Say Honey

N got caught sticky-handed swiping the honey.

How can I get mad at that face?

Favorite Spot

Here is Baby N's new favorite place to be.

 Even if the dryer is full of clothes, he will empty all the clothes onto the floor, put his blanket in, and crawl in after it.



The Rest of the Story

WARNING:

This is going to be long, with no pictures, but I wanted to get our house-hunting experience written down so that we don't forget how much the Lord has blessed us in this journey. I feel that the best way to document it is to write it out in a timeline, so here goes.

The day after Thanksgiving, 2010 - This is the day we met our realtor, Ken Pozek. Since we were going up to Michigan to spend Thanksgiving with our friends, the Palmers, we thought we would take the opportunity to see a few homes in the area. Obviously, we weren't ready to make any offers at this point, but we just wanted to see what the homes felt like. We emailed four realtors, and only one realtor, Ken, answered back, probably because we were still four months out from being serious buyers. He gladly showed us the home we were interested in, and stayed in contact with us after we left. We ended up choosing him as our realtor and he has been AWESOME!

Mon-Tue, March 7-8 - After months of browsing homes on the internet we are finally in a position to start seriously looking, so we took a trip up to Michigan at the begining of Jared's Spring Break. Our friends, Ben and Sarah Palmer, graciously let us stay with them. We knew we wanted to keep our mortgage under $220K, so we sent Ken our price range, and several homes that we had seen on the internet, and he showed us the ones we had chosen that were still available and also a few more that seemed to fit our criteria. Over the two days, we saw about 15 homes, and though some of them we liked, we just didn't feel that we were ready to chose one of them yet.

We came home from that trip a little disheartened, so Maryle sat down at the computer and started looking again. She had the feeling that she should look in the same city that Jared would be working in, as we hadn't yet been looking in that town, because it wasn't the fabulous city of Troy that we had wanted to live in. As she started looking, she saw a great neighborhood that was only 1/2 mile away from Jared's future work, and the homes looked beautiful. We decided that we would try to look in that neighborhood the next time we were able to go up.

Saturday, March 12 - Maryle flies to Arizona to spend a week with her sister, JoDee, who is having a baby. More on that in a future post.

Tuesday, March 15th - Jared drives up to Michigan (still on his Spring Break) with the kids to check out this new neighborhood.

Wednesday, March 16 - Jared goes with Ken to see the homes. He is able to see three homes, and really liked one of them. He called Maryle (who is still in AZ) to tell her all about it, and sent her pictures. Then Jared headed back to Indiana. Later that evening we decided to go ahead and make an offer on the one Jared liked.

Thursday, March 17th - Our offer went in on the home this morning. Jared, back in Indiana, happened to look online again for homes in the same area. He noticed a foreclosure that had just popped up that day with only four pictures. It was larger than the first home, and looked nicer. He alerted Ken, who promptly went a half hour out of his way to take pictures and describe the home to Jared. He also informed Jared that there were 2 other people looking at the home at that same time.

Friday, March 18th - Knowing the market was really picking up, Jared gave the go-ahead (without the permission of Maryle) to make an offer on this second home. Jared went out on a limb, realizing that he could potentially be grounded for a month for not asking permission to write up an offer (Jared is writing this, by the way:)). We also learned that day that the first home recieved a total of four offers so the bank said to come back with our biggest and best offer by today at five. This we did. So, at this point, we have put in two offers, one on a home that only Jared has seen, and one on a home that neither of us had seen. Looking back, that seems absolutely crazy, but at the time, it seemed the thing to do.

Saturday, March 19th - Maryle comes home from AZ.

Monday, March 21st - Ken  informs us that we were one of two finalists for the first home and the bank countered our offer. However, we were still waiting for word on the second home, so we decided to wait to give an answer to the bank.

Tuesday, March 22nd - We got a call from Ken this morning, and he informed us that there were SIX offers on the second larger home and there were three offers that were higher than ours! We concluded that the larger home was completely out of reach. We accepted the counter offer on the first home and were told that the other finalist had countered the counter offer. Therefore, the first home was ours! Then, unexpectedly, we got a call from Ken about 6:30 p.m. that evening saying that the bank had accepted our offer on the second home! We were in disbelief! Basically, what happened is that the three higher offers had bid above the appraisal price (nobody knew what that was) and the bank didn't want to deal with the home not appraising for the higher price. We had to answer back by Wednesday at noon. We had never seen the second home in person, so within an hour, we were off to Michigan and got there at a quarter after one in the morning.

