Ninja Bean

Ninja Bean tries to get in the washer and dryer.  I'm not sure why he loves them so much, but if you leave the door open he runs in.  He also ninjas into the computer room when you're not looking and steals the mouse (every time the door is open), and climbs on the couch and takes the remote from our "hiding spot" behind the cushions. He has taken everything out from under the bathroom sink upstairs and scattered it, and reaches spots someone that height shouldn't be able to reach. Ninja Bean is very sneaky.

Sunrise

This weekend was nuts!

Friday we went to Kailee's wedding reception, which was fun, and it was good to see her and her family again.  It has been awhile! I have a lot of pics to go through, but they are mostly of people I don't know so here is the happy couple :) They are so cute! We are so happy for Kailee!

On Saturday we had our first home rugby game of the season.  It was the first league game for us as a division II team...aka the real deal that matters and we can go to regionals in California and what-not.  It was HOT out.  We played Boise and dominated 79-0.  If you were watching the game you wouldn't think that would be the score because they were pretty good, but we just came out with a lot more in the end. We were all almost passing out by the end and sucking air (matches are 80 minutes) the grass was moist and the air was hot so it just seemed humid too. It was definitely a good workout though. I got home and took some ibuprofen and iced my knee because for some reason I agreed to go on a hike the next day.

Sunday my parents picked us up at 8am and we headed to Mt. Rainier. They got us a hiking backpack for Sawyer at the Packwood flea market last weekend and it was time to try it out.  We went to Sunrise.  I had been there when I was younger but we went to a watch tower and it was foggy and we couldn't see much so I didnt remember much.  This was the prettiest hike I have ever done!  My photos don't do it justice because my camera sucks and I can't show the whole view.  I still do not regret leaving the heavy camera behind though.  It was hot and more weight was not necessary.  We got to a part where there was still snow on the trail.  My dad and I went across to test and found it Ok.  There were 2 other patches that were the same way- the footprints were already set so you just had to walk in them.  I thought it was fine but a lot of other people were freaking out because apparently 4 people had fallen this season (it is a huge fall) but seeing a guy with a baby go made them look like wimps.  We encouraged a lot of people to go, and like I said, it was easy if you go in the footprints.  We took a big hill to an awesome view of the mountain, and even saw an avalanche happen! We ate a snack and headed back down.  We were above the tree line and saw signs that said this was real-life tundra...the same as in the arctic.  We saw a marmot up there, but someone else saw a bear that day, and my parents saw mountain goats last time.  As we headed down it was the prettiest meadows with flowers I had seen.  Just one after another! It was a big change from the tundra.  There was even a hidden lake.  It was a tiring 6 miles, but I am glad we did it.  It was a lot of fun and you cannot beat those views.

Oh, before I forget, he doesn't talk much, but we got Sawyer to say "hot" today.  He repeated it after me like 3 times after I said "its hot". It was cute because he emphasizes the "T" so much. "Ho-T"  We also were positive he said "lion daddy" when he was playing with the stuffed lion and he was bringing it to Andy.

You can see the trail/ridge behind us to the right that we went to view the mountain close-up

He was a monster in the car

Wednesday

Wednesdays= early days!

Today we had to go to Edgewood to drop off some more car stuff at the shop we gave the car to. Turns out they are giving it to a single mom that cannot afford a car so we are pretty pleased with the outcome.  We decided to pop over to Federal Way to eat, and found Black Bear Diner. Beany had crazy hair because he just woke up.

They had cool menus there that were like newspapers on the outside. You didn't have to give them back.  Beany got one too.

His cute little scribbles

I got the biggest biscuit ever with my chicken fried steak meal, and Andy got the most delicious pancakes (sweet cream pancakes that tasted like cake almost).

We then went to look at our house, but they were working on it so I didn't wan to get out. They were putting up the walls.

We got home and tried to tackle the garage again.  Since it is mostly Andy stuff left to sort through, I was in charge of Beany.

He escaped across the street as usual and Andy tried to lure him back with a stuffed gorilla.

Then he ran past me down to the cul-de-sac

Then he did his new trick- spinning in circles forever.

Then he finally went back up the driveway to pick up rocks and scratch our car.

It was time for a bath and bed.  That kid is tough to look after at this age because he won't listen, but we don't have anything to stick him in to keep him under control that he wouldn't try to get out of.  He also learned to scream really loud in the past few days when he is angry- Uh Oh!

Hopefully we can get the garage sorted through in the next month haha!

Garage

On Saturday I had a rugby game in Bellingham.  We met our friend Erika by Western (WWU) and had breakfast at a trendy place that fit what I thought Bellingham stood for.  They had a goofy sense of humor and the utensils and stuff were not matching.  I was not impressed lol.  I was shocked to only see 3 pairs of Birkenstocks while I was there.  I was dumb and forgot my cleats so we had to buy new ones at Bellis Fair which ended up in blisters.  I also managed to get head-butted (i know, right?) and rip my toenail, woo! It was fun though. We didn't win. And their field was all brown grass (ouch). That was Saturday in a nutshell

On Sunday we started to tackle our garage.  We have kind of just thrown all our extra stuff in there as well as a million empty boxes I've collected for when we move.

