We've been asked a lot lately how the house hunting is coming. So I thought I would post about it and let everyone know!  It makes us happy when people ask how things are going.  We're very excited and anxious to be home owners... so we could talk your EARS off about the houses we have seen and the progress!

We have 3 offers in on houses currently.  They are all in Spanish Fork.  One of them we are the back-up offer, so we aren't thinking that one is going to turn out positively for us.  We are the first offer on the other two. They are both in the same neighborhood (Spanish Fields in Spanish Fork, Utah) and the exact same layout/style.  They have a lot of similarities and they also have a lot of differences which is nice.  We would be completely happy in either of these homes.

They are both short sales, which translates to "LONG SALE."

 House number one:

In short:
Has 2 mortgages, so the process is taking longer.

More details:
The first one is the one we posted about a bit ago here.  Great price, great house, lots of square-footage, needs a yard, needs a fence, needs paint, but has great new carpets. Unfortunately it has 2 mortgages currently, so we have to have our offer accepted by 2 different banks, which means the process will probably take twice as long.  We know the sellers accepted our offer, and the BPO was ordered (real estate appraisal.. not a real appraisal but they basically give their opinion on what the house is worth and then the bank will go off that opinion and decide whether our offer is acceptable of not) about 3 weeks ago and still hasn't been completed. So we are still waiting.

House number two:

In short:
Just put down the offer; so far so good.

More details:
The second one we put the offer down the day Brandon and I got back from out of town (so about a week ago). It has a great yard, only needs a fence in the very front, lots of square-footage, and needs all new carpet throughout the house.  So we priced out the carpet and flooring that needs to be done and submitted our offer based on the amount we will be spending once we get the house.  We know the sellers accepted our offer, the real estate agent has requested information from us, has submitted everything to the bank, and the bank requested more information. So it seems as though the bank is active at this point.  They also have a website they use to submit all information and to communicate with, which is supposed to expedite the process.  Let's hope! This house only has one mortgage currently so only one bank to work with.  We're hoping that when a BPO is ordered, they will consider the fact that ALL the carpets will need to be replaced and be nice on the price.

Anyways, wish us luck, say a prayer, and cross your fingers that one of these work out.  And they work out soon.  My goal is to be in a house for the holidays.  Wouldn't that be an amazing Christmas present to us?!

Thanks for all your support.  We love you all.

Jack's an amazing sleeper and always has been. We've been pretty spoiled. He started sleeping 8 hours straight in the night when he was 7 weeks old.  Then he started sleeping 10-12 hours around 9 weeks. He takes 2 to 3 naps a day for 2 hours each nap. We don't have to put him to sleep, we don't have to rock him or anything.  But he does have to be swaddled with his bear pacifier.  With those two things, he sleeps perfectly!

 We use the Velcro swaddle blankets and they've been great since Jack likes to sleep with his feet straight out and his arms to his side. Well he grew out of the small size and there isn't a medium, so he has been in the large for a month now, but he is too skinny for it! It is on the edge of the Velcro and now it won't stick anymore. So he gets his arms out and can't calm himself down. So we end up going in there and re-swaddling him so he can fall back to sleep.

Well he's now over 5 months old and we keep being told from everyone (seriously it must be the question/advice we get most often) that we need to stop swaddling him. So this week I've decided to focus on getting Jack to sleep without being swaddled with his pacifier on his chest.

It's Monday. I just put Jack down for his first nap. OMG I don't know if I can handle this! I think I have tried everything...
1. I rocked him to sleep while holding him.  I put him in his crib on his tummy with his pacifier in his mouth. He stayed asleep but woke up by the time I made it back to the living room.
2. I then flipped him over on his back and put a blanket around his stomach with the pacifier in the blanket and in his mouth. He then cried and kicked and I saw on the video monitor that the blanket was completely covering his face.
3. I went in to remove the blanket and left him without a blanket. He was all smiles as he saw me and when I left, he started screaming.
4. I let him cry for 20 minutes straight! He never calmed down. He just kicked and moved his arms.
5. I went back in there and held him to try to calm him. I finally got him calm again. I slowly started to lower him back into the crib and he started screaming again.
6. So I put him in the swing. I didn't swaddle him. I buckled him in the swing with his pacifier (maybe we will try one of the 2 things at a time). I turned on some white noise and left the room.  He sat in the swing awake for about 5 minutes then fell asleep.
7. He was asleep for 12 minutes until he started sucking on the leg of the bear pacifier and kicking.  Right now he's getting fussy again.

So now I sit here an hour after putting him down and he slept for a total of 12 minutes. THIS IS TORTURE!!! I don't know if I can do this for 2 more naps today plus all night, oh and multiply that by 7 for the rest of the week!

Help me! What can I do differently?

Ok Jack is a super skinny baby. He maybe has a total of 4 rolls on his entire body and they're more like skin rolls than fat rolls. So the title of this post isn't referring to him looking like a roly poly, but instead acting like one!

Jack learned how to roll over! He's been rolling from his tummy to his back for a couple of months now (but still not intentionally), but just started to roll from his back to his tummy! I think it's so funny. I'm so proud of our little man! I took some videos on my phone and thought I would share them with you.

He shares a little treat at the end of two of the videos, which I think is funny, and a normal occurrence around here, so enjoy!

P.S. Sorry the quality is awful!!

 

Jack at 5 months.