Xander wearing Grandpa Terry's hat at camp


Addi Daddy and her fish.



Grandma Terry, Addi and Xander

Addi trying to ride the pony

Xander in front of the train.

Daddy and Addi on the train.

Ok. It has been a while since I updated this so this posting in going to be really long, but will include pics when I'm done. So. As far as the housing situation we are still not in one yet. The house that we offered on and that I talked about in the last post is long gone, sold to someone else. Right now we have a bid on a nice 3000 sqaure foot rambler in West Valley off of 3400 S. and 5100 W, it was built in 1997. It is in a great location and is something that we could stay in for a long time since it is so big. This house needs a lot of work. The patio that was put in the back yard wasn't layed properly and is breaking up. The people living there before had a hot tub that they drained and ended up flooding the basement because of the bad patio pad. Well. They never bothered to take care of it and now there is a bunch of mold down there. The roof also needs work cause it wasn't sealed properly and water was leaking into the attic, which is also moldy, and has also ruined the drywall in the main bathroom and one of the bedrooms. Dan's brother manages properties and knows what things cost to fix and so he came in and gave us a bid. We are so glad that he came and took a look at it cause he found lots of stuff that we missed. The asking price was 185,000 but we offered 190,000 asking for 25,000 in concesions. Well. They countered and said that they wouldn't give us any concesions so we countered back at 165,000 thinking that they would counter again. Well. In the middle of this someone comes in and offers 185,000. We were getting really good communication with the agent selling the house before but now she is ignoring us. That is cause we are no longer the only offer. Well. The home is still scheduled to be sold at foreclosure sale on the 21st of July. We hope that who ever bid either gets it inspected and runs or that they don't qualify for financing. We are hoping it ends up going to foreclosure so we can go to the sale and talk to the bank that buys it back. If it goes we could probably pick it up from the bank out of REO for cheaper. So. That one is on hold. Before we offered on that one we offered on another one that was built in 2007 and is the same square footage. This one is off 5600 west and about 4500 south. The asking price was 200,000 and it is a short sale. We kinda don't like how far west it is but we offered anyway and we offered low. we offered 184,000 and then forgot about it. Well. I went to fill out the paper work for the house that needs all the work and noticed we had forgotten to include closing costs on the house off of 5600 west. We hadn't heard back on it and were insterested in increasing our offer cause we found another place we could pull money from. Well. When our agent went to check on the status of the offer we were told that our offer was in at the bank and that we were the only offer on the home. I got a little nervous since the contract didn't include closing costs. We found that since we offered so low we would still be able to cover the closing costs just in case they took the offer. Well. The agent selling that one won't get back to us either. I'm soooo irritated that people won't return messages. I just want a yes or no. I hate this hurry up and wait crap! So. Hopefully the other home goes to foreclosure and isn't postponed. So. That is the update on the housing situation. Now I'll update on what has been going on lately.

Well. A few weeks ago Dan finished one of his summer classes that was accelerated. He got an A! HOORAY!!! He is so smart! :) I'm very proud of him. He has about 3 or 4 more weeks of the other class and then about 2 weeks of nothing till he starts fall semester. We went to "This is the Place" state park on the 29th of June. It was a lot of fun. It was a bit warmer that we would have liked and I was dumb enough not to wear sunscreen so I got really burned. They have a bunch of crafts for the kids to do so Addi made a rag doll, deocrated a draw string bag, branded a peice of wood and we all did some leather stamping. We made magnets out of the leather stamping and she makes new pictures every day to hang up on the fridge with those magnets. She also tried to ride the pony. She thought it was cool until she got closer to it and then she freaked out and wouldn't let go of me. It was pretty funny. I'll post a picture even though I look gigantic in it. They also had a little train there that went around a small pond. She loved it. For the 4th of July we went camping with Dan's family up in Midway. It was really warm during the afternoon but we had electricity in our camp ground so we took a little drive to Heber (enjoying the nice airconditioning in the car) and bought a little fan from the Walgreens (can you believe they still don't have a Walmart?! It is coming soon though) we took it back to camp and pluged it in and we all enjoyed its amazing cooling power. We had fun watching the firework show. Both the kids did pretty good with the noise. Addi had a blast exploring and sleeping in her own sleeping bag on her own air mattress. It sure was nice to get away for a while. We went fishing while we were there at a little pond and Addi caught a fish right away but didn't want to have anything to do with it when Dad realed it in. Well. The most recent thing that happened was that we all got sick except for Dan. Xander got it first. He was just really congested and that started last friday night. By Sunday I had a sore throat and he was a lot more congested. We went to mom Terry's to play games on Sunday and Addi ended up puking her guts out. I'm pretty sure she is allergic to clams in clam chowder. I remember her getting sick the last time I fed it to her. So. Monday Dan stayed home from work to take care of us all. I took Xander in to get checked and they said that he just had a cold. They weighed him and I was shocked! He weighed 17.5 Ibs. He is only 3 and a half months old!! I love his little roles though. Well. On Tuesday Addi started with the cold and ran a little bit of a fever. The last week has been pretty rough for me trying to take care of sick kids and my sick self. We are all doing a lot better now and so far Dan hasn't come down with it. I hope he doesn't end up getting it. Well. Hopefully I can keep this up a bit better now that things have calmed down a little. O! I forgot to mention. My brother Walter got engaged on the 29th of June. Congrats to him. He will be gettin hitched to Kristen Yates. She is from Virginia but currently living in Provo and going to BYU. I'm excited to gain another sister in law. I need to get a pic of the two of them and post it. I'll get it up as soon as I track one down.

