Oh, and...

We moved. I know, I was surprised, too.

Last November, Shane and I had the overwhelming feeling that we needed to lower our debt. See, this whole economy-in-the-crapper thing has been a long road for us. And I'm not blaming the economy or anybody else, but not knowing when real estate was going to bounce back had Shane unsure about work. Then it just so happened someone came along looking for a house. And when they heard we might be willing to sell--well, they wanted it. And this was all decided in a matter of days {and we consider ourselves extremely lucky, especially in this economy, because this is the second house we've been able to sell without even listing}. The best part was, these folks needed a home by December 1. Yep, we had two weeks to be out. And did I remind you that I was 8 1/2 months at this point. I really don't suggest this situation.

So, my parents were kind enough to put us up in their basement {which is not like a basement at all--we have 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, our own laundry room and kitchen--perfect}. We {and by that I mean mostly me} started packing immediately. And with lots of help from family and friends, we made it. I ended up being as swollen as a marshmallow girl from being on my feet so much, but I felt like it was still better than trying to do it after the baby came. Also, being done by December 1 gave me a couple of weeks to recover and rest before baby!

It was a long, frustrating journey to get the house that we wanted, but we finally got it. We bought a foreclosure just around the corner from our old house. We felt great about it because we could stay in the same school/ward, and the mortgage would be about half. The "new" home had been sitting empty for a couple of years, and there had been some vandalism, so there was alot of fixing up to do. We basically decided to just redo almost everything, and we are still coming out way ahead debt-wise. I was dumb and didn't take a whole bunch of "before" pictures. These were taken a while ago. The house is almost done {yep, it's May and we're still not in}, so "after" pictures will be coming soon. But here's a peek at what we got ourselves into.

The dining nook...my favorite part of the house {there will be a new light fixture}

Cole's bathroom {main floor bath}...as you can see, Shane ripped out everything

Fireplace and mantle are going to be redone

Kitchen...cabinets are staying, just being refinished to a darker color