Mars before and after pics

Here are the picture of our house when we had it on the market. I guess you could call them our "before and after" pictures

Kitchen before- that yellow was AWFUL! It was supposed to be a mustardy yellow and didn't turn out that way

Here you can see what the counters and floor in the kitchen used to be. Jensen has changed some too!

After new counters, tile, paint, dining room set

I don't have a picture of the original hall bath but it had brown flower wallpaper and hanging globe lights on a brass chain ICK! We remodeled and hung new wallpaper but it wasn't very neutral for selling so we had to strip it and texture/paint the walls.

Office
Jensen's room

Master bedroom

Living room with new furniture thanks to Aunt Janet and Uncle Terry

Master bath during construction. Notice the bare walls- we textured/painted and we replaced the counter top too

Shower after

What a week!

We finally got the house on the market last Thurs Sept 17th and on Sun the 20th we got a call that we had our first showing. Since we had to be out of the house we drove down south to look at the area we are thinking of living. There have been a lot of new neighborhoods built down there since we moved to Edmond 7yrs ago. We had another showing on Monday evening and again on Tuesday then we had 3 showings on Wed! Having to be gone every evening kind of made our routine out of whack and we had to eat out every night but we were excited that there was so much interest. We got a call on Thursday that someone was interested in putting in an offer but just needed to talk to their lender. We tried not to get our hopes up too much but were anxious to hear back.

Since we had to be out of the house for showings, we took Jensen to the OK State Fair. I was excited to go since we love going every year. We ate yummy food, rode the space needle thing, and petted some animals. Jensen rode a little mini dragon rollercoaster and his face throughout the ride was so funny I almost peed my pants. He loved it though and was really proud when he won a blue stuffed puppy throwing darts at balloons.

Jensen eating pizza on a stick!

Riding the rollercoaster like a big kid

Meanwhile, since we have worked so hard the last year and baby will be here soon, Jeff and I decided to take a weekend getaway. We didn't have any plans, just to drive somewhere and relax. We had free hotel points so we didn't even make reservations. We arranged to take Jensen to stay with my mom for the weekend and we left around noon on Friday. Not long after we dropped him off, we got a call from Rodd our realtor and he said the people who looked at our house were signing a contract. That is the news we were waiting to hear! They offered us a lower price at first but we countered and they accepted. We are getting our asking price we wanted, we just have to pay their closing costs which we built into our asking price anyway so we are very pleased! They wanted to close on Oct. 28th but since I am due to have the baby around Oct 31st, we offered to close Nov 3rd. Either way, it will be crazy doing both at once but we are ready.

That just meant we had to find a house we like very quickly. We drove around on southside looking at some more neighborhoods then headed north toward Tulsa on historic Route 66. We had a great time seeing the scenery and chatting before stopping in Bristow, OK at Mazzios for dinner. Jeff was so distracted by the house stuff he wanted to go back home but I told him I was excited to get away and we will not have a chance to get away for a loooong time. We checked into our jacuzzi suite hotel then went to the brand new Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. We walked around and played the slots some then went back to our hotel. It was nice sleeping in and taking our time to get ready. We took back roads on the way home and went way south then game back east through Norman to South OKC to look at houses again.

Jeff playing slots at the Hard Rock- I wanted a pic of us together and this is what I got

FINALLY ON THE MARKET!!!!!!!!!!!

It's a proud and exciting day at the Jones house!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have had lots blood, sweat and tears the last year and 7 months getting the house ready to sell and the sign finally went in the yard today! There was a lot of times when I thought we'd never be done but somehow we did it. I told everyone right away that we were moving south so of course after this long a lot of people have wondered if it would actually happen! The house looks amazing and has come a looooog way from where it was. Of course it wouldn't have been possible without my mom and Jeff's parents helping with Jensen and putting in a lot of hard work too.
The city of Edmond won't let us put a sign behind the fence along Kelly but we can attach it to the fence so Jeff screwed it on

Jensen peeking over the new sign. After the yard is mowed tomorrow I'm going to get a picture of the 3 of us in front of it.

We still have a few things to do this weekend to get it ready for showings like bleaching the fence, mowing and of course keeping it clean. Our realtor thinks that it will sell quickly so keep your fingers crossed that it will and we that we find our perfect new house quickly too!!

Late 32wk belly pic

I didn't have a chance to do a 32wk belly pic so I did one at 33wks. Went to the Dr. this week and baby is doing great but is measuring about 2wks ahead so she wants me to get an ultrasound in to check on his size. That's fine with me, I don't mind seeing him again :) I can tell he's grown though because I feel huge all of a sudden and my maternity clothes are not fitting as well. I feel good though otherwise, just tired at the end of the day. Of course all the hard work I've been doing doesn't help

33wks

Jamie and I- she's about 21wks and has decided to have the baby's gender be a surprise. I'm trying to talk her out of that though because I want to know!