Yesterday Dan and Addi went fishing with Mom and Dad Terry and David and Ella. I stayed home with the little one and got to relax a little. Dan and Addi had a lot of fun. Too bad I was not thinking and didn't send a camera with cause this was Addi's first fishing trip. It was a little traumatizing due to the fact that she saw Dan take a bit of an unexpected swim and then she saw Dan whack the fish's head against a rock to kill it. She was very scared that her Daddy got hurt when he fell in the lake and even more scared cause she thought it was the fish's fault that Daddy fell in. It was a bit of a steep drop from where they were fishing down to the water and Dan slipped and went in up to his waist. Addi got over things and enjoyed fishing but would have nothing to do with touching the fish. My sister Annie came over and watched Xander for a little while so I could go to the gym. I was pretty good last week and made it all four times but I wasn't as successful in getting my entire routine completed. I think I'm in need of some new shoes cause my left foot just kills in the arch area when I walk or work out too long. That is what I get for buying walmart shoes. At least they lasted a year :) I had a bit of a melt down yesterday about the house thing and Dan was great about trying to help me get my mind of it. We ended up leaving the kids at my parent's house for a little while and going home to relax and talk without any interruptions. It was nice to connect and have an adult conversation. We talked about what I want to do for a hobby. I really want to refinish furniture. I want to learn how to reupholster and refinish old wood furniture. One of the requirements in the house we buy is a garage so that I can do that. We put another offer in on a home yesterday. It was kind of a weird experience. Months ago, like in decemberish, we found a house listed for 165,000 that we wanted to see. The situation was that there was a lady living there that was dying of heart failure. She was defaulting on her mortgage but she wanted to lease her property back from who ever bought it until she died (no one was sure how long that was going to take) we never got to go through it cause the realestate agent selling it said that someone else was going to buy it. Well we just gave up on it and moved on. Well. We went to see another property on Wednesday last week and I had no idea that it was even in the same neighborhood as that house that we had looked at months ago. Well. I accidentally turned down the wrong road and I immediately recognized it cause we had tried to go see that old lady's house about 3 times. What was even more crazy was that it was for sale. so. We went and looked at the other house and then took our realestate agent over to see the old lady's house. We couldn't get in cause he didn't have the lock box code but we looked through the windows and the person who had bought it went in and redid everything. It looked awesome so we went back on Friday and went through it and thought it was amazing. They guy ended up buying it for 155,000. We found out that the reason the selling agent didn't want us to look was because the person who was purchasing it was not a represented buyer which meant that the selling agent got 6% commission from selling it. Well. He bought it back in March so we think he has a construction loan on the properly since he isn't living in it which means he will have to have it sold withing the next 2 months so he doesn't have to refinance. Well. We offered on it yesterday. We offered 185,000 but are willing to go to 190,000. We found that we could use the money in or Roth IRA and we are going to use our 401K as well. That gives us about 12 thousand more to put down than we had originally. We aren't sure anything will come of this cause he is asking 205,000 and has put all new bathrooms all new kitchen and paint and carpet in. He did a great job but the home has a basement that is only 45% finished and it doesn't have central air either. It is also a little older. It was built in 1977. We will see if anything comes of it. We are still waiting to see if anything is happening with the other home we offered on down the road. It is still on the MLS so we know it hasn't sold yet but last we heard they were under contract. I wonder if the person who offered on it will be able to get financing. Right now we are just playing the waiting game. At least we will have a yes or no on the house we just offered on by tomorrow night cause it isn't a short sale. I just keep praying we will find the right house soon so I don't go bonkers in this little apartment. We are potty training Addi starting today. She has already peed her big girl pants and didn't even notice. She didn't even care she was wet. She did go pee on the potty when I put her on there just after I found she was wet. I hate this part. Potty training is the pits. It is so stinky too. I think I'm going to have a load of laundry going every minute of every day between Xander blowing through his diaper and spitting up on everything and Addi's accidents I'm sure the laundry will never end. I love this crazy kids though so it is all worth it :) Well. We are TVless now. They did the digital switch on the 12th so we don't have any channels until we go buy a converter box (the governments way of making more money off us I think) and I won't have time to do that till next week. I'll have to do it before the 25th though cause my coupon expires on the 25th.

