Medieval Times!!

A friend of ours gave us tickets to Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament (thanks, Sandy!!). We went last night and had a BLAST. We left Cailyn at home with a sitter (thanks, Lauren!) because the show started at 7:30 and was 2 hours long. We talked with Hannah that we were going to go to a castle and eat and see horses, etc. She was SOOO excited! When we got there and she saw the castle and the moat with fish and everything she was even more excited....then we got inside.

The seating is first come, first served and is assigned. You get a crown placed upon your head when you get there and the color of your crown dictates your seating. We made a HUGE deal and got all excited when we saw that we got to have GREEN crowns - Hannah's FAVORITE color! But, when she did NOT want to wear that crown. I think it was more the fact that it was 2 hours past her normal dinner time, it was bedtime, and it was pretty overwhelming in there. They had stables where you could see the horses, a falconer, and all kinds of gifts and things to look at and buy. And since it was all stone in there, it was pretty noisy. So, this is how we spent the first few mintues there....and I wondered if we'd made a big mistake:

However, once she saw this really neat coat of arms, she ran right over for a picture.

We had about 20 minutes to mill around in the area and look at more armour, look at lots of things we didn't buy, and just take things in before the announced our seating. The arena was a lot smaller than the commercials make it seem, which I was glad for. We had GREAT seats and were able to see wonderfully. Not to mention, we were right by the King and Princess' thrones!

When the show started, it was LOUD and I, once again, thought this was a bad idea...

But then, OUR knight came out and Hannah started waving her flag and cheering him on and forgot about the noise.
For those of you who've never been to a Medieval Times or don't have a clue what it is, its basically a very involved dinner theater, with a (surprise, surprise) medieval theme. Not only does the color of your crown determine where you will sit, but which knight you cheer for. There's a red knight, a yellow knight, a red and yellow knight, a black and white knight, and a green knight. The green knight just so happened to be the king's arch enemy, so we got to cheer for the bad guy, which was actually a lot of fun! LOL So, while the King's Feast is being served, you watch falconry demonstrations, horse demonstrations, and finally, jousting and sword fighting.

The dinner was AMAZING. The menu for the evening was garlic bread, tomato bisque, roasted chicken thigh/breast, bbq rib, pastry and soda/coffee. And, the best part - NO UTENSILS!! You ate it all with your hands, which we all enjoyed emensely. I honestly can't remember when the three of us laughed together so much. They even have the pewter plates, bowls, etc!

Hannah only sat on Daddy's lap for a little while, then decided it was ok to sit in her own seat on a booster seat. It was awesome, they were theater style seats, so she would rock back and forth, pretending she was on a horse, too!

Hannah and Daddy having fun (see the thrones behind them?)

Mommy and Hannah enjoying the show

Hannah drinking her soup

The King's Entry

Our Green Knight, welcoming the King

Hannah cheering her knight (she's actually saying "wooo hoooo!!" in this pic). The flower you see is a special flower the knight threw straight to her!

After the show we got to meet the knights and prince and princess. Hannah wanted to tell the knight thank you for the flower!

Hannah with the prince

The two princesses

It really was an amazing night and we ALL had a blast. We asked Hannah on the way home what her favorite part was and she said, "The green man." Hahaha!! It was something we would've never been able to do on our own, so we owe a huge thanks to our friend, Sandy!

A Few More Random Happenings

Here are a few more pictures from the past couple of months. They go back as far as the end of June - sorry!

On Wednesday nights in the summer, the kids' program at church does all kinds of wild and crazy activities. The first one of the summer was Wacky Wheels Night. Hannah was so excited!!

Bad to the bone....

Cailyn "pushing" Hannah (more like Hannah dragging Cailyn LOL)

Cailyn has always been into baby dolls - since a very young age. She gets them, loves on them, gives them bottles, snuggles them. This is how I found her a few weeks ago:

What a pretty smile!!

This is what happens when you sell your table and chairs and have nowhere to eat:

Random Happenings

So, with all this house stuff going on, I've really gotten behind on keeping this blog updated with the REALLY important stuff: pics of the girls! LOL So, sorry about that!