Mommy look, I have a big belly like you!

First day of Preschool

I had to make a decision about where Jensen would go to preschool this year. You have to sign up in the spring for pretty much any school including Mother's Day Out programs. Since I did not know if we would be moving soon or not I signed Jensen up at his MDO in Edmond and also enrolled him at Antioch Christian Preschool on the south side. It's a highly reputible school and the girls went there for two years so Jeff's mom got in line at 6am one day in March to get him in. By the end of summer we are still working on the house and hopefully close to being done so we decided to start him at Antioch so he wouldn't lose his spot.

He started Sept 10th and will go Tues and Thurs from 9:30am-2:30pm. I will have to drive him the 30min to school and back twice a week until we move so I'm highly motivated to get our house on the market! The drive isn't bad but the stinky part is having to stay down there while he is at school. I'm sure I will find ways to make use of my time though

All ready for school with his new Lightning McQueen lunch bag

He went right to his classroom and started playing no problem. I think it helped that he has gone to MDO the last two years

He had a great first day and really likes his teachers. He said he made a new friend named Brooke.

Monster Garage

I'm behind on blogging since we have been so busy lately.

One of the last big projects we have to tackle in this house is the garage. It needed to be painted because the walls and ceiling were disgustingly dirty but the whole thing is filled with man stuff. I decided Labor Day weekend would be the perfect time to do it since we would have 3 days to work on it. Jeff was out of town all that week but when he got back I convinced him to do it so we asked his parents to help. One problem though was the car is in the garage and wasn't running so he wanted to get it fixed first. Well, I'm tired of waiting on the stupid car so I told him we were painting even if we had to push the car out! He said he would get it running Sat and we would paint on Sun so that was the plan. He worked on it about half a day on Sat then the first OU football game came on at 6pm so of course all work had to stop for that which I was NOT happy about. So, the next day was Sun and he started working on the car again so I came out and started putting stuff out in the front yard. After a while, his parents got there and helped get everything out. It was hard backbreaking work and really hot and humid. Luckily, my mom came up and got Jensen for the night so we didn't have to worry about him. We had everything out including all the shelves off the wall but Jeff was having trouble getting the car running. Finally though, he got it and pulled it out last. His dad brought over a paint sprayer so it would go faster but about halfway though, the nozzle broke so his mom and I went to Lowe's and Home Depot to try to get a new one with no luck. Home Depot was closing the last trip there so I just went ahead and bought a whole new sprayer since it was already 9pm and we needed to get it done. The new sprayer was a piece of junk but it finished the job. Then came the task of getting everything out of the yard. We would have liked to sort the stuff, organize and purge before putting it back but since it was already late and dark we had to just put it back in. Jeff was really irritated about that but we had no choice. So we got everything back in and cleaned up at about midnight. What a long day! It looks soooo much better though!

I forgot to take a before picture before we started but here is one side-the other side was just as bad!
Everything out and the men spraying. If you look at the ceiling you can see what the whole garage used to look like

Jensen went next door to play with Jaci while I pulled stuff out. When he came back and saw all the stuff out there he said HOLY MOLY!

Jeff and his dad were covered head to toe in paint
I don't really have an after picture yet because the garage is still a mess but at least the walls and ceiling are white! We are so thankful for Jeff's parents for spending their whole weekend helping us. I don't know if I would be able to work that hard on someone else's house!

Baby Shower

My wonderful friends Jamie, Stephanie and Crystal threw me a great baby shower on Aug 22. We had it at the Moore Library and the decorations were brown and blue- colors I really love right now. It was so great to see so many of the people I love. Jensen went with me and wore his "Big Brother" shirt. The finger food was yummy and the cake from Johnnies was delicious. Some of my friends from MOMS Club came and they had never had their cake before so they raved about it.

Me and my sweet friends Crystal, Steph and Jamie

Me and the cute Yummy cake

Big Brother

My sister Carrie, Me and my Momma

MOMS Club friends, they are my daily therapy!

Carla, Shannon, Kristin, Jessica, Kathie, and Jen

Jensen got to open a present from Mimi- it kept him busy the whole time

I got some great gifts including diapers and wipes that we will go through fast

My mom offered to take Jensen for the night afterwards and I am so thankful because I was able to sort everything we got without the little Taz getting into everything. Plus Jeff and I went to dinner and got to sleep in the next morning. A pretty perfect day to me!

Went to the Dr. on Monday and nothing much to report other than I found out last week that I passed my 3hr glucose test so I don't have gestational diabetes this time YAY! I'm amazed since I thought for sure I would again so I'm very relieved not to have to follow the strick diet and test 4 times per day. My goal is to still be careful anyway so the baby and I don't get too big. I go to the Dr every 2wks now so its getting closer to delivery day!