House Hunting

As you may know, we've been in the market for a house since moving down to NC, so we're done some serious house hunting. And I mean SERIOUS house hunting - I'm pretty sure we've seen at least 60 houses in Southwest Durham. Crazy. And the girls came along for almost all of our hunting. They are real troopers (as is our wonderfully tolerant real estate agent!).

I never did take any pictures of us on the hunt, but have enough little tidbits about house hunting that I thought I'd share. Hayden has learned A LOT about houses in our search. She now knows what popcorn ceilings are and delights in announcing "daddy there are popcorn ceilings!" though I think she's confused about their desirability. (Jason does NOT want popcorn ceilings, but I think Hayden wants them. They are popcorn after all!)

She has learned the word "trashed" and can use it correctly. We have been in a few foreclosure houses that are in not-so-great shape. I still don't quite understand why that means that the carpet is stained and destroyed and the place is such a mess but usually the foreclosure houses were trashed. We must have commented on this out loud, Hayden picked it up so that in one houses, as we were leaving and passing by a dining room that was actually in pretty good shape, she announced, "Mommy this room isn't trashed!" No Hayden, it was not. :)

Hayden has also taken a strong interest in our lovely realtor, always asking if she will be the one showing us houses (occasionally her husband stepped in), following her around and asking questions. Luckily our realtor was very patient and tolerant and dutifully answered her questions and comments. In one house that was wooing us with chocolate chip cookies, I saw Hayden heading upstairs with one in hand. I asked her what she was doing, since she already had one, and she said, "I'm taking it to Kim, Mommy!" We also had a conversation one evening about what Kim would have for dinner. (I pointed out that I did not think Kim would be having smoothies for dinner, which was something we were considering that evening.)

Hayden definitely enjoyed looking at all the different houses. She was eager to open every single door, all by herself. If we were told there was a cat, she looked all over for it. She wanted to see if there was a pink bedroom available. And was even willing to try strange potties, even as she was just starting to use the "big potty" by herself.

I think both Hayden and Eliza particularly enjoyed the houses without any furniture in them because then they could run around freely. They took advantage of that and ran around and around in circles, laughing all the while. Eliza delighted in climbing whatever stairs she could find and toddling as fast as she could go while Hayden ran around. Both were amazingly tolerant of getting in and out of the car over and over again. We didn't see too many in any one house hunting session, but there was still a lot of transferring. There were only a couple times that Hayden had to be carried out of the house.

Probably the best house hunting story is Eliza's. We pulled up to a house - that ended up being on my short list - and we stopped along the curb to wait for our realtor who was running late. I'd brought sandwiches for the kids, because it was dinner time. I'm feeding pieces to Eliza while she sits in her car seat when suddenly she THROWS UP all over herself, and the carseat. I pack my diaper bag to be prepared for most things, but wasn't really prepared for throw up. I got her out of the car, stood her in the grass while gingerly peeling off her clothes. We used all the napkins we could scavenge in the car to wipe up the throw up. And of course the house was not currently lived in, so there were no paper towels to be found. I did have a change of clothes, and we were able to leave the windows open so it worked out okay. That was the start of the stomach bug that came thru our house a couple weeks ago. And then, when we went back to the house the next week, Eliza spit up AGAIN in the living room. Needless to say, we did not pick that house.

So no pictures from house hunting, but here are a few random ones from our current housing situation. The girls LOVE the child-size rocking chair in the living room and can often be found in it. Eliza climbs in, sometimes stands up, and sometimes gets a leg stuck when she tries to get out.

The other big excitement of being at my parents' is Dooley dog who is the most patient, wonderful yellow lab you ever met. Hayden often takes naps with her. Eliza lights up when she sees her "doo-daw, doo-daw" while signing "dog". And Hayden loves to play chase with her around the house. While Hayden tells me we can't take Dooley with us to our new house, she has already requested her to come visit. Here's a picture of Hayden and Dooley waiting outside for Daddy and Poppop to come home.

Oh, and here's a picture of what WILL be our new house, if everything goes according to plan. Come visit!