I Won!

We had a ward "Pie-oneer" Day party last night, and there was a pie cook-off. I made an apple pie for the contest, and I won on both presentation and taste! This is the best pie I think I have ever made. The top took me quite a bit of time, but I enjoyed doing it.

Folding Arms and Standing

Patrick has learned how to fold his arms! He usually waits until the end of the prayer, but he can now fold his arms, and it is definitely the cutest thing he has learned. Then we clap for him, and he gets all happy and claps too.

Also, Patrick can stand by himself, when he isn't thinking about it. When he is distracted, he can stand by himself for about 5 seconds. I think it will still be several weeks until he walks, though, because crawling is so much faster!

Lastly, we have found a really nice HUD house that we are going to put a bid on this weekend. Everyone please pray with us and wish us luck!

Patrick's First Birthday!

Wow! Time flies, right? Yesterday was Patrick's first birthday, and I think I can say it was a success. We took him to the zoo in the morning, and I think he really had a good time. Patrick is very rarely fussy while we are at the zoo. The strategy is to take him in the morning before he is cranky and while the animals are active, push him quickly in the stroller between exhibits, and then let him out while you look at the animals. He is getting old enough now that he really sees the animals and waves and gabbers to them. He enjoyed Monkey Island, the elephants, and the polar bear the best.

On the way home we got hamburgers, so Patrick got to munch on fries (who doesn't love that for their birthday?). Miraculously, he stayed awake until we got home, probably because Grandma and Grandpa were sitting in the back and playing with him. We must have worn him out because he took a 3 hour nap until I finally woke him up. He was NOT interested in opening his presents. Once they were open, he loved them, but Patrick couldn't be bothered with the opening. We got him a small ball, a puzzle, some little books, a big boy toothbrush, a little dump truck for the pool, and a basketball hoop bath toy. He got an outfit and a firetruck from Grandma and Grandpa Haight.

In our family, you get whatever you want to eat for your birthday dinner. Of course, Patrick can't tell me what he wants, but being the mind-reading mommy that I am, I knew that he loves goulash. Goulash in our family is hamburger, elbow macaroni, diced tomatoes, and lots of cheese. When I fix this, I think Patrick eats as much as I do. He was silent during dinner because he was concentrating on the yummy food. I actually think he was still full when we had cake about and hour and a half later.

I made simple chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.


First he takes a little bite . . .

Then he picks up the whole thing for a bigger bite . . .


Play around a little . . .


Needs a drink of milk to wash it down . . .


Mom starts to eat her cupcake and he want to know what she is doing . . .


Here, try the frosting . . .

Ugh, I'm stuffed!

See Saw

I can't believe this see saw we are on. I got a call this morning from our realtor saying that the house is available again because the buyer who put a bid in before us backed out. We had already made plans to move into Reed's parents' condo for a couple of months while we kept looking. We had booked a truck for tomorrow and everything. Now we aren't sure what to do. Probably we will continue trying to get this house, but I don't know how much more of this see-sawing I can take!

Our Dreams are Dashed

You can ignore my last couple of posts. I knew I shouldn't have said anything about this house until we got a definite answer. We are not going to get this house because the lender we were working with would not return our phone calls. All we had to do was get two numbers from her so I could complete an application and turn it in to the non-profit organization. We knew she was out of town this weekend, which is fine, but she said she would be back in the office on Tuesday. I call about 15 times, and she never called me back, so someone else came in and put a full price offer on the house, and we lost it. Our realtor told us it was supposed to be reserved for us, but the organization pretty much ignored that and took someone else's offer.

Needless to say, we are pretty annoyed today at that lender. She has been very uncooperative. We tried for two weeks to make an appointment with her, and she was very slow about communicating with us. Reed is going to file a complaint today because we are so frustrated. We really had our hopes up. I just want to go and find an apartment this weekend, but our realtor, who did work very hard for us, wants to show us a couple more properties, so I can't decided what to do. I want to move and not worry about all of this hassle, but it would be nice to buy a house.

