Kristen. Jeremy Engagement

Barely getting to processing an Engagement Session for Kristen & Jeremy. We went to Corona Del Mar, it was fairly humid and we climbed some rock to get some of the shots, but I think they turned out really great!!

Fitzpatrick Belly Session

Had the opportunity to do my best friend Becca's maternity photos, and we had a lot of fun! I am also hosting a baby shower for her this weekend, and I have had such a fun time watching her belly grow and now she's almost ready to have her first baby Jeremiah. Can't wait to see this little cutie. Here are some previews of the photos I was able to snap:

Welcome to home ownership...

As no surprise moving has been crazy. We've still got many boxes that are going to remain unpacked until we can complete some projects. We have removed some sheets off the windows and replaced them with curtains. One of the weirdest things about our house is the window frames, they are no conducive to blinds... so we've resulted to curtains. Our windows seem to be the oddest size EVER, so until we can afford custom blinds we're dealing with the curtains.

Our backyard and front yard are taking some major transformations as I have spent this whole last weekend weeding out the front yard (and not getting very far) and heavily soaking our grass and plants as they have gone for too long without water and I do not want them to die. We have an over abundance of hibiscus trees that the previous owners planted that have made it through the lack of water and are still blooming so next thing on my list of weeding those planters and pruning them back since they are way out of control. Here's our list of weird things that have come up since we moved in:

1. Our washer pipes need to be snaked because apparently our washer pipe leaks when it hits the rinse cycle. My father in law was able to jerry rig the pipes to make it work for the time being but it seems as though the pipes are blocked.
2. We have a switch in the living room that we have no idea what it does...
3. Our stove had a leak so we have been without a working stove (thank goodness for a crock pot and microwave) and our home warranty will be covering a brand new stove within the next 2 weeks it should be ready.
4. Our thermostat is all WRONG, why does the A/C never turn off? It seems like it is not reading it right. Luckily our house stays pretty cool, so we don't even need to turn on the A/C until like 4pm. We use our house fan once it cools off that thing is a Godsend

So among this list, very minimal. We can still function, dinner can be a challenge... but all in all God has been gracious to us and I can be nothing but a thankful woman for what he has provided us! On an up note, I have met one of our next door neighbors and they know a lot about our property and the previous owners, and they are lovely. Hope all our other neighbors are as nice :)

Moving day

Right now, my cute son is taking his nap. My husband is at our house finishing up some concrete work and I am sitting here writing this blog. We have our new carpet in and the touching up has been completed on the paint. Now, it's packing time. I spent most of this morning packing up my kitchen. I still have a little more packing to do, but it seems like this move day has been a long time coming.

Seems as though God's timing was perfect for us on this house. We just pray we can continue to be good steward's of the money God has been providing us to make the improvements that we needed. Tomorrow will be a very different day, especially since tomorrow will be the first night we spend in our new house. No Doubt the day will be long but we look forward to being able to actually BE in our house and not have to listen to our neighbors having sex and running upstairs from us. I have no doubt that our new place will have new sets of noises, but the sex thing... that is one of the many downsides of living in a downstairs apartment and one I am happily saying good bye to.

Also, I have been planning a baby shower for my best friend Becca. She is due in September, and she has so graciously offered to watching Hezekiah during the morning until his nap time so we can get all the furniture out without worrying about him getting in the way. This baby shower, I am hoping will be a lot of fun and I look forward to seeing all the pieces of this shower coming together... including an extra special fondant cake I am hopefully having specially made for the shower by a friend of a friend of a friend... cakesbyjeanine.com. This will be one of the first events I will be able to have at our house so I am extremely excited to be able to do that FINALLY!

Anyway, onto moving day tomorrow!