Here are a few random happenings over the past few weeks. I have more on the computer in a different file, I'll try to add those in the next day or two.

We've started selling off our furniture, and all of it except for one dresser is spoken for! We've started moving some of it out, and the house is looking very bare. But, in the midst of all the chaos and change, our girls manage to have some fun.

Hannah and Cailyn going 'round and 'round the top half of the entertainment center. I love this picture because it reminds me of something my brother and I would've done!

Cailyn has seen Hannah and her friends play dress up countless times and the other day she decided she wanted to get in on the fun. So, after about 15 mintues of trying to put Hannah's dress up dress on by herself she got some help to finally get it on:

She was so proud of herself!!!

(note Hannah in the background playing with a DOG!)

Princess Cailyn on her throne waiting to be entertained.

The other day I had cleaned the entire house top to bottom getting ready for another showing (we've had 7 since last Thursday! And for those of you wondering, you continue to show the home until closing in case something happens and the contract falls through) and I had all the bedrooms spotless. Well, Hannah and I had been out in the living room when I realized it was awfully quiet. I went looking for Cailyn and this is what I found:

I can't help but take pictures of them when they sleep. Somehow they show their personalities even in sleep!

How'd she get SO BIG??

Hannah has really taken to wearing "sleep dresses" at night

This is one of Hannah's favorite games that Daddy started. They hide in the under the covers at the foot of the bed. This day, Hannah was a "burrito baby".

Yes, there was a dog in our house! Our friends went out of town for two weeks and needed someone to watch their dog, Shelby. Our kids LOVED it! I, however, and Shelby will, I fear, never be the same. LOL The dog was great, but she's old and not a huge fan of kids. My kids are young, and huge fans of dogs!! LOL

A tender moment between a girl and her temporary puppy.

Cailyn had her 15 month check up recently. She's 24 lbs 2 oz (70th percentile) and 33" tall (98th percentile!!). She is 1/2" taller than Hannah was at 16 months. She has several words now: Mommy, Daddy, yes, puppy, doggy (daw-dee), Shelby (bell-bee, yell-bee, sell-bee), woof woof, bye bye. She talks all day long, and carries on very serious conversations. Most of it, however, is in gibberish. And she lives up to her name meaning of "pure" in that she's 100% committed to whatever she does. She understands a ton, and if you ask her a yes or no question, her whole body gets into her answer. She LOVED having Shelby stay with us, and now the first thing she says when we get home and/or wakes up is "Shelby? Shelby?" And, when we're driving, if we pass the road we turn down to go to church, she points down the road and says, "Daddy!" as she knows that's where Daddy works. She loves her sister, and you can always tell when she gets tired b/c she starts loving on everybody, especially Hannah. Someone commented that she's like a little drunk, "I love you, man!"

Hannah continues to amaze us as well. Her tender heart and sweet spirit are such a blessing to have in the house. We half joke that she's the book smart one and Cailyn is the street smart one. Hannah can spell her first and last name, count to 15, recognize all the letters by sight, and can write any letter dictated to her. She loves "activity" books that are designed for Pre-K instruction and give her practice in writing letters, solving mazes, following patterns, etc.

So, that's the latest on us. I'll try to get a few more pictures up soon.

Yay, God!!

Sorry for the delay in updating. Oddly enough, we've had SIX showings in the last 4-5 days! That's the same amount we had between May-July 13!!

So, we accepted an offer on Friday afternoon!!! We are very excited. Both of the offers that came in were pretty low, and would've resulted with us having to pay WAY more at closing than we were prepared to. I'll spare you the details of the numbers, as it was not pretty and there are children present.

So, we asked our agent to inform the buyers' agents that there were two offers on the table and to please come back with their final and best offers. One didn't bother to counter. The other, countered with a great offer that results in us just about breaking even! We may even walk away WITH MONEY in our hand...just enough for maybe a dinner at Chili's, but still!

And since then, we've shown the house 6 times, and another one scheduled for Monday morning. The real estate guru's say that's because "interest generates interest." So, at least if something falls through with this offer, we have several potential contigencies. We are slated to close on August 14.