Hmmm. I think Aileen won!

The family. Addi was surprised and excited by the coo coo clock that went off.

Side view of the tails.

Four Generations of Terry men.

Wow!!! What a day. Today we blessed Xander and then had a lunch after with our Family at mom Terry's house. He was sooooo Cute. We got him a little tux with tails. I just couldn't resist it!! Dan gave a wonderful beautiful blessing and Mom Terry was quick enough to write most of it down so I have it to put in his baby book. We both bore our testimonies during the meeting and I must admit I got a little teary eyed. I just love my two adorable, precious children. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to be a mother of such beautiful children. They teach me so much. As much as those teaching experiences drive me crazy sometimes, I truly am grateful for them. I count my blessings every day for the wonderful family I have. I was raised by amazing loving parents who I love and appreciate so much. I was also fortunate enough to marry into an amazing family as well. I love all my in-laws. I sure have adopted some amazing supportive brothers and the coolest sister-in-law in the world. I'm so glad we get along and can hang out together. I am truly blessed. We had a lot of fun visiting with all of our family at a lunch. They were kind enough to host the little get together since we don't have a place big enough to accommodate everyone. When Addi was blessed we did the lunch at my parents house and so we figured we would give them a break this time. Besides. I thought my niece and nephew (Ella and Coleman) would be much more comfortable playing in an environment that was familiar to them. We had a blast. Aunt Aileen and Thomas had a whipped cream fight and that was pretty entertaining to see. I only got to see the pictures that were taken and then the end result cause I was busy nursing Xander at the time but I'm going to post some pics. It was a memorable fight. Thomas got his butt kicked! After we relaxed a little at mom's and cleaned up the lunch we went over to visit uncle Steve and Aunt Lesa to see the house they just bought. We are so happy for them! Now. I was going to share my faith building experience that taught me patience. When we were trying to get pregnant for the first time we had a hard time. It took us about a year before we finally were pregnant with Addi. I remember getting soooooo frustrated every single week. I remember getting mad at the Lord and then finally coming to the "I just don't care" stage. At this point I decided that if I couldn't get pregnant I would make life better for my self and have as much fun as I could and stop worrying about it. So. Dan and I decided that we were in the perfect situation to go to France and visit his mission. We had a lot of money saved so we decided to go ahead and go. Well. We went and I thought it would be awesome to find out we were pregnant in France. Well no such luck. I was about 5 days late but I started my period on the Eiffel Tour the second to the last day we were there. I was sooooo mad! I hated that every month my period would come later and later. When we got home I decided that my job working for Cintas (a uniform rental company) as a customer service agent was way too stressful and they weren't paying me what I was worth so I decided it was time to find a job. I got a job about a month after we got back that payed about 3 dollars and hour more and the atmosphere was soooo much better and more relaxed. Well. I know the Lord as impeccable timing. I found out I was pregnant the day I quite my job and accepted the new one. I was able to keep working until I delivered because it was so low stress. It was perfect and my boss was extremely understanding. So. I got a awesome job that paid more and allowed us to save more and I was able to go see France before we had a baby. Had I gotten pregnant any earlier I would have missed out on so many blessings. We were also blessed to meet a wonderful couple that was having a much harder time than we were. They had been trying 7 years to have a baby and when they finally got pregnant with their son Chad, after several miscarriages, we were so excited for them, but so sad when she gave birth at 25 weeks. He lived for 5 days before returning home to our heavenly father. It was so heart breaking to watch them go through it but she had such faith and was always so positive. The Lord blessed us with some amazing friends who taught us a lot and made us grateful for all that we had and that we weren't going through all that horrible heartache. So I look to this experience as I deal with the trial of not being able to find a house right now and say, the Lord has perfect timing and I just need to be patient and do my part. I know it will happen sometime and when it does it will be amazing. I keep telling my self that the longer I'm here the more we can save and the nicer we can afford. So for now we just play the waiting game and try to do that waiting as patiently as possible.