It's been a little while

It's been really hard to blog these last couple of weeks between trying to pack, paint and to get our house ready, work, church, and now this week is VBS. Well, we pretty much have all our rooms painted now. We ran into a small hiccup with the addition to our house, and we're not even sure how the city allowed that room to be permitted because the roof and side of the addition is not up to code. We are taking it to the city to see if they would be willing to put up some money to help us fix the mistakes the city let pass. Anyway, it doesn't effect us moving in. With most of the house almost finished we can schedule the carpet installation and hopefully be soon moving in. We are so ready to be out of the apartments. That's pretty much it for now. More to come later.

Elena & Brian- Preview

I had a wedding at Laguna Beach this last Sunday, I have been doing some post production on these photos with lots more to do still. I am working on texture layering to give some of them some more artistic feeling to the photos. This was a very informal wedding, and I was happy to be able to be a part of this gorgeous couples wedding. It was one of the shortest weddings I have ever shot, and the sunset was quite a challenge, I was switching quite frequently to flash and no flash to get a variety of looks for the photos. Also, mastering my manual settings was quite a doozy since depending on which way my camera was faced changed my settings, either way I had a great time with this couple.

Fire

We weren't officially in the news, but yes we did make headlines because last night lighting struck our apartment complex catching on fire. It was the building directly next to us, were sitting around getting ready for dinner, we had the windows open and we heard what sounded like a bomb going off outside our door. My heart was pumping and hands were shaking, never have hard anything like it. We ran outside to make sure it wasn't our building, and sure enough the fire dept happened to be across the street at Andulka park putting out a fire from lighting striking there, and saw the smoke from the complex. We had 6 fire trucks here, and it was chaos for a little bit, but either way everyone got out safe...and the fire was out within 30 minutes causing over $100,000 worth of damage. Here's the link to the new article:
PE.com

And a picture of the fire dept putting out the fire:

Can you say renovation?

We have been very busy working on the house, we've had to arrange someone to watch Hezekiah almost all of the days since it's just not safe nor would we be able to get anything done on the house with him being there. It's been long weekends, and Andrew and Eric have been spending most nights after work on the house as well. We have had to do a lot of prep work on the walls since a lot of the walls had wallpaper. We thought only 2 rooms had wallpaper but it seems there was quite a bit more in the other rooms. We have 4 bedrooms and 1 bathroom now textured with what is called Knock Down, makes the walls looks more professionally done than the normal flat walls which shows every little hole and gash. Now, it's onto 1 bathroom, living room, laundry room, office, and kitchen to be done and then we will be ready to paint the walls within the next week or so. We have some more minor things to do, but all in all we seems to be progressing quite a bit and CANNOT wait to actually be living in the house and out of the apartment. Here are some pictures of the work being done within the last couple of days.

More photos...

Had some fun this afternoon with my camera some more... Hezekiah and Andrew were my models today. Photography is so much fun, and I just love natural lighting and how it shades the face and lights others. I think I am really going to have fun doing this sunset wedding in Laguna Beach next month. Anyway, these were m favorites from today:

Manual

Having some fun with manual settings, I love being able to just adjust the aperture or ISO and get a cool photos. Hezekiah was napping so I couldn't use him as my subject so I quickly grabbed one of my willow tree figurines and put it in front of my window. I am also testing some different methods for creating a sepia toned photos, I am very picky about sepia- I do not like ones that look too yellow. So this is one method for doing sepia with my manual settings:

This one...

Is just for Nicole Leonard since I don't hardly ever enter contests:

7 days and counting down...

Last night we signed out loan documents, it was very surreal and not without some sort of activity. The entire time we're trying to sign loan documents, our crazy and fun child decided he wanted a cookie and kept saying "cookie more" and meanwhile throwing himself on the floor and trying to open the door to the room we were in. And then out of nowhere he started sucking his thumb and before I knew it he was out like a light! Sheesh the life of a toddler is so up and down lol. So we actually just need to provide SPFC a few items on the sale of Andrew's Acura before can get funded. So other than those items, we are going to be closing on May 15th.

