Open Housing Again

Posted on June 25, 2012 by vanessawyler

Yesterday was another dreaming day. While Drew and my dad were golfing for a missions charity event for LifeChurch, my mom and I went to two open houses – as well as explored some neighborhoods. This might be dangerous, but I can easily picture Drew and I in almost any house I see – not sure if that’s good or bad. And then I get attached to homes and then I have to “break up” with a house when someone buys it 🙁

Here is the first house we visited, which is in Clover Ridge in Sussex. We like this location because it’s right off of 164, so it’s quick to get to all the shopping in Pewaukee. This home was a bit out of our budget, but we figured we’d still check it out. While it’s an amazing home – this one isn’t for us. Mainly because it doesn’t have those two separate living spaces. Also, because it was priced above our budget – and it was priced to sell with a lot of showings, meaning it’s going to get scooped up asap.

The second home we toured had to be fast, as we got to the showing late – but the showing agent was kind enough to let us take a quick peek. It’s located out in Lisbon – on the border of Menomonee Falls and Sussex. It isn’t in our preferred neighborhood, but the lot with tons of trees and the larger rooms make up for it. The main thing on Drew’s wish list is trees – he doesn’t like the look of a house that is brand new and has no landscaping. It’s a cape cod, but has two stories and has a great layout, wood floors, white trim, and a bonus sun room.

We’d love to buy it (after looking at it again), but we’ve got to get some other stuff handled first such as our first time home buying seminar, finishing up our downpayment and getting pre-approved. Fingers crossed some great homes stay on the market or they keep popping up for us.

Credit Checking

Posted on June 20, 2012 by vanessawyler

One major key to getting a mortgage is having good credit. While I remember Dave Ramsey saying in Financial Peace that it was not important to have a good credit score, it is however for buying a house – as it is a factor with your interest rate and how much moolah they’ll loan you. So since we’d like to buy in the next few months – I read that you should check your credit about 60 days before just incase there is something on there mistakenly, as it can take 60 days to fix it.

Well, last night I checked both of our credit reports – and we are good to go!

Cheaper Ice Cream – Saving $

Posted on June 15, 2012 by vanessawyler

The word on the street is that we have started to save up to buy a house. And that is true. Saving for a down payment is daunting at the moment, and we’re trying our best to see where we can save a bit of moolah. We keep a close eye on our budget thanks to Dave Ramsey and Mint, but we know there are other ways we can adjust our lifestyle for a time period to save even more. We’re hoping to share with you some ideas and tips we discover along the way.

I (Vanessa) absolutely love Culver’s custard – it is by far the best ice cream out there. My favorite is to get 1 scoop of chocolate custard in a dish and then mini m&ms sprinkled on top. However, eating ice cream from a fast food joint ain’t cheap – no sir. That little treat can easily cost $3 a trip + then Drew usually gets something, which then equals $6. And while a little splurge here and there is nice – I’ve discovered a cheaper route. While it’s not as yummy as Culver’s, I do sleep better at night.

Every other week, I go to Aldis to stock up on the necessities, PS if you haven’t tried Aldis, you are throwing your money away. Each time I go I pick up a small carton of their Chocolate Ice Cream ($2.62). Then about every other week or two, I visit our Walmart food center to pick up the items that Aldis doesn’t have. There I pick up a bag of Mini m&ms ($3.00 ish). So for a total of $5.62 I get about 10 small bowls of my favorite ice cream, instead of $3 each time. Plus one bag of the mini m&ms last more than with just one gallon. I’d say you have to buy more m&ms every 3 or so gallons. Do the math, and you can see that it is cheaper to opt for the DIY ice cream 🙂

Opening House-ing

Posted on June 13, 2012 by vanessawyler

This past weekend, we went to our first open house ever! We aren’t to the point yet where we are pre-approved for a loan, so we didn’t want to get involved with a Realtor quite yet. We still want to explore some houses to get a feel for exactly what we want. We are leaning towards a split-level where it has two large living spaces. That way when Drew has his buddies over – they can go to one and I’m not trapped to the kitchen or bedroom. We also like the idea of when my large family comes over – we can send the kids to one space, and the adults can hang out in another.

