The Official We Own a Home Post!

Well, here I sit waiting for Sr to get off of work so we can go down to the title company and sign away the next 30 yrs of our money! LOL...  That's right! We bought a house! For some of you, this is totally new information and that's all on me. I really didn't want to announce to the world we were building and then have something happen and it all fall through....so here it is! Now you know! While sitting and pondering the idea of packing for the 2nd time in less than a year; I realized we never updated family with the FINISHED house pictures! Obviously, once things are in the home and decor has been added we will post again although Yurchik says he doesn't want to bring stuff to the new house because there won't be as much room to run; hard life of a 3 year old! Anyway, here's the final pictures before the move in!

 Playing on our front porch Front door

 The finished powder room

 Stove and Microwave

 Sink and dishwasher being modeled by 2yo

 Close up of stove and micro

 automatic garage door opener... Yuri Sr is very excited about this!

 Sideways view of laundry room

 Ceiling fan

 Back of the house

 Finished stair rake

 Master bath

 Looking down the stairs

 Already love playing here!

 Water filter/purifier. We also got an awesome filter/air purifier for the a/c unit to have hospital grade air in our home! It will be wonderful for Luca and perhaps allow the cat allergic family members to visit us without issues.

Well, there she is! We will send out new address info shortly! Thanks for all your support and prayers along this journey! We do appreciate all of you! We love and miss those of you who aren't Texans with us!

Water babies

The first two summers of the twins' lives weren't conducive for a lot of water play...The first year they were WAY too little and Luca was attached to machines and had medication that prevented him from being allowed in the sun etc, etc... Last summer while we went to splash pads and the like we only visited 1 actual pool (thanks Aunt Kristy!)... the twins loved it but they weren't quite old enough for to enjoy the full experience LOL.. Since moving to Texas we have found that practically every park, community common area, etc has a splash pad or pool with wading area. This past week we finally tried the actual pool area after playing repeatedly in splash pads. The twins have been weary of the water coming from overhead. Sometimes, that water is coming fast and can be a little harsh on the body. Anyway, we tried Teta and Tio's community pool last week and the kids loved it! Teta's pool is great because it has a splash pad, a wading pool with a small slide and a regular pool (with a giant slide for people that can swim without help- sorry boys!). The kids are able to enjoy all aspects and a lifeguard is on duty to help moms of 3 3 and under if need be! Daddy went with us and the boys loved having daddy work on teaching them to kick their legs and swim. Since daddy has always loved the water, he enjoyed this as well!

Then on Father's Day we went to Jonathan's parent's house and played in their pool all afternoon. Here the boys could have a waterfall splash them, jump from the edge and lounge in floaties.  The may have wore us out more than themselves (typical!). They also enjoyed having their cousin, Jackson floating around with them and he enjoyed it too! I can see many many hours of pool fun in our future with those boys!

So, 2 pools in 4 days wasn't enough...we had to up it! 3 pools in 6 days!!! Yesterday, I tested myself and my sanity and took the boys to a friends' 1st birthday pool party! We got all dressed in our swim gear and arm floaties and off we went! Our friend, Emma, also enjoyed playing with us! Her momma was busy taking photos of the birthday boy so she hung out with us. All 4 kids thoroughly enjoyed taking turns (most of the time) jumping into my arms. I was exhausted by the end of the party! But we all survived!! Anže is quite the fish... He figured out how to keep his mouth closed and push himself up from jumping in (he was the daredevil of the group! Constantly jumping off before I was ready to catch him!!!) as well as "swimming" over to me if he didn't jump far enough.

Our car conversations now involve how to walk at the pool, how to jump far and forward and how to stay near a grown up when near water to be sure we are safe.

Alright, now that I've told my story... here's what you've all been waiting for; the pictures! Please note the higher quality photos were by our friend Sarah (mom of Emma seen in some photos).

 Anze with daddy

 Anze eating birthday cupcakes

nom nom nom

Anze

 Yes, I'm wearing a white t-shirt- I got too much sun with all the pool trips and my whiteness was becoming pinkness...

 He was in a mood (apparently chips solved it!)

 Anze

 Jumping with Emma

 Luca (yes, he found a pacifier and won't give it up!)

 Yuri and Luca on the slide

 Anze

 Luca

June...

Well, here we are. It's 2 days past our closing date. The house isn't finished (although a construction supervisor called me to do a walk thru since the house was done...). There's a few things that need to be repaired and a few things that need to be added before the house is officially done. While we wait for that we also wait for an issue with our loan to be approved and escrow can't close until the house and the issue are done....so we sit in limbo. Thankfully, we still have a roof over our head. We haven't given any sort of notice  to our rental company yet (smart to wait until those keys are in hand and papers are signed!).

So, since we are in a limbo situation why not add some excitement to our lives! For the summer and because I couldn't take it anymore, I went and got my hair cut! It was the first time it's been cut since Nina last cut in September 2012 before we moved! EEEKKK!!! I got a groupon for a nice salon in Katy and used some mother's day funds I gratefully received to buy a cut and style! After the initial appt was rescheduled because the stylist was out sick I finally got to go in. I brought a picture of my idea for how I wanted my hair and she began cutting away.... and then she paused, backed up and vomited! Thankfully, she missed me... another stylist finished my cut. It's not quite what I had wanted but given the circumstances, I am just grateful I left clean! yuck!

So since my haircut didn't go the way I wanted... the hubby took me to the car dealership where we exchanged, yes exchanged, our tiny crossover for an SUV...it's a little older with a few more miles but we have room for costco shopping and when family comes to visit we can drive 1 car instead of 2 (the hhr had 5 seats... so with guests we had to travel in 2 cars!!!)! It's taking me a little while to get used to parking the GMC Yukon but it drives nice and the kids love it!

My husband is spoiling me for sure! LOL... The best part was we went in with the knowledge we gained from taking Financial Peace University with Dave Ramsey and walked out paying $0.01 for the bigger car! We told the sales guy we didn't want nor could we afford a car payment. We wanted an even trade or we'd go elsewhere... after trying to get us into a car with $5,000 financed and realizing we weren't going to budge he magically found the Yukon! Trust me, I said a prayer over the car and feel that this was a smart move for us (although my gas budget is different now... guess we will go back to the stay at home and eat Ramen plan! LOL).

The Texas summer weather has arrived and it came with a visit from my mom! She was asked to attend a work conference in Houston and was thrilled, as were we! We picked her up at the beginning of the week and spent the day with her and then dropped her at the hotel where she stayed and did all her work functions. Friday morning we picked her up from the hotel and had a blast seeing the house, playing at Teta's splash pad, grocery shopping, playing superheroes, candy land and just enjoying the short but sweet time we have together. She has a late flight tonight so we will have a great morning and afternoon before heading back to the airport. Hopefully, she'll visit again soon and we'll be moved and settled!

Here's a few pictures from this week!

 New do

 Watching a spider eat a grasshopper! The spider is actually between the window glass and the screen. We assume it went through a hole in the screen or the grasshopper did. Needless to say, I'm not opening the window any time soon!!!

 2 supers, 1 batman, 1 grandma and candy land... priceless

 Superman caught sleeping on the job! LOL