We have to do some things to the house before we can move in, we need to strip and paint the walls, put in carpets, replace some outlets, replace some closet doors, get a new garage door and front door, and well I could go on some more but for now these are the things we need to do before we can move in. Luckily we don't have to be out of our apartment until July 30th, so we have time to do all the things we want before we move. Up until recently, Andrew refused to let me pack anything because he did not want to jinx anything. Now that we are so close, I think by the time we close he will actually let me pack now. It's going to be really nice being closer to work, and not have to worry about hearing neighbors being absolutely ridiculous upstairs from us. That is one thing, I will NOT miss at all.

Andrew is going to be gone until Saturday, he and his friend David decided to go on an overnight camping trip. So this weekend, Hezekiah and I are going to chill out at home and maybe make a trip to Target and the Grocery store and just take it easy!

Holy Ground

I've recently heard over the years of Pastor's using shock value on a regular basis (i.e., using profanity, etc.) in order to make a point in a Sermon. I often wonder what God would think of this tactic. It's not that the pulpit alone is Holy Ground, but that no matter where we stand we are standing on Holy Ground. It's not that a Pastor standing on a pulpit saying those words alone makes it any worse than any other moment in a day or time. It's that anyone in a position of teaching should take that position so seriously that it wouldn't demean the high calling of being able teach God's people.

I think in this society it is far to easy to make a church "fit" the times. It is too easy to let the world around you affect you, in the way you act, the way you treat people, and in the way you speak. It's one thing to want to make a church more appealing to people who might normally be turned off to church, but at what price? So much that you sacrifice integrity of God's Word?

James 3:1-2 " ¹Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. ²We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check."

James 3:5-6 "⁵Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark."

Ephesians 4:29 " ²⁹Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

In no way, shape, or form do I ever claim to be perfect! Like everyone else, I have flaws. I don't expect a pastor to be perfect because just like the rest of us they struggle with something just like we do. However, I could expect that maybe 1 time you would hear profanity in a sermon... but I do not expect this on a regular basis from any church. I heard an amazing sermon in 2005 given by Pastor Robert Elliot on John 14:12 and he was speaking in reference to this very matter and every time I hear another shock value sermon I go back to this... I transcribed it from his recorded sermon:

"He never misled, he never said anything that would give false hopes or draw a crowd and get people in around them and stir them up with no thought of the future, ah who cares if in ten years or twenty years their not here, as long as just now were getting a crowd. As long as just now were making people feel somethings happening. We'll say whatever it takes. Jesus never did that once, never once! "

I am sure I will get plenty of comments on this matter... always interested to hear other thoughts on the matter.

Disappointed

Doesn't even describe the word. Had a Dr's appointment on Wednesday and I had been a fair amount of research about having a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) and my doctor told me in previous appointments that I was a candidate but I should wait 2 years before thinking about another pregnancy... which we were going to do either way. Needless to say, she told me this last appointment that Community Hospitals no longer do these kinds of procedures anymore because they do not have the resources to handle a catastrophic event like rupturing, etc. She told me I would need to go through a University Hospital like Loma Linda. Unfortunately, my health insurance does not cover me to go to a hospital like that unless it was a dire emergency.

Basically, if I want anymore kids I would need to have another c-section which extremely bums me out. In addition to ALL of this the statistics I thought were a lot lower of my scar tissue rupturing if I were to go through a procedure like this... turns out 1 in 100 women something catastrophic happens when trying a VBAC procedure. SO.... I had these dreams when I first starting thinking about starting a family, and I always had the dream of delivering the baby and being able to have the baby on my chest right after delivery and now those dreams are shattered at this point. Disappointment sucks!!!!

Slacker

This is my title for the last week and for the next upcoming weeks. I have to admit, I am a complete slacker due to my lack of energy and sleep. I have been cooking grilled cheese, quesadillas, and eating cereal for dinner for the last week- simply because I DO NOT WANT TO COOK. I am on strike this week, lol. Sometimes I just get too over loaded trying to take care of well everything that I just need chill time and not to worry about so many other things that I could be doing. My mother in law (who usually watches Hezekiah) had surgery on Monday so I have been having to wake up at 5:45am every day this week to get him to daycare by 7:25am so I can get to work on time by 8am which makes both of us.... really grumpy. Prayers for both of us that hopefully we can get our normal schedules back soon.