I found a house I liked, and saw it had an open house on Sunday, so I convinced Drew to go. We pulled up and I being nervous, but excited, to start this process tried to get him to leave. But I’m glad we went in and got to see it. It’s a VERY nice house and I think it would work for us perfectly! The few things we would have to consider first are: other houses to explore, the location (it’s a bit further into Pewaukee), and Drew had an issue with the fridge opening up into the island. Here are a few photos from the listing:

Obviously we have other things to do before we can begin the real home buying process. First, we are attending a First Time Homebuyers Seminar in July. Then we’ll save up a little more for a downpayment. Then we’ll get pre-approved, and then we’ll find a realtor and get cracking. Besides this one, we have a few other houses “favorited” on the Shorewest App – that I watch like a hawk, hoping they continue to stay Active, and no ActiveWO or Pending! Fingers crossed!

Eddy’s Model Pose

Image

Gardening it Up – 2012

Posted on June 9, 2012 by vanessawyler

And we’re back – summer that is, and so is my garden! Most of my plants did not survive the winter – due to the lack of insulation I gave them, so I started fresh this year, giving all my pots a complete dumping. This year I planted: dahlias, canna lilies, lilies, gladiolus, caladium, begonias, and some annuals I picked up at Steins. Right now the annuals are bringing pops of color to our two decks, while we are waiting for the bulbs to grow more (they have just started emerging from the soil). I can’t wait until next summer where we’ll actually have a house to plant things into the actual ground, not a million pots! Also, we’re so thankful for where I work Holland Bulb Farms, that there is a never ending supply of free bulbs at the end of each season!

Green Bell Peppers

Sedum - one of last year's survivors

Peony - Another survivor of last year

Trusty Ikea Aloe Plant - growing strong since 2010

And while were talking flowers, I went over to my parents a bit ago to take photos of what was blooming: allium, iris, and double tulips. Last fall I helped my mom plant over 300 bulbs – I’m glad I got to go over and take some shots of them. They’ll hopefully make it onto our ecommerce sites soon!

Siberian Iris

Allium

Double Fringed Tulips

Bearded Iris

Reese – Sleeping

Posted on June 6, 2012 by vanessawyler

Before our vacation, I took some posed photos of Reese in different outfits and accessories. This time I just took a few of her being herself – doing what she does best, sleep 🙂

And lastly, we had to get this shot for the two grandmas…

2 Year Anniversary

Posted on June 5, 2012 by vanessawyler

2 Years we’ve been married – and it has been a blast. We are so thankful we have each other to do life with, make each other laugh, and grow old together.

Cruisin’ 2012

Posted on June 2, 2012 by vanessawyler

We just got back late last night from our first cruise ever, and our summer getaway for the year. We had a blast exploring Key West, Cozumel, and the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico via a cruise ship. It was our first cruise ever, so we wanted to keep it pretty short incase one of us wasn’t a fan of the rocking boat or got motion sickness – which we didn’t, luckily! Though I think my body isn’t used to hard ground yet, I still feel sometimes like I’m rocking back and forth.

Here is a breakdown of our trip:

Monday – flew to Ft Lauderdale, drove to Miami, boarded the ship and familiarize ourselves with all that was offered.
Tuesday – Dock at Key West at 8am, went out on a smaller boat where we witnessed dolphins, kayaked around an island to see endangered birds, and snorkeled amongst fish, sting ray and sharks – set sail at 2pm.
Wednesday – Docked at Cozumel at 2pm, took a power “twister” boat that did 360 turns that then took us out to a beach called Isla Pasion. There we relaxed reading.
Thursday – Day at Sea where we sat by the pool and got way too sunburned.
Friday – Leave boat at 9am, sit at the airport until 3:20 only to have our plane have a mechanical failure. Finally got on another flight at 6, flew to Atlanta and got home around 11:30 – and AirTran lost our bags, but were delivered this afternoon, how nice of them!

We are so happy to be home, but we had an amazing time away!

Reese // newborn posed photos

Posted on May 26, 2012 by vanessawyler

Poor little baby, not even a week old and all of her lady friends (her mom, aunts, and grandma) were playing dress up with the baby for some cute photos. We even had a couple incidents with pooping while being naked – but none the less, she sure is cute! In a few weeks we’ll try a few of the more adventurous poses we had in mind that she was just too little to do.

I’ve learned it’s pretty tricky photographing newborns… you just gotta keep snapping photos and hoping one looks good between all the mistakes. There’s a blooper I threw in just because she still is a cutie even when she’s not liking the photo taking process.

Later on she was sleeping and looking like she was having some rough dreams, I laughed that she was probably dreaming this scene of us trying to get all these cute photos again.