The New House: We have sheetrock!

Sheetrock is complete! We are so close to the fun stuff so it's really starting to get exciting! It actually really looks like a house now. I can't wait to see everything take shape from here. This past week, my amazing sister Andrea came to Dallas to be at my Design Center meeting. It was crazy to me to think that in 2 short hours, I was going to make big, permanent decisions. I couldn't imagine not having her there and it meant the world to me that she thought of it as important. She had just gotten back to Austin after a week of working in Taos just to turn around 12 hours later and road trip to Dallas! Thank you, sweet Andrea! You'll never know just how much that meant to Beau and me!!

It was especially important because she has a great eye for colors/textures/spaces that I just don't. Also because she really acted as my advocate: asking questions and challenging the builder on things that I probably wouldn't have. The outcome: I'm really excited about the exterior paint and stone coordinating with the brick and I really feel like I got my dream kitchen! I'm anxious to see it take shape and I know it won't be everyone's style but I'm getting what I want and that makes me happy, happy, happy. And Beau is excited too. We got the hardwoods and the kitchen sink he wanted. The stone on the fireplace will now extend to the ceiling, the master closet will  have a walkway to the utility room like he wanted and the media room is taking shape. That's all this man can care about ;)

Here is the sheetrock! 

Looking into the living room from the kitchen

Watching the boys go down the stairs

Play area/Game room

Looking out from the master bedroom

Kitchen

Standing at back of house looking to the front door

Overall, we are very relieved at how light and bright it is. While we are looking forward to not having west/east sun directly in our windows, it means we were giving up a lot of sunlight - at least we thought. We still won't know until we're all settled in but walking the house with sheetrock in place gave me hope. Just having the dark insulation in was worrying me. 

More to come as we progress!

The Big Move, Part 2: Buying a New House!

While I love looking at homes (like really, really love it), this wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. I mentioned the real estate boom in my last post. Well, it was "booming" right before our eyes and in the middle of our decision-making process. We chose to focus our efforts on new builds. And builders were increasing their prices on homes while we were looking at them. It was so frustrating to return to a builder the following day only to find out that corporate increased the price $10k from the day before. Not that we couldn't get it back down with all their gamey promotions and allowances but it was still annoying and making everything seem so urgent, which isn't where we wanted to be with such a major decision. We decided not to even attempt the rat race of pre-owned homes (is that what they're called?). Those have been flying off the market before people can even get a showing. Many of my friends who are buying have been in multiple offer situations on the 1st day of a house being on the market only to be beat out by a cash offer letting the sellers stay in the house for as long as they need. Who can compete with that?! So, we focused on new builds....

Our friends, Lori and Alan Anderson, live in a new neighborhood tucked away near the Trails and they have been trying to recruit us over there since they moved in a couple of years ago and long before we were ready. They kept reminding us that the builder was going to begin work on the creek lots near them. Fast forward to present day and the builder has started 2 out of the 6 houses on that street and we put a contract down on one of those!

Here's the scoop on why we decided to go with it:

• No backyard neighbors - backs to a tree line with a wrought-iron fence so it will seem a bit more spacious. Frisco tends to have small lots with 2nd floors being able to see into each other's backyards. Not a terrible thing but we are spoiled where we are and wanted to attempt to recreate it somehow.
• Price, of course - We fell in love with plenty of homes that were at the top of the budget but this one just felt right! We didn't want to be house poor even though those big, beautiful homes made it tempting. :) It also has a reasonable HOA; some of these neighborhoods are crazy with what they are charging!
• Quiet street - not too many cars go through there and you also can't hear any street traffic. It's so peaceful and we look forward to that! It really is a tucked away neighborhood!
• Front entry garage - We didn't want an alley. Beau's truck is too big to mess with that.
• Design Center - We get to pick out our finishes and have changed several things. Other builders' "quick move-ins" were inventory homes that we couldn't change.
• Neighborhood - Along with the Andersons, it seems like a good, friendly crowd. We weren't finding that with some of the other new neighborhoods. 

Only downside is that we really wish it had a 3-car garage like the other homes in the neighborhood :-( But as my Austinite sister Andrea pointed out: Suburbia Problems! Ha! I get it, some people would love to just have 1 car space or even 2 so I get it. But it sure would be nice with our huge cars!

I hope to post pictures as the house progresses. I really do love homes and this whole process so I want to remember all of this. Especially since Beau will probably never move again! He hate hate hates moving. So here are some pics before sheet rock...

Grayson is excited (to play in the dirt!). 

Living room (wish there were 3 windows across but whatev)

Kitchen/Breakfast area

Standing in the living room looking through to the master

Showing Grayson his room (which wasn't the entire truth as we aren't sure which one will be his yet)

Back of the house (we are trying to get used to the teeny tiny patio!)

Backs to a tree line/walking trail

So there you have it - move-in is set for mid-November. Pray for no more delays b/c we will be hotel-bound for the next 8 weeks and would love to be settled in for the Holidays!

The Big Move, Part 1: Selling our House!

I have come to terms with the fact that my blog may never know how wonderful the 4th of July was with our extended family (I've thought about cutting/pasting my cousin Elaine's recap but what a plagiarizing poser I'd be!), or my ultra fab Birthday girls' trip to Hotel Zaza or even what we did for Beau's Birthday. But I just can't go through a big house move and not capture it all here! So, Part 1: Selling our current home!

Beau likes to joke with people that he came home one week and the house was on the market! He's a funny guy. ;) While we did originally agree to hold off for a year and save our pennies, we ultimately decided to expedite the process. The sale of our neighbor's house gave us an idea of what we could get for our house plus the real estate boom here in Texas and particularly Frisco is proving that, even if we saved and saved, the increase in prices by next year would pretty much equal out any savings we could acquire by then. Make sense?