In other news, looks like our house will be closing VERY soon! We had our FHA inspection this week, our realtor is amazing!! He already knew all of the things that FHA was going to catch like missing shower heads and got the air conditioning working and took care of them for us. He even got the inspector to count the nasty old floor tiles in the living room as flooring so we wouldn't have to replace those until we move it. Our loan needs a couple of items in order for us to get our loan docs. We could actually close as early as this month, but I am betting that we will close in May. It's exciting and very scary when you look at all the numbers, I keep telling myself "It's for 30 years."  Got some estimates on carpet so as soon as we get keys, we are picking up the paint and having a painting party to trash the existing flooring before we put in our nice clean carpets. With our tax credit, we are going to get some quotes on putting new windows and doors throughout the house, hopefully if we get the energystar windows we will get some of that money back as well too. Anyway, that's the going's on in the house world for now.

Self Portraits

I am been really trying to work on honing my skills with exposure and lighting, and trying to get used to my studio lighting set gives photography a whole different feel.  Taking photos with a flash and natural light seems so much easier than working with studio lights. How high you place them and at what angle you place them makes all the difference. I get a subscription to American Photography monthly and it has some really good tips, etc. One of the things they suggested was using Flickr and getting involved with groups through Flickr to get exposure and advice from other photographers... so that is what I am doing now. I decided to take advantage of my COOL Nikon remote and take some self portraits to try and get some practice in... I really need some "models" to help me with this! Anyway, here are the 3 shots that I liked the best... I seriously hate photos of myself being serious so I decided to challenge myself into taking a few serious photos.

Inspection- Check!

We had our inspection today on the house, we spent about 2 hours. The inspector we used was just amazing, he really took time with us to show us some things around the house. For the most part, the house is in great condition, and we don't have any major things that need to be addressed. Some of the items, we are going to mention and see if they will fix any of the items. We have a couple of items on our priority list to fix immediately which would be our front door, and a broken window in the living room.

Overall, we only had 1 area that needed to be addressed. The Air Conditioning, which turned on but didn't seem to be blowing the cold air. He said that we might just need to check some fuses or needs more freon. We need new outlets throughout the house since the house was built in 1960 and the addition to the house was done in 1969, most of the outlets are 2 prong so he suggested especially for the fridge that we get 3 prong outlets installed (minimal cost). The roof is in great condition, it has 2 layers already on it so we could go a long time and put one more layer on before we need to completely re-roof the house. He said for the age of the house he was really surprised at how good of a condition the plumbing, electrical, etc. are in. Most houses he's seen in this age of a house need a complete re-haul. Looks like we picked a good house so far. One thing we've really looked into is if we purchase windows that are Energy Star , we can get a 30% credit on those items up to $1500. You can check out which items qualify for the credit at: Energystar.gov

Now, it's actually time to get excited now that we know that the inspection is going to pass and now we just need to focus on getting all the paperwork finished and making a list of the must do's and prioritize them in order of importance because we will need to be careful about where our money is spent and make sure it is spent in the right places. Whoooo-hooooo, Praise the Lord for providing for us :)

Thankful

I am nothing but thankful today. Thankful in the many ways that so many people forget to be thankful for. It's always heart breaking to go through grief, but how in these days can we be anything but thankful for the spouses and children we are able to come home to every day after work. It's hard to explain in words how really and truly God has been working in my life not take anything for granted. How can I be anything but thankful and grateful for just waking up every morning. I don't know if I have been in some sort of fog with my spiritual life. So here I am waking up to a life that can be nothing but great. A husband, a child, and both of us being employed!

