see...

Finally Feeling Better

On Thursday, Kyle decided that he would give me some breathing room! I still have problems breathing when I am up moving around a lot, bend over, or squish my belly in any way... but I can carry on a conversation without gasping for air!

In other news - our realtor is having an open house for our house tomorrow afternoon. Please pray that it will go well and will spark some interest in our house. She has suggested that we reduce our asking price, we are aren't ready to do that yet. The lower we go, the more we are going to have to pay to sell our house... and we are trying to prevent having to go into more debt to sell our house.

Changes, Changes, and More Changes

There are lots of changes in our lives that have to do with preparing to have twins. And I am still adjusting to this whole being pregnant thing and having a belly that easily bumps into things or gets in the way.

On top of those changes, we have some other big changes happening. About a week and a half ago Brent was let go from church. He was told that he was no longer a good fit for the way the church was going and that "they" didn't feel he was doing a good job with the teens or the children. At first we were very upset about it, but God was helped us look on the bright side. We have had so many people who left the church (we had a church split in the end of August) contact us with their love and support, along with a few people who currently still attending the church.

Brent was let go on a Wednesday and on Friday God provided a part time job. He is delivering hoagies for a place called Primos Monday though Saturday during lunch time. In December he will also start referring basketball during the evenings. He is still looking for something to do in the mornings.

We are also going to sell our house. We have been busy getting the house ready to be put on the market. We have packed some and still need to pack more. We painted the bathroom and the room that would have been that babies' room yesterday - they needed to not be fun colors anymore. My parents are planning on making a trip out at the end of December to take a lot of our stuff back to Michigan to try to make our house less cluttered and such. We are hoping and praying that we at least break even on our house, but more than likely we are going to end up paying to sell our house.

Until the babies are born, we plan on staying in Delaware. If we sell our house before then, we will find an apartment or something. Once the babies and myself are given a clean bill of health, the currently plan (subject to change) is to move back to Michigan. Brent is applying to a couple churches in the Battle Creek/Kalamazoo area and will continue to search for churches that have openings.

Please pray for us as we go through these changes. It has been a rough week and a half, but God is good and has already blessed us so much. We look forward to seeing what God's plans are for us and seeing Him work in our lives.