We put 110% of our efforts into getting this house show-worthy. This is our first time as sellers and BOY, is it so much easier just to be a first-time buyer! No sale on the back end to coordinate! I'm really proud of all of Beau's work. You just can't prepare for everything that goes into selling a house when you've never done it before! We also brought in a staging company. I've never had an opinion on them and you can't quantify their worth really but let's put it this way. If we could get an extra thousand bucks out of it and they only cost a couple hundred, then we win. And trust me, we REALLY think we got a whole lot more out of them! Highly recommend stagers!

We moved out of the house for the week that we went on the market just to keep it mess-fress and our lives stress-free from having to rush out at any given moment. The house went on the market on a Thursday morning (July 25th), we had 8 showings that first day, between 5-8 the next day and had 2 offers come in by Friday afternoon. We picked the best one Friday night, had a back-up offer come in Tuesday and both have been with us to this point. Our buyers are so low-maintenance. They didn't ask for any of our things (not even the fridge or w/d), they asked us to fix 4 things as a result of the 24 page inspection (fixes that only cost us $125 total) and they came to the table with the balance of offer price when the appraisal came back a touch under. And Y'ALL, let me tell you how stressed we were that this house wouldn't appraise! As our realtor says, it definitely set a record for this neighborhood! The house is definitely worth it, don't get me wrong. But if the appraiser had solely looked at square feet comps for the neighborhood (which they can be known for doing) and not looked at all of the upgrades and HUGE lot, then we would have been in a big pickle since we priced this house higher than any comp showed and then the offers came in over that! So, we were stressing. Thankfully, it all worked out!

We close mid-September and know that it's not over til the ink is dry. But we are staying optimistic and have a new house to look forward to! More to come on that but I must say, we are SO sad to leave this house. We came home from our Honeymoon to this house, brought home both boys from the hospital here. We have made so many memories, hosted neighborhood parties in our front yard, have loved hanging out with our neighbors and will miss this incredible backyard. We will also REALLY miss being down the street from my parents. We will now be 20 minutes away - eek! But compared to 30 seconds, that is a lot! Sometimes I wonder if we're making the right move. But I'm keeping the faith that whatever is meant to be will happen for us!

Here is our house. These were taken before the stagers came in but this is how I want to remember it. :) The stagers made it look like a model home! And we had the surround sound playing in the living/master bedroom/bathroom/patio and I think it really made a difference!

You will be seeing this kitchen again in the Reynolds' future ;)

The realtor took much better pictures of the backyard. It's 1/3 of an acre so there were several pics just of it!

Now, for Part 2 of this crazy process....the new house!

Walker is 6 months old!

I'm slacking in the blogging department! We have been up to so much that just isn't getting captured here. But what I CAN do is provide his latest stats since we had a pediatrician appt last week!

Weight: 20lbs, 6oz (91st %)
Length: 28.25in (97th %)
Head: 17.25in (63rd %) - While Walker has a much smaller head at this age than Grayson did, I know this is wrong. The 20 y.o. tech hardly had the tape measure around his head correctly. Oh well, I have never cared much for this measurement anyway! :)
Size 4 diapers
Size 3 shoe (I assume anyway, he doesn't wear them. It's HOT outside!)
Size 6-9 and 6-12 mo clothes

I was so late doing the 5 month update last month that I don't know if there is too much more to report. STILL the smiliest baby, STILL so chill and go with the flow. Especially with our crazy errands lately (have I mentioned that we sold our house?!), STILL rolling all over, putting everything in his mouth and lights up the moment anyone makes eye contact with him! He loves to engage! Oh, and almost sitting up on his own. I really need for this to happen before we move out of this house so that I can pack the random things like the boppy, bumbo, etc. and not have to take this extra gear with us :) 

The rest in pictures! We love this boy, so!

Grayson climbed up and wanted pictures of the 2 of them :) I love that he held W's foot. ..

But he becomes such a touch-me-not when Walker grabs ahold of him! I can't blame him, Walker is pretty grabby right now and doesn't know when to let go :) My hair knows this well!

Loving on Daddy

Buzzzzz....

My favorite picture in all the world! TWO smiles and eye contact at the same time.

Always making eye contact with someone!

Always trying to engage with Brother.

I love his sleeping ways!

Grayson, Our Little Swimmer!

Grayson has been going to swim lessons for 1 week now and oh man, can we tell a complete and total difference! We chose to take him to Ms. Pat, a local celebrity of sorts. If being an awesome swim instructor who has taught tons of Frisco kids to swim could be a celebrity, that is. I mean, 9 out of 10 people I asked about this subject responded with something like, You HAVE to use Ms. Pat! She even has her own hashtag, y'all. It was important to me that we found someone like her ever since we had a bit of a scare when Grayson fell into a friend's pool and no on saw him for many seconds. Fortunately, by the grace of God, he fell in on his back and remained floating but it was still scary. How fast something like that can happen with 8 adults around and still, no one saw.

So that brings us to last week. The first few days were pretty rough - lots of tears, lots of fear - but he always did exactly what Ms. Pat asked of him. She has a way with kids, through the Love and Logic approach, of establishing her authority, gaining their respect but never raising her voice and using a calm, repetitive tone. By Day 4, she had him on the diving board. I was shocked! I have video of his very first time up there! No tears and he jumped the first time she asked him to! So proud of our boy for working through his fears!

Look at my sweet boy swimming!

Beau went with us Friday and was just so blown away with the quick progress. Grayson was a brave boy for his Daddy and didn't cry or whine once. I hope he keeps that up for me this week. :) We are just so proud of him!

Swimming with his buddy Braxton from play group. These lessons were just the 2 of them and it helped that Braxton had a week prior to this so he could show Grayson how to stay calm.

Leaning on his noodle ;)