Being a wife, a mom, and an employee is so exhausting! Life is a constant juggling act, it is no picnic for sure some days when I come home to a temperamental toddler. But seriously, if that is the worst I have to worry about when I come home... I have no room to complain. Hezekiah is learning too fast for Andrew and I to keep up with him. The other day, Hezekiah was attempting to climb up to a kitchen chair and as I say Hezekiah get down- He scrambles even faster and climbs on top of the chair to climb on top of the table. Our child was trying to climb on the table, so why is it that toddler's constantly try and test your boundaries some days and then other days he listens so well? Having a toddler is a lot of work at this point, and I have no intention of wanting another child at this point until I can get him potty trained- forget it!

So that's it for now... I am a thankful mommy and wife.

Keeping busy

Needless to say we have been busy! Seems like my weekend just flew by and here we are again back at work and dealing with the day to day of the work week.  We've started taking some measurements on the house so we can get some quotes on carpet to get installed. We thought we had asbestos tiles throughout the house which was going to cost us money we didn't have to remove, but we had a flooring pro come in and confirm that we do not have asbestos tiles... thank goodness.

We had a termite inspection done, minor things that needed to be addressed on the patio and garage area. The seller took care of that for us, now we're onto the actual inspection and we are really hoping we do not have any major issues come up! If God's in this, I am sure everything will work out fine...nonetheless we are trying not get too excited just yet until the inspection. We started the escrow paperwork, and they took $2000 from us... not quite the biggest check I have written in my life but still hard to cough that up.

We are still planning on riding out our lease until July, we are planning on a 45 day escrow at this point which works out great for us since we're looking at Mid May or even June depending on when the asset managers FINALLY decide to actually start the escrow... so we're in escrow but kind of not. It's a very confusing process getting into escrow. We want them to take a little time on this, but not too much that we have to go over our lease. It's really kind of scary as we look through all of the numbers on the loan, and I have to just say "It's over 30 years!"

Other than the enormous amount of house stuff, our church is planning a hike to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, so we're taking Hezekiah with us and I am bringing my handy dandy camera to hopefully get some AMAZING shots of the different varieties of poppies. Then Sunday, getting together with family for Easter and enjoying some yummy food and going to show some of the family the house we are "buying".

We're going to homeowners!

It seems like a whirlwind... but Yes we officially received word that the bank accepted our offer on the house! Supposedly, we are going to close escrow in 30 days, we might be able to extend it to 45 days. IF we we extend it to 45 days it will allow us time to pull out the asbestos tile in the house and replace it with new padding and carpet throughout. We also want to paint before we move all our stuff in... God willing we will be able to do this before we move in. The house needs quite a few upgrades, the kitchen being one of the major areas, in addition to new windows throughout, and new closet doors. Keep this in your prayers, as we still need everything to go smoothly during the inspection of the house. Pray there are no major faults!! I posted some pictures on my facebook, but for those of you reading who are not on my facebook... here's a few pictures!

Sheesh

Whoever said the housing market is slowing down... Is fooling themselves. We had 4 houses we were going to look at today, all 4 are off the market now! Okay how are we supposed to buy a house if all the houses are flying off the market so quickly?

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Wednesday is another day...

For house hunting! We have asked our realtor to take a look at these properties for us...I think we have now like 4-6 homes we want to take a look at. These are some ones we are interested in:


Oakwood Pl $189,000 (Desirable Wood Streets area of Riverside, has a studio guest house in the back of the property, that might be cool!)



Burnside Ct $135,000 (In the same neighborhood as I grew up in)



Quebec Dr $134,900 (Right near Arlington High School)



Nelson St $185,000 (only a 1 bathroom, but it's worth a look because of the neighborhood)



Arch Way $196,000 (pretty high priced, so we will see what it actually looks like!)

Kendrick Dr $195,000 (In Canyon Crest, so that's why the price is so high)

6678 Montclair Dr

How freaky is this? This house is up for sale for $165,000.... EXACT same floor plan as the house we grew up in and it's around the corner from where we lived. The only difference between this house and the house grew up in, is our old house had a nice big addition on the back of the house the led to the backyard which had a pool. Square footage is definitely a lot less, but exact same floor plan and everything!