So, we can't even begin to express our gratitude to God for His timing in bringing this about, for more ways than we can go into here. We knew all along that it would most likely happen this way, as God tends to be pretty "last minute" (in our minds LOL) with us, and this is pretty last minute!! :o)

So, THANK YOU all for your prayers for our house to sell. We continue to pray that things between now and August 14 go smoothly (inspection, appraisal, etc). We will keep you updated.

Next post should have some pictures of the girls, so stay tuned!

We Have TWO Offers!!

So, we heard from one agent (the one who had the 2nd showing over the weekend) with a verbal offer. Which means, its no where near official, but really a negotiation tactic. I don't have the energy to write it all out, but we've been discussing it heavily all evening.

As I was getting ready to go to bed tonight, I checked the website where agents who show our house can leave feedback and the agent from the last minute showing Wednesday night had said that he submitted an offer! So, we'll hear what that is first thing in the morning!

So, praise God for TWO offers!!! We're continuing to pray for wisdom on how to proceed and look foward to tomorrow (Fri) morning when we hear what this second offer is.

We'll update again when we hear more tomorrow.

Houston, We Have an Intent!!

TWO, actually!!

Just spoke w/our agent who called the two buyers' agents while I was on the phone with him. The couple that looked at the house last night are talking with the lending agency today and hope to present an offer this evening!!

The clients who looked at the house a 2nd time on Sunday are out of town again until Monday, but their agent intends to present a verbal offer via email this evening!!! This won't be a written contract, but it will be the contents of the amount they want to offer, the date they want to close, etc!!

PRAISE GOD!!! Thank you for your prayers!! None of this is any guarantee by any stretch, but sure is a welcome turn of the tide!!

Assuming both offers come in this evening, we will hear what they are tomorrow from our agent. So, keep those prayers a'rollin' upward!!

Still waiting

Talked to our agent yesterday (Wed) evening around 5pm and he had just spoken w/the buyers' agent. She said she hoped to talk with her clients late yesterday evening and would call our agent today (Thurs) with an update. So, here we wait.

In the meantime, we got a call at 7:10pm last night from an agent asking us to make an exception to the 1 hour notice rule and wanted to know if he could show the house b/t 7:30-8:30pm, as he had a "very serious buyer"! So, of course I said "Sure!" Then proceeded to flee home from church like a mad woman and did the flight of the bumble bee clean...I have been sorting through files for the past 2 days and starting to clean out our bedroom furniture. So, the house was certainly less than tidy! BUT, I finished just as they arrived. The woman said as they were leaving, "I LOVE your home!" several times.

So, we're really praying that God has brought us our buyer in one of these dear people! We will update as soon as we know more.

Thanks for your faithfulness to pray!!!

Keep praying!!!

Well, I just talked to our realtor. The buyer's agent had contacted him to ask if our house has an alarm system. Asking specific questions like that is a good sign!

Our agent said that the clients are out of town and will be back on Wednesday and make their final decision then. Apparantly there are 3 houses in the running. So, PLEASE pray that ours will rise to the top!

We will for sure keep you posted if we hear anything else. Thanks for your faithfulness!!

Second Showing!!!

So sorry its been so long since we've updated. Its been insane!

For those of you who don't know, we're in the process of moving from TX to AZ for 2 months, then to VA for 2 months, then we're headed overseas! We'll be working with some friends we met when we were there before.

Anyway, in order to do all of this, we've been desperately trying to sell our house. Its been on the market since January.

Well, this Sunday afternoon between 3-5pm (cst), we will have our very first second showing!!! These folks came and looked at the house last Thursday, and are coming back on Sunday. I can't tell you how exciting this is! We know its not a guarantee of a purchase, but its really the first bit of good news in this area we've had since we listed it.

So, please pray that it goes well. Our prayer is that they are the ones to buy this house, however, we know God's plans are not always the same as our's, so we're also praying that if these folks aren't the ones, then He would bring the right ones quickly.

We're due to leave TX in 3 weeks!!!