Wednesday, March 23rd - We went with our realtor to see the bigger home and were absolutely stunned. Not only was it the highest quality home that we had seen, it was also the lowest price. More will be explained in a minute. We were absolutely blown away by what we saw, and never dreamed that we'd potentially own a home like this, even ten years down the road. The amazing thing is, there were TEN total offers on the two homes combined, and we had our offers accepted on both. The Lord is incredible! He gave us the chance to choose which home we wanted, which was especially nice since Maryle hadn't seen either home. It must be Maryle that is blessing our family because it sure isn't Jared :) (again, Jared is writing this). We chose the bigger home as it was actually cheaper than the smaller one, and we liked the overall feel and layout better.

The bigger home was built in 2006 and originally sold for $356K. It listed at $173,300! (The smaller home was listed at $199,900.) By the recommendation of Ken, we bid $184K (higher than the asking price) with $4K back on the bigger home, and the appraisal as-is came in at $189K before the bank put it on the market. Needless to say, we are still in shock and are extremely humbled at how much the Lord has blessed us. Now we are praying for the financing to go through.

A big thanks goes out to Ben and Sarah, who opened their home to us for each trip, and gave us their advice all along the way. You guys are AMAZING!

House Pictures

This post is for all those who have expressed an interest in seeing pictures of the home that we have under contract to buy. Here's hoping all goes well with getting the financing.

 Front of the house

 Back of the house

Family Room

 Living Room (from entryway)

Dining Room (from Family Room, Kitchen is on the right)

 View to front door from kitchen

 View from front door

 Master Bedroom w/fireplace

 Master Bath

Main Bath

 View of Family Room from upstairs

 View of Kitchen from Family Room

 Kitchen

Close up of tile 

Kitchen

Details of the events that made this all possible coming soon!!!

Re-Named

Between me and E:

Me: E, please don't touch the pizza dough while it is rising. (this was said very sweetly, by the way, we were having a good day, hence I was making pizza)

E: Ok Big Mommy. I called you Big Mommy because you are SO BIG.

(hmmmmm, thanks, I guess.)

Neglected

I don't think anyone would argue with me in saying that I have completely neglected my blog for long enough. Looking back at what I have posted, I realize that there are many things that need to be said. So, here is an update of the going on's of the Jenson Family.

• Baby N is in a big boy bed now, after proving that he can masterfully climb out of his crib. I don't think I ever mentioned the fact that he learned to walk, but I guess that is a given by this time. He is starting to say some words, including Daddy, Daddy (which is also his word for mom), I want that one (not quite that clear, but it is obvious that is what he is saying), no, uhuh (instead of yes), peeese (please), and amen.
• H turned 3 in August. She is a master at holding up 3 fingers to display her age. She is an excellent talker, and we can now understand every word she says. She is so fun to listen to. She loves anything pink or purple, and anything remotely relating to a princess. She loves to look pretty, and as soon as she is dressed everyday, she searches for her daddy who then tells her that she is so pretty. 
• E turned 5 in November. I can't believe that I have a 5 year old child. Time has gone by too fast. He started doing Joy School in August, and is loving it. He has made some good friends, and it is so neat to watch as he learns things about the world around him and to hear the questions that he comes up with. He has lately been fascinated about family relationships, figuring out what aunts and uncles are, as well as cousins and grandmas. He has also figured out that he can't marry his sister or his cousins, to which he desparately responded "Then I don't know who I am going to marry!" I had to calm him down and assure him that he will find someone when the time is right.
• Jared has accepted a job offer in the Detroit area with General Motors. We will be moving there in May and are currently looking for a home there. He stays pretty busy with school, and will graduate in May, which we are all so excited for.
• I am enjoying staying at home with the kiddos, and teaching Joy School 1 week out of 6 with E's class. In December I joined my sister, JoDee in Maryland to help her drive a car that her mother-in-law had given them back west. We met in Maryland, and then drove to Palmyra, New York to spend a few days there with our parents. Then we continued on to Indiana where we joined Jared and the kids, and then drove to Colorado, then to Utah where we spent Christmas. It was quite the road trip, and I really enjoyed the alone time with my sister and parents.

Well, that's the abbreviated version of our current lives. I hope to be better at keeping this updated, but we shall see.

New Pictures

We had our family pictures taken, and I love them. Our photographer, Jessica Bateman, is in our ward, and I think she did a great job. You can see some more of our pictures here.