More houses

We looked at 2 houses today... not 3, but we looked at this house on Mallorie Way:

It is going for $142,500.... which wow seems really low. It's really close to our church and not too far from where we work. Andrew seems sold on the house because of the price. The house needs some real TLC from top to bottom, but it doesn't even have central air installed. This is not exactly my "dream home" but Andrew is sold on the property. I would still like to keep our options open. We haven't heard anything back on the Le Conte houses yet so once again.... the search continues on still.

More Houses

So we placed on offer on Friday to the Le Conte house, but as we assumed we are still waiting for word on whether or not they accepted our offer.

In the meantime, we are continuing the house search. We are planning at looking at 3 more homes tomorrow. They look very promising,  but we will see once we get in. Those darn pictures they post online can be veeeerrryyyy deceiving lol.

Took it easy

Today and took Hezekiah to the park for a little bit. Lots of kids were there with their bikes, dogs, and families. It was pretty crazy with kids running everywhere but I think Hezekiah really liked it and it was a nice day outside for running around. Caught a few shots of him while he went down the big boy slide 4 times on his own and ran around screaming and running up and down the hills at this park. So much fun!!!

Le Conte House

So this is the 2nd house we REALLY love! It really is everything we are looking for as far as space and layout and location. It is a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom, with a pool. It is located in Canyon Crest part of Riverside, and right around the corner we have some really expensive $400,000 homes. The house is going or $169,000, and it is extremely low for the area which is why the house already has a couple of offers on the table. It has a lot of cosmetic work that needs to be done, but really that is what we really wanted. Putting a little money into the house would make it instantly appreciate from the sales price purely because of the location. The pool looked like a swamp, but it just needed to be emptied and filled back up again. We are putting in an offer tomorrow for higher than the asking price. We don't expect to get this house really, but if it's meant to be then it will be. Keep it in your prayers!

Haskell St.

We looked at about 6 houses on our 2nd house hunting trip today. We saw 2 that were pretty decent, this house is from Haskell St in Riverside 3 Bedrooms and 2 bathrooms for $189,000.  The price is definitely too high for the neighborhood, and the kitchen counter is not actually attached to the cabinets and there is no range/stove. The backyard is in decent condition, but the fence definitely needs some TLC- might be something we can see if the bank would fix for us.  Anyway, we are not going to put in an offer right now. The house has been on the market now for 60 some odd days, so we are going to wait a little bit and see if they decide to drop the price some. We are waiting to get some more listings from our Realtor, he said that in the next 2-3 weeks we should see a bunch of brand new listings.

The other house was in Appleton and we really like the lay out but right behind the backyard was the railroad tracks and then Dewey St. and thee was tagging on the fence and inside one of the rooms. For Security purposes alone, we are not really considering this house, the one upside is they installed brand new double paned windows and doors so you can't hear the railroad when it passes. Ehhh, that one is listed at $165,000 3 bedroom 2 bathroom. The other REALLY bad thing about the Appleton house is that they "tried" to convert the garage into another living space and they drywalled right over the garage (yuck!) so there would some demo work that would need to be done... so I don't know I don't like this property very much.

Anyway.... the other houses were either too small or weird lay outs.

House Huuunting!

We began the search again for a house... I thought for sure we would have to wait until next March before we could buy. We had a long conversation with Andrew's Dad, the tax man, and found out we actually can REALLY benefit from the $8000 tax credit. Seems like we were so disappointed for a long time because we did not want to miss the boat.  FHA rates have not been that great the last couple of weeks, but we have promise that they will lower again very soon, but it's not like we're going to find a house tomorrow. I expect this search to take some time before we find what we are looking for. Yesterday, we looked at 2 houses:

Goodview

Westridge


They seem to look okay but the inside need a lot of work that we would not be able to afford, not to mention the layout was... wierd! Anyway, needless to say... keeping our options open still.