Sweet Anna Belle

Taylor took this first picture; it's my favorite. They grow so quickly at this age!

Hooray! Hooray!

This morning we received Fannie Mae's counter offer on the Bay Tree Landing house, which we accepted! We plan to close on the townhouse Tuesday, April 12th and close on the new house Thursday, April 14th. Thank you so much for everyone's thoughts, prayers and encouragement! We feel very blessed.

Could this be the one?

This is the exterior photo of the Bay Tree house, the same house as the previous post below. We submitted our offer on Friday morning, and the listing agent submitted the offer package to Fannie Mae. This is one step further than we made it with the Tobinn Manor house. We hope to hear back sometime this week. Please keep us in your prayers!

Hot off the Press

A lot had changed in the last 4 hours, so I thought a blog post was due.

1. Anna Belle's 2 week check up went great. She was born at 5 lb 7 oz. At 3 days she was 5 lb 2 oz. Today, she was 6 lb and 6 oz! She's still small, but she's growing quickly which is what the doctor likes to see. Yeah! Her 2 oz bottles aren't cutting it for her all the time now, so sometimes she can polish off a full 3 oz. in one sitting.

2. The buyer for our townhouse met with their attorney who went over the details with our Realtor at 5:00 PM today. We should have an executed offer tomorrow, which has an option based on the inspection. The offer says that we will close by Friday, April 15th.

3. Our final and best offer on the Tobinn Manor (foreclosure) house was turned down for a "much higher" offer. As much as we loved the house, we wouldn't have felt good about paying much more for it. The house is probably worth it, but we don't want to get in over our heads. We also feel better about being homeless compared to carrying 2 mortgages.

Here's another foreclosure home we toured in Coles Crossing. We're not sure if it's the one, but it would suit our needs well. Pool houses in Coles Crossing seem to go pretty quickly, so we will probably put an offer in on this one and see what happens. I never thought I would have that kind of an attitude towards home buying.

A Day with Family

My aunt Julie and cousin Nate are in town this week. Here are a few photos from our day.

A lot can happen in a week

Anna Belle turned a week old yesterday; she's been such a precious addition to our family. Brady is very sweet with her and proud to embrace his role as big brother and big helper. His new favorite thing is to pull out an entire gallon of milk and carry it to the living room when he wants something to drink. This and other somewhat unnecessary efforts have sprung up all over the place. I love to see Brady's chest swell with pride and a little smirk of a smile.

Here's a video of Anna Belle at 3 days old. I think she looks really alert for her age. She also seems to have a good little zest for life. She's very alert when she eats, and she's quite demanding when she's hungry. As long as she's well fed, she's very easy going.

Anna Belle eats and naps most of the time. She's nursing about half of the time, and drinks expressed milk and a litte formula the other half of the time. I'm happy to see my precious Anna Belle growing and gaining weight like a healthy little girl should. Here's another wakeful moment after nursing.

Brady's always been a fan of guitars, mostly thanks to his Pappaw. We got a Wii with Guitar Hero for Christmas, but we found the easiest way for Brady to play (at this age) is to turn on a music video and let him pretend to interact with the video. Led Zeppelin is his favorite... country just won't cut it for this kid.

There was a rodeo theme at gymnastics this week; Brady really liked the hat and stick horse. Though his feelings about country music are rather lackluster, Brady loves horse stuff (he calls Polo shirts cowboy shirts, and he loves watching Back to the Future III and Secretariat).

Taylor and I put an offer on this short sale / foreclosure property in Coles Crossing. We toured the property right before gymnastics yesterday. It's really close to the elementary school, which is more important since Cy-Fair discontinued a lot of their bus services. We also love the pool, big lot and general space. Please say a little prayer for us. There's a lot of little pieces that need to come together in the near future.

More Anna Belle Pictures

Anna Belle Bacot

At 2:46pm on Saturday March 5, 2011, Anna Belle Bacot was born at Texas Woman's Hospital. Those in attendance were very surprised to find that she weighed a slim 5 lbs 7 ounces (and was 18 inches long). In keeping with the hospital's protocol for babies born under a certain weight, Anna Belle had to spend 6 hours in the NICU to be monitored. She is passing all their tests with flying colors so we expect her to be released very shortly. Mom did wonderful as always and is also in good health. We look forward to everyone getting to meet our newest member of the family in the near future. We have been truly blessed. More pictures to come tomorrow after we have had a chance to get cleaned up : ) Stay tuned.

Cars, Babies and Houses, Oh My!

In a 12 month period, Taylor and I got engaged, married, I started a new job, we bought our townhouse and the 4Runner. Our lives have been relatively stable for awhile, but the winds of change are blowing once again.

Today my OB said that I'm 3cm dilated and 80% effaced. On Sunday, March 6th, my OB is the doctor on call and my 5 year anniversary with my company improves my short term disability coverage significantly. Hopefully Anna Belle agrees that March 6th would be a great day to enter the world.

Our open house on Saturday brought a cash buyer who is very interested in our townhouse. We had an appraisal today and we expect an offer by Friday. I have a long overdue haircut scheduled for tomorrow, but Thursday we're looking at a few houses in Coles Crossing with our Realtor (my good friend, Raquel).

My job is a little crazy right now. Our management office is moving while I'm gone, and technically I'm the one in charge of the build out of the new space. Finishing construction on the new office, working on several other major projects and cleaning up my office has kept me pretty consumed in these last days of pregnancy.