Easter and stuff

Above are some pictures of our Easter. Aren't the kids cute! We gave them some chocolate they got in the eggs from church to get them to hold still for the pictures. And you can see the mess and the chubby cheeks in some of the photos.

My sister and my mom came up and visited me on for Easter. We had a great time with them. We enjoyed a Easter dinner and Penelope and Cherrella colored some Easter eggs and Cherrella hid them for Penelope to find. (This all happened during Austyn's nap time.) This was Penelope's first time getting the idea of "Easter bunny" introduced by her Aunt. The other Easter egg hunts were purely just grabbing plastic eggs with chocolate inside. While my sister explained Penelope just pretended it was a game of hide and seek and proceeded to start counting...1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Oh Cherrella isn't ready yet. She ended up counting with Grandmama up to 50 before it was time. It was hilarious to watch. I wish you guys were there.

An update on our house hunt: The previous house I show you we ended up not going for. Well we went for it but for a variety of reasons pulled out. Partly because of the price and the layout, but mostly because of God's leading. We went and looked at some houses with the Realtor and found some really nice houses. None of them were the "right" one. Not yet anyway. But the Realtor knows what we want and as June comes closer ( when I'm off the new hire probationary period) we should be able to see how things advance. The most important thing is that both Russ and I have a peace about this process that we didn't have before. I thank God for His leading.

Below is a picture of Penelope practicing her name the other day. I am so proud of her.

This might be the one

Ok you guys know how this goes. Opinion wanted! Tell me what you think. Here's the pictures. The house has been sitting for about 6 months. So that gives us so availability in wiggling room. Plus as you will see there isn't any flooring done. We get to pick our flooring still. And the sinks aren't in and stuff like that.


one of the side yards. There is about equal size on both. And a tree on each side. One side we can decide to pave it and make it RV parking.

the front of the house. It's an off-white color with a dark brown accent. I think it adorable. There was actually 2 houses to choose from this size and I liked these colors better.

the stairs

this is one bedroom (2nd bedroom) probably Penelope's



This is the area in the kids room that would have the tub/ shower and the toilet would go where that disk is.

it's not tile in the bathroom. It's linoleum. But it shaped like title and I don't have to worry about scrubbing the grout.

Penelope smiling. She likes it too. But she says she wants us to buy a pink house. I don't think that is going to happen.

This is the 2nd bathroom. They still have to put in the sink and counter top. It will just be one sink though.

another bedroom. Notice it's just cement floors right now. So we get to pick our carpet.

another bedroom. One of these would be the guest bedroom and one would be Austyn's.

A little dusty but in the hall there are some cabinets.

a cubby area in the laundry room. We will probably put a laundry basket.

the washer and dry. It is upstairs.

hole for the toilet. LOL.

light fixture for the bathroom.

master bathroom will have double sinks.

the master bathroom tub and shower. The shower still needs the glass around it.

walk in closet.

master bedroom.




down stairs powder room. It comes with a pedestal sink

2 car garage



stairs again.

living room

living room. No fireplace, instead we just have a whole for our tv

from the kitchen looking into the dinning room into the living room
kitchen

pictures of the backyard. It's around a 6500-6800 sq foot lot. But because it's 2 stories it has a decent size backyard.








ok from the last house it's in clovis schools! It's closer to things. It still is in a developing area, but as good as we can do for our price range. It's a good starter home. We are going to try to get them to include grass in the back for us.

Ok this is the thing about price. The housing developer is offering us a better interest rate then we could possibly get from an used home. That is a significant saving. Plus the energy efficiency of a new home vs even a home that is 6 years old is significant. Heaven forbid we get a home that is 20 years old. We would have a high electric bill. But at this house they usually get 50-100 a month electric bill. So maybe it is worth going a little over what I want in cost if it is going to save us money other ways right. Especially when you are talking about interest, right? And electric bills can be $400 or more in a home that isn't energy efficient.

the issues
* is still in a developing area
* living room is normal size. But it's not large.
* 3rd and 4th bedroom are a little on the small size, but nothing we can't work with

Opinion wanted...

side yard in the back. We could just put grass here. Maybe a hot tub? Or use it for extra RV parking? ( a big plus in a lot of houses here)

the back yard. It needs grass.

the ceiling fan in the living room.


the light fixtures in the kitchen and dinning room

garage with electric opener

#3 bedroom (probably Penelope's)

Light fixtures in the main bathroom

main bathroom

#2 bedroom (probably Austyn's)


Pantry

Laundry room
folding counter in the laundry room

master bedroom with a door to the backyard

master bedroom


walk in closet
master bathroom

master bathroom


master bathroom

this is a little nook in the entry way when you walk in the door
the hall when you walk in the door

the front walk way

the front of the house

the front of the house

this is the color granite


the great room
from behind the island looking to the great room

the kitchen

We have been looking at some houses from time to time. We stumbled upon this housing development in North West Fresno (Central Unified Schools). It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath. 1800 square foot house on a 7500 square foot corner lot. The pictures are taken on my phone and are in a little bit of a jumbled area. It's priced at $249,000. Brand new house the person who had it built pulled out. So it has never been lived in. They said they could defiantly pay closing costs and possibly negotiate cost of the house. They use a lot of energy efficiency in the building of the house so it is

The issues!
It's not a 4 bedroom
It's on the other side of town (about a 15-25 minutes from most friends/ church...a big issue to people not used to LA traffic)
It's a developing, up in coming area.
It has good schools but not as good as Clovis Unified

So anyways, opinions wanted! yay or nay?