WE ARE HOME!!

That blog entry title means so many things for us.  We have been living in our newly built house for almost two months, and our little Liam just made a month old yesterday.  Our landscaping was finally finished up this week, and our fence will be installed within the next two weeks.  Liam only gave us about three weeks to get settled before he made his big (surprising) entrance, so we are still getting settled and decorating.  Too bad there was no money left in the budget to hire an interior designer - sooooo overwhelming!!  We hope to have a housewarming party as soon as the fence is installed.

So, I wanted to start by updating the house adventure, and then I will write a separate blog post on Liam's birth story from my perspective.  Our wonderful birth photographer is working on our story and pictures from her side, and I cannot wait to see it!

My last post left off roughly a week before the house was move-in ready.  That was an exciting and stressful few days!  We were so close, but each day was any one's guess on when we would be able to move in.  We were at the mercy of the last vendors and our final inspector for our Certificate of Occupancy.  Plus, the weather was not going to allow us to get our landscaping done anytime soon.  In fact, as of today, we still have not gone to closing on our mortgage.  Hopefully, next week that will be finished since we're returning our final loan docs today.  We kept pushing the appraisal back because of the landscaping.  Lesson learned on that, too.  The appraiser pushed us to allow him to come do it before the landscaping was done and we were still living out of boxes.  He told us he had to be in the area for other appraisals and wouldn't count off on us for being cluttered or lacking the landscaping.  Well, the final report came back lower than we anticipated (although, still good).  We both truly feel like allowing the guy to push us when we weren't ready to showcase the house really hurt us.  Hindsight is 20/20...

So, the day before Valentine's Day, we received our Certificate of Occupancy.  Between work and availability of friend's to help us move since I was 8/9 months pregnant, we decided to wait a couple of days to move in.  But, our Valentine's Day was the best ever!!  We got to celebrate our house - best gift ever! :)

Soooo excited to see the finished product!!

Entryway

My KITCHEN! :)

View of living area from kitchen

View of living area from "dining room"/play room

We have added a TV in the top left corner, and a mini fridge in the open space.

Of course, we couldn't move in without some bumps.  Our blinds wouldn't arrive until that Tuesday, so we had to make due.  We also did not have Ethan's new bedroom set picked out yet (his old set was being handed down to Liam), so he was sleeping on a blow-up mattress on our bedroom floor.  Even if we had his set, we didn't have blinds for his room yet.  Michael took off that week to get as much unpacked as he could, and to be available for vendors.  The blinds arrived Tuesday, and low and behold, did not fit.  Turns out two of the sets were mixed up, so we had to wait a few more days for blinds.  During this time, we also discovered that we had a "lemon" dishwasher.  After dealing with a repair guy and then a waiting game of approvals between the distributor and manufacturer, we finally received a new (working) dishwasher.  By the time we received the new dishwasher, we'd been in the house for almost three weeks.  Oh, and one of our couches had a built-in recliner that did not work, so we also had to wait for that to be fixed.  Turns out that it was a REALLY good idea that Michael took that week off to be available for these items and to unpack us as much as possible. 

Once we picked out Ethan's bedroom set and it was delivered, we were able to focus on Liam's room.  I started making lists of what we still needed and items left to do.  Landscaping was a super pain.  Take that back... Mother Nature was a super pain.  We stayed in contact with the landscaping company, but every time we had bad weather come through (which seemed like every.single.day), EVERYONE got pushed back.  And, honestly, we were low on the priority list.  We were already living in our house, and others were waiting to go to closing based on landscaping alone.  The timeline ended up being a month after we moved in before we met with the landscaper to discuss what we wanted, another two weeks to get 90% of the landscaping & sod done, and then another week or so before they finished up.  SO glad that is over with now!  And, we welcome all the rain Mother Nature can give us to save $$ on our water bill! ;)  Then, we met with a couple of fence companies for quotes.  We made a decision and will have that installed as soon as they are able to get to us (estimated within two weeks).

Finished! :)

Once we were down to the weekend of our last two weeks before Liam was due, I decided to get to serious business on the last few remaining items.  I had just decided on my temporary replacement at work and planned to train her the following week.  I was not too worried on time since I ended up being induced with Ethan, so I figured everything was moving perfectly.  Well, as it turns out, little man had other plans.... Birth story coming soon... :)

Liam Edward Hathcox - born March 9, 2014 at 1:10am