We moved out... just in time!!!

My piano had been sitting just next to that window... and had we not moved, my an would have been smashed... lucky we weren't there when it happened!

FINALLY....House Pics!!!

Welcome... may all who enter as guests, leave as friends...

Going UP the stairs :)

Dining Room at the top of the stairs...

Kitchen from the Dining Room

Living Room From the Dining Room

View from Living Room Bookshelf to Dining Room/Stairway

View of Living Room from Piano...

View down the hall from the top of the stairs...

Bedroom of Metta and Em

Bedroom of Moe and Koke

Girls Bathroom

Laundry Room (directly across from girls bedrooms)

Master Bedroom

Master Bath - Double Vanity

Jetted Tub/Shower (#1)

Top of the stairs... going DOWN...

still going DOWN...

Left into the Family Room...

Little room under the stairs (aka Tornado Shelter/Recreational Storage)

Family Room from window (behind the couch)to Entertainment Center and Bathroom Door

Bathroom #3 Vanity...

Jetted Tub/Shower... The toilet is hidden back behind the wall by the tub...

Can't forget the large Game/Coat closet in the Family Room :)

Extra Large 2 car garage w/ insulated garage doors!!! Makes for a perfect place for Mike's Bike Work Station :)

We've Moved!!!

After almost 4 yrs. of house hunting, the search is over. We have finally found what we've been looking for!

We were picky in our search. We wanted some specific things. This house gives us those things, and even some of the wants (like a fireplace!!!) It also has a few things we wish were different, but its all good  :)

It has room for my piano, plenty of bathrooms, a great view, and fits our dining table! 

The story behind this house is one that will last for years to come! It is full of ups and downs, heartbreak, and hope.

We welcome visitors! Please come by and say Hi!!!

The Arnold's Adventures in Buying a House...

We spent about 4 LONG years looking for the right house for us. I kind of wish we would have taken a picture of every house we looked at so I could see just what we went through for what we got! lol

We put offers in on a couple of houses only to have the sellers back out or have issues :( VERY discouraging!!

We first saw this house LAST year on our Anniversary (March-2010). We tried to buy it then!! (we had NO idea of the situation that we were getting into until we got a lawyer involved due to lack of communication from the seller) The Owners were divorcing and had been court ordered to sell... or put it up for auction. It didn't sell so it went up for auction. Somebody bought it at auction, and needed to have the owner sign off saying he'd make up the "difference" to the bank... Meanwhile... the guy who bought it at auction decided to put it up for sale while he was waiting for the sign off... 

We saw it come up in our listing, and knew we needed to look at it. We saw it, walked through it, and loved it! It felt like home already... We put our offer in and bantered back and forth a bit, but got it worked out so we were in contract! YEAH US!!! We got very poor if any communication from the sellers agent. It was HORRIBLE! Our closing date of June 1st came and went without any explanations from anybody, just that we were still waiting on "the court"... Well, we figured since my mother-in-law was in town on business, we'd take her on a walk through of the house so we got it all arranged... and ready to walk through... Now comes the heart break... 

Our Realtor called us to say that the house was unavailable, (June-2010)and that it had been pulled off the market!?! Honestly we weren't surprised, because of all that we had dealt with... but it was still a blow. Apparently the owner never signed the paper saying he'd pay the difference, and he let the house go into Foreclosure. The guy who bought it at auction should NEVER have even put it up for sale because he NEVER owned it! So because it went to foreclosure, our offer was VOID, and the guy who "bought" it at auction didn't get it either...

So what were we to do???  I kind of lost heart at that point, and gave up on looking at most of the listings that came through our email. I knew that with the start of the new school year approaching timing just wasn't right at all... so I gave up.  I told the Lord, I was tired of looking and being heart broken. I knew that the house was where we were supposed to be, and we had felt prompted to buy it, but frustrated that it fell through. I told Him that I was going to quit looking, and that if He wanted me somewhere, He'd better hand it to me, because I wasn't playing the game anymore. I was emotionally spent trying to figure things out.

I'm glad Mike hadn't given up on the house like I had. Around Christmas time (2010) Mike felt like he needed set up the emails to have them go to him as well as just me. (I had quit looking at them in July but hadn't told him). One EARLY morning in late February (2011) Mike picked up his phone off the dresser and started looking through his email listings... He would skim past the listings that didn't have a picture...if its not important enough to include a picture its not important enough for us to look at... only, today, he actually looked over the info for the listing, and realized it was OUR house!!! THE HOUSE WE TRIED TO BUY!!! It was up for sale!!! He woke me up (it was about 4:30/5:00am)to tell me all about it. It was labeled as a HUD house. (minor fixer-upper) It was CHEAPER than what we had it on contract for the year before! We saw it on a Thursday or Friday, and arranged to go see it that Saturday. Mike and I went by ourselves... didn't tell the kids anything... We walked through it and still felt THIS WAS OUR HOME. 