I'm sorry if this post if horribly dramatic. We are just feeling very frustrated today. But tomorrow will be a better day, because it is Patrick's birthday! And we will have nothing but fun tomorrow.

Ward Shopping

Not really. We just wanted to check out the ward that we would be in if we manage to get the house we want. It is the Capitol Hill ward in downtown Denver, and I think we had a good experience today. It was definitely a different experience for me at least, because it is an urban ward, which means a) we had to navigate a lot of one-way streets b) the building has four stories and a parking structure and c) the ward will be much different (diverse) then our BYU-Idaho ward (in a good way). Everyone was friendly, but we were a little worried when 4 minutes before church was supposed to start and there was only 12 of us in the chapel. We did manage to fill up half of the chapel, but I guess about half the ward was out of town. I sure hope so, because I only counted 7 primary-aged kids. That's smaller than the class I teach!

The hardest part of the morning was Patrick. He is wonderfully friendly and not shy at all, but he is getting to that age of mobility and independence which is not helpful for church. I'm not used to having him the whole time because Reed takes him during Primary, and I am super grateful for what he must go through each week. Patrick is turning in to a handful! I love him dearly, but he WILL NOT nap at church, so he gets really whining and when he is the only baby around, it sounds really loud!

Anyway, we enjoyed visiting our hopefully-soon-to-be-new ward, and we are getting excited about moving on!

Our Rainy 4th

This year's 4th of July was . . . mediocre, but ended up pretty good. We really missed our friends, because the fourth is a really big day for us to be with our friends and cook good food, play games, and just relax. Well, our plans this year were really wishy-washy (mostly our fault), so we were lazy most of the day, had a movie fest, and skipped out on a barbecue. It was rainy most of the day, which didn't add to our desire to go do anything. Finally, we put Patrick to bed and decided to go find some fireworks so we could end our fourth on a better note.

We went to Highlands Ranch (another suburb of Denver about 15 minutes away) because we heard they were doing fireworks in the Town Center there. We weren't sure what to expect, and we were pleasantly surprised. We got there a little early, so we roamed around a bookstore there and found a great bargain children's book that looked really cute. They had live music, games, and carnival-type stuff, so we will definitely bring Patrick next year when he cares a little more. We found a nice place to sit on the grass and the fireworks show was much bigger and better than we were expecting.

Also, in this area it is really easy to find fireworks. There were probably 20 big fireworks shows around the area, and then lots of fireworks that people set off from their houses, so you could see fireworks just driving around. In Idaho, you pretty much had to go cram around the river if you wanted to see fireworks on the 4th, so we were really pleased that we have found somewhere to go that is really family-friendly, not crowded, but still a good show. So our fourth ended on a good note.

Our House, Hopefully

I have mentioned that we were looking into buying a house. I haven't mentioned anything yet, because it kept going back and forth, but I guess I can give an update now that we have started the process.

When we decided to look for houses (and had no idea what we were doing), right away Reed's sister Amy told us about these houses that she knew about and wanted us to come to the open house. It was a Sunday afternoon and Patrick was asleep, so we just jumped in the car and went to check it out. There are 10 brand new houses that were built by an organization that helps low-income families. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and an unfinished basement. With the basement, it is about 2000 square feet, which is much more than we thought we could ever afford, but this program pays for the down payment and closing costs. Of course, we fell in love with this cute little house, so we started talking to a lender right away. We know someone who is in our ward, so we asked him to help us figure out what we qualify for.

The last couple of weeks have been stressful (for me at least) because I was communicating between our realtor, our friend who is mortgage broker, and a lender that our realtor was working with. It seemed like every day it would go back and forth. Yes, we can make this work; No, I don't think so; Yes, I have another idea; You qualify for this but not that, etc. There were a couple of times I was very frutrated and just wanted to go get an apartment. But my loving husband calmed be down, called the realtor, got all the numbers figured out, and we decided to go forward with the process.