 
We found a bunch of old stuff of Andy's that we had to pack up quick from when we moved up here in the first place.  I found this

We didn't finish it, but got a lot done.    Here is Sawyer with all the empty boxes.

I hope to get some extra time this week to finish up the garage and then I can post a picture :)

Little Piggy

This little piggy loves corn :)

He also loves salmon, blueberries, and alfredo... hence the empty plate. We were proud he figured out how to eat the corn cob- look how much he ate!

Just like mama

He is getting so big!  It is funny to see that he is a little person now.  He doesn't talk, but when he says his baby words, he has the same tone that a normal sentence would have.  He is also learning tantrums :(  If you tell him no, or something happens that he didn't want, he will hit himself in the face with his hands or whatever he is holding, or hit his head into the floor, table, or wall.  The funniest thing I've seen him do is he grabbed my hand, opened it up, and put something in it that he wanted me to have.  He is getting pretty good at sharing (at least with us) and he even once took some cantaloupe out of his mouth to put in my mouth! He doesn't really say any words correctly besides mama, dada, and bah-bah (grandma and/or grandpa) but he knows some animal sounds (mainly dog, owl, and cow).  He is starting to sit still longer (like if he likes a cartoon), but still it is pretty difficult.  He can walk really fast and climb up and back off the couch. He dances really cute by flapping his arms around.  When he sleeps, he cuddles his dog or mocha bear and it is the cutest thing.  We kind of stopped giving him pacifiers awhile ago, but he randomly finds them laying around and will stick them in his mouth for a little bit...but he doesn't need them.  This has been kind of random, but there is the Sawyer update for our relatives far away :)

Home Sweet Home

Well, we did it. :)  Today our offer was accepted on a house!  I was a little nervous because we asked for money off the asking price (it is a new house), closing costs, blinds (the good kind), and a fridge.  Luckily he accepted our first offer! We are set to close by Oct. 28th.

The house shell. It is obviously nowhere near done.

It is kind of a funny story. And a bit of a long one, sorry.  An old friend of mine recently moved back up here and started in real estate.  He posted on facebook a lot about how easy it is to buy a house etc. and finally I just posted on his status "if you can get rid of the down payment, I may be interested." as kind of a joke.  His response was "yeah, I can do that."

Our plan (as you may have read previously) was to move to apartments for a little while.  BUT, we spoke to the lender (Zender the lender, which is an awesome guy, recommend) and qualified, but found out we once again, were on the cut-off for the down payment thing (even though this one was way higher than the last).  This one is a USDA loan, and you qualify by living in a rural area and making less than the cut off of money.  HE, however, didn't send us off but called his underwriter and found that they would accept us because we have a child which can take off a few thousand, and I can show pay stubs to prove I don't work a full 40 hour week.  The last lady just said "sorry." With this good news, we went to go look at houses.

We headed out to Graham (like 5-10 minutes down the road).  We found the neighborhood but there weren't any examples of the floor plan to look at.  We moved to another neighborhood to find the plans and we saw Andy's old buddy Lee walk out of the house next door.  He and his wife Megan said they liked the neighborhood and we realized that the "sample" houses were about 10k cheaper than the other neighborhood.  Our agent checked and those were USDA approved too!

We thought we had decided on the house and went back to show my dad. He pointed out a few flaws (backyard was on a slope, weird family room, no space for dining table) so we went back later that night and realized that we loved the one across the street and changed our minds.  We put the offer in on Friday, and we found out today that it was accepted!

The house has a "great room" which is EXACTLY what I was looking for (kitchen, dining, and living room are the same room) and has 5 bedrooms (4 upstairs and 1 downstairs) and 3 full bathrooms.  Although the full bath downstairs is weird and just more to clean but oh well. It also has a pantry and a separate little room for the washer/dryer. It is also lacking in the window department which I see as a bonus because they let cold air in and I want to keep the power bill down. The back yard is tiny but it is a corner so it has a big (for the neighborhood) side yard to put a playset, trampoline, bbq, etc. and it is in a cul-de-sac so no traffic and the kids can play in the street (lots of kids there, friends for Sawyer).  It doesn't have a park but is right across the main street from Graham Elementary and there are sidewalks to get there. We are big walkers so no big deal.

We hope to be in this house for a long time.  We have enough space for a few more kids (4+ if we ever felt the need for that many), and we are ok with the school boundaries (Graham Elem, Frontier Jr. High, and Graham Kapowsin High School).

Anyway, I took some phone pics of the house in its current situation- wood beams.  I hope to get more as it grows.  I have to call to make the appointment for picking the colors tomorrow.

Sorry these are kind of out of order, and won't make much sense to most people besides ourselves since they just look like wood beams.

This is at the top of the stairs, to the left will be Sawyer's room but you can't really see anything

Our bedroom's closet

Standing in the living room looking at the room downstairs and storage under the stairs

Stairs and to the left you see the bedroom downstairs (aka play room for now and office in a few years)

Andy's in our room

The living room. That box is a gas fireplace and the hole above is where the TV goes. The downstairs room behind it

I am standing where Andy was 2 pics above, with our closet on the left and bathroom directly behind him

The soon to be kitchen (island to the left where the pipes are) and Andy in the pantry

The Harry Potter closet, Andy throwing Sawyer in the hole to the under-house storage place

That beam is the bedroom door beam, and we see sawyers room in back and the laundry room