Because it was a HUD home, it has a different process for purchase... you have 1 week to get a bid in for the property, and then they decide which offer is best and accept it. We offered exactly what they were asking, and said we'd pay all of the closing costs... instead of having them pay up to 3%. We were pretty sure that our offer would stand, but there is always that bit of doubt... especially with OUR experience :D

Our offer was accepted but it took them FOREVER to tell us, so now instead of 10 days we had 8 days to get the appraisal and inspection done... our life became STRESS city!! We got it all taken care of. In the process of putting our loan stuff together, we found out that HUD has a $100 down program! We took advantage of that! As is our luck, we had little issues come up one after another... nothing major just annoying mole hills. 

Finally our closing date was here... April 1st! we signed the papers, and payed the closing costs (which really felt like paying off a credit card more than buying a house). But in the end, it was so nice to finally be able to walk into our OWN house!!! We estimate that we will have it paid off in about 15 yrs!! That's exciting for us too :)

Its been challenging... one repair fixed, only to find something else needing work. For the whole month of April we found ourselves at Home Depot or Lowes EVERY day!  We are so happy with our Home though. It feels like the right place for us. 

Mike is close enough to bike back and forth to work. The girls are 1.5-2 miles from school. We're 3 minutes from church. 5 min. from the freeway. 20 minutes from the temple. We have so many ward members in our neighborhood that are within walking distance! I LOVE it. All my girls have made great friends... both in church and around the neighborhood. The schools are great, and I am Happy!

5th and 6th Grade DC Field Trip!!!

Marley and Kaleigh got to spend their Spring Break in Washington D.C.
They had a TON of fun site seeing and spending time with friends. I'm glad they got the chance to go...

Snow Days!!!

This was one LOOOOOONG Winter Break! I'm glad we had some snow for the girls to play in though!

Added New posts...

So I've added a couple new posts (I post them according to their actual dates), in my need to get somewhat "caught up" this year.
Scroll down a bit to see them!

Making Home-made Root Beer

look at the cool ride

I wonder what the driver of this car could possibly be doing, or getting at Home Depot? Any guesses? lol

12 Years... REALLY?? Where has the time gone?!

12 yrs and counting!!!

So this year Mike and I took a weekend vacation for our 12th anniversary. We went to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. We stayed in the Cascades section.
I loved the view!!!

We were gone from Friday night through Sunday morning. We were lucky enough to get a great deal for the 2 nights :)






Friday we went shopping over at Opry Mills Mall, we had dinner at Tony Roma's... I had Mahi Mahi, and Mike had steak... pretty good stuff!!!

Saturday, I got up and got my workout done, took a shower, and then went to the spa for some pampering! Mani-Pedi's are so much fun... and at the Relache Spa,quite a bit more $$ than I was originally planning on spending. Oh well :)

So you may ask, what was Mike doing while I was off being pampered??? Here's a look...



That night we had dinner at (birds-eye view)




This was our table...



For dinner that night Mike had the Mahi Mahi, and I had the steak... both were SO GOOD!!!


We are still looking for an excuse to go back and enjoy it!!!

Sunday morning, we were up early and walked around taking some pictures of the atrium. Here are some of my favorite ones...







We have had an exhilarating 12 years! It's just FLOWN by!!! I'm looking forward to many more years to come...

Happy Birthday Marley

Marley,
You are a beautiful Daughter of your Heavenly Father. He loves you so much. You are such a beautiful young woman, inside and out.

We hope you continue to follow the Lord, and keep his commandments.
Happy Birthday dear daughter! We Love you!!!

Happy Birthday Metta!!!

A letter to my daughter...

Metta, You are a beautiful girl inside and out. :)
Your zest for learning never ceases to amaze me. Your willingness to be helpful and obedient is such a blessing. You bring such a wonderful spirit into our family.
I love how you get excited about the simple things in life. I love how your "Ah-hah" moments light up your face.
I love how you're always ready to share.
But most of all...
I LOVE YOU!!!

We all love you girl!
Mom, Dad, Marley, Kaleigh, and Ema

Let's play a game of Catch-up!!!

I am SO far BEHIND on my blogging... March is almost over, and I haven't done any birthday posts... let alone our anniversary! I am going to do my best to do a catch up... it may take a while though...

(I will type it up as I would have, had I been current... since I'm using the post date and time as if I were posting ON TIME!)-- if you understood that... Kiss Your Brain!