And boy, it is a process. First, we had to submit an application with the city to get our income verified to make sure we qualify for the low-income housing. (You should have seeen me trying to tackle the fax machine on that one!) We should hear about that in the next week or so. Next, we have to submit an application with the foundation for the down payment assistance. Also, we are applying for a second $25,000 mortgage from them in order to meet the asking price of $139,000. This is a tricky process because we have to prove that we are poor enough to get the house but not too poor that we can still afford to buy the house. I'm sure we are making this more complicated than if we just waited until we could "really" afford a house, but we just think this is a great opportunity for us.

So to make a long story short, I don't know if we are getting a house. The chances are good, or that is what we are told, but who knows, really. We are hopeful, but not too hopeful. I guess right now it is just a waiting game, which you all know if you have ever bought a house. I am hoping we can move in by the end of the summer. I think that would be the best birthday present ever!

Discovering Denver

Reed and I are really excited about living in a big metropolitan area with lots of things to do and explore. Of course, we are low on money right now, so we are starting with the free/cheap things and making our way up. Last weekend we got this magazine, 5280, that is all about Denver, and it lists all of the top things, like dining, shopping, activities, etc. We thought this would be a good resource for us to have.

Saturday we went to the temple first thing in the morning since it is closing for a couple of weeks. Then we came home, made a picnic lunch, and took Patrick to Belleview park, which is about half way between our house and downtown Denver. This park is really nice. It has a large pavillion, water park, playground equipment, and a creek (drainage canal) for everyone to play in. There is also a small train that you can ride on and a petting farm both for only $1! We didn't think Patrick would be interested in the train yet, so we just took him to the petting farm. He was semi-interested in the animals, which is funny, because he favorite book is a petting farm book! He looked at the animals and kinda touched them. The pig scared him a little because it stood up all of a sudden and took him off guard. They also had goats, sheep, a tiny horse, baby cow, ducks, chickens, and a turkey.

After lunch, we drove downtown to try and find a place called the Book Mall. It is on Broadway, which is a really neat street because it has all the little boutiques and thrift stores and that sort of thing that allows you to just walk around and explore. This Book Mall is a collaboration of several private sellers who get together to sell pretty much any book you want (used, mostly). We didn't buy anything because we were mostly just looking, and Patrick was trying to tear the place a part (definetly not kid-friendly). We enjoyed our day out, and look forward to many more weekends where we set off to explore the area we live in.

Patrick's New Skills

I don't have any new pictures right now, but I thought I would update everyone on Patrick's new skills. He has developed quite a few in the last month or so.

• Patrick crawls everywhere now. He uses his knees, and he can now reach top speed.
  
• He can pull up to almost everything. It isn't terribly graceful yet, but it works.
• He is NOT afraid of falling. If he drops something, he just plops down on his bum.
• He can climb up the stairs, especially if he is motivated because he hears someone up there. Someone still needs to stand behind him though. Not interested in going down yet.
• Patrick can crawl under the bar stools to get something, but he doesn't know how to get out yet.
• He blows the BEST raspberries. He can go forever and cover his shirt with drool in no time.
• He loves the diaper wipe container. He pushes the tab, pulls a wipe out, and tries to eat it. He discovers that is tastes yucky, throws it away, and tries another one, etc.
  
• He can open Grandma's cupboards, although he isn't too bad about pulling stuff out yet. He mostly like to open and close.
• Patrick is so proficient at splashing in the bathtub that he can get water all the way to the door. Bath time in now a two-person job so someone can hold he legs while the other washes. While splashing, Patrick laughs like splashing is the funniest thing ever invented.
• He can also climb in to the tub. On accident. With his clothes on.
• He says "da-da," but mommy is "bob bob," or anything else he can say.
• Patrick can stand very well in his crib and it is very difficult to go downstairs and lay him down again when he is so cute laughing and smiling at you.
• He is very charming.