Rachel's Spring Resolution...
I am a member of an online weight loss/diet community Sparkpeople.com I am on a few different teams. One of them is a team for LDS ladies... one is just a general team according to my start up date, one ties in with Biggest Loser (BLC).

I gained a fair amount of weight over the Christmas holiday... way more than I should have... I made a goal to work it off! I got my hands on a workout system called P90x. After reading through it, I'm so excited to start my adventure. My BLC is starting a new round... (it's 12th) I'm setting a rigorous goal of losing 10 lbs. over a 12 week period. The 12 week period will have a weekly weigh in (wednesdays), it starts Jan. 13th. I'm ashamed to admit this, but my starting weight is 174.8 (175) So I want to be down to 165 by the end of the 12 week challenge. I will be starting P90x Jan. 11th and working out 6 days a week following the routines for the Lean program. I'm way excited... ( I did have before pictures on my phone, but they aren't there anymore... I will take measurements, and pictures at the 6 week mark of the challenge and again at the end of the challenge.

Wish me luck!!!

If you want to read or follow my progress click HERE daily for my exercise blog and to see how I'm doing...

Christmas Day 2009

Santa Made it to our house!!!

The girls were awake at 5:00 am, but were good to keep themselves contained in the room until about 6 o'clock. by 6:30 the girls were going back and forth from the kitchen to their room and just peeking down to the tree. We told them they could go down and LOOK but NO touching anything...

Well, that lasted all of about 2 min. (I'm being generous with the 2 min. time) We heard a couple of the girls saying... oooh! feel this one! it's a ____!!! Unfortunately for them we heard EVERYTHING!!! So, even though we were getting out of bed and on our way to tell them it was ok to get ready, we told them they had to go back to bed for 20 min.

They all made it back to the room, and when all is quiet we could hear Ema pipe up saying... "Thanks a lot Kaleigh, you ruined christmas!!" It was all Mike and I could do to not bust a gut laughing!!! It is quite funny to hear a 3 yr old think that Christmas is ruined! ;)

So 20 min. later we were all up, and eager for the presents...

Santa left a piano full of activity books and stories. He placed all of our stockings around the piano.

We made the traditional call to Grandma and Grandpa Arnold and let them join in on our present opening.

We had left all the presents piled up in little piles... Family, Girls, and Individuals.

We let the girls open the presents they got for each other first...
Each girl had fun and did a great job of buying for each of her sisters. Presents for each other were things like a Rubix Cube, Barbie type dolls, bop it, Magna Doodle, Paperoni, Moon Sand, Jewelry Beads, Princess Soccer ball, Games and so on and so forth... enough to keep them busy for a while :)
Here are a few we captured with the camera...







Then it was time for the stuff from Mommy and Daddy :)
(Santa does our stockings and display stuff)

We had left it in piles... one for each of the girls...

Here is a quick pic of each of the girls with their loot!












Metta made mommy and daddy each an ornament...
an applesauce/cinnamon/gingerbread man, and a cute blue ornament with some very creative Snowmen... :)

Daddy got a gift card to the local Bike shop...
Mommy got some piano music...

Then, Daddy noticed a small present left under the tree... It said it was for Me! I wasn't expecting anything because I got my piano (a huge chunk o' budget) As I read the note that came with it, I turned into the biggest boob... I had a hard time finishing it because I was crying!
Here's what the note said...

Rachel,
I know that you got the baby you have been wanting and that you said you understood and knew that that was your Christmas gift this year, but I felt otherwise, and since I know that you have been an exceptionally good wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend, I got you another gift that you have been wanting. Only thing is, that I couldn't fit it here under the tree with all the other gifts. So... you need to go to the potting shed where I left it.

We had a great Christmas!
Aunt Debbie sent the girls a gift card for Target, and they got the movie InkHeart and each got a little dollar toy too!

Uncle Matt and Aunt Michele gave us a gift card for a family adventure! The girls decided they wanted to use it on the Chatanooga Aquarium or Science Center (either way it is a small vacation)

Uncle Joel and Aunt Linda gave each of the girls a nice warm fleece blanket

Grandma and Grandpa Reece gave us all pajamas and a little stocking with a gift.

Grandma and Grandpa Arnold gave us all books: Fabelhaven, Mice of Magic, Max Lucado's Your Are Mine, and If I Only Had a Green Nose, I Love You This Much, How High is the Sky?, and Another Witness; a book of religious piano music and LOVELY pictures! And soft pillows and pillowcases so we could have "tweet" dreams!

It was a GREAT Christmas!

2009 has truely been a great year of blessings for our family!