We have renters! Hooray!

We just learned today that we have renters for our OKC home. This is such great news and a wonderful answer to prayer! The rental rate will also cover all of our costs (mortgage, insurance and property taxes). The best part is that the couple who are renting our house love it so much they are hoping to be able to buy it. Hopefully, next year the market will be better and we can sell it to them. Isn't this fantastic news?!? God has blessed us above and beyond what we thought was possible. God is so good!

Holiday Cards from Shutterfly!

Hello everyone! The holidays are here and what better way to show off the family than a beautiful photo holiday card? Jason and I started using photos cards a few Christmases ago and with the birth of Madison last year, I am really excited about showing off how much she has grown. We have done cards from Sam's Club and Walgreens, but this year I am going to use Shutterfly. I love Shutterfly products. I made a beautiful memory book of Madison's first month using Shutterfly last year. Here are a couple samples of the cards they have available this year.

Here is a link to all of their Christmas photo-cards: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards. They also offer a variety of adorable invitations for holiday parties: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-invitations as well as cute gift ideas such as calendars: http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars.

I am super excited about our cards this year. I am still not sure whether or not I will do a card with multiple photos or just one, but either way I know they will be great!

PS: Shutterfly is offering me 50 free holiday cards for this blog post! If you are a blogger and would like to do the same click here: http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/.

Our New Place

Things are starting to settle down for us. We have moved into our new place. We are still working on boxes, but at least Maddie's room, the kitchen and living room (except for the boxes of books) are somewhat put together. Our place is small and definitely has its quirks, but at least it is a place we can call home. One upgrade from our house is the carpet. I never liked the carpet in our house and was planning on changing it, that is until our move happened. The carpet in our apartment is very soft. I am not worried about Maddie getting rug burns on her knees from crawling around on it.

We like our new location. We are close to lots of shopping. Not just the mall either, we have 3 grocery stores near by as well as about 5 Starbucks locations. Yes, you read that right. We are back in the land of Starbucks on every corner. :) It is funny, the whole time we lived in OK, I could count the amount of times I went to Starbucks on my two hands and now that we have been back in CA, I have been about once a week (or more).

We are also close to family and friends. I loved being here for the big celebration we had this past week for my grandpa turning 75. I missed being able to attend family get-together's.

All in all, things are going well. I do miss the luxury of living in my house, but there are so many good things that can make up for that. :) I will post pics of our new place once it is more put together, probably after Thanksgiving. :)

Life at the Ranch

Here are a few pictures of the time we spent at the ranch with my grandparents, aka: papa and GG. Maddie had such a great time there. I know she misses it. Luckily, they only live 40 minutes away, so we can visit often. :)

This is the hat that my grandpa made for Maddie. (He took an old hat of his and sewed it up to fit her head.)

Maddie and "Papa" in their hats.

Playing with all of her toys. There is a mixture of her toys, toys my grandparents have and toys my mom brought up.

First taste of chocolate pudding! She LOVED it!

Carmel By The Sea

Jason and I are now moved into our apartment and we have internet service. Yay! Now that I have a way of posting pictures to the blog, I thought I would share the pictures Jason and I took on our recent trip to Carmel. I love Carmel. It is beautiful. I love all of the little shops and cottages. It is also right on the coast, so the drive is very pretty.

Moving Update

We have an apartment! Yay! Our move-in day is Friday, November 12th. Jason and I are so excited about living together again. This one in Gilroy and one in San Jose thing has been no fun. Soon we will both be in Sunnyvale. :) Jason will only have a 30 minute commute to work and he is able to work 7-4 instead of 8-5, which will help with traffic. :) Our new apartment is small, but it is a great price. It is renovated as well with a stackable washer and dryer. It will definitely work for a little bit while we pay off the move and finally find a renter for our home in OKC. (No news on that front. It has been shown many times, but no one has put in an application. Please pray for a renter soon!)
We figure that we will take a year in this small apartment to pay off our loans and save, then next year we will look at getting a bigger place.
Jason and I are very excited to be in a new place soon. Prayer requests: 1) for help with our move, 2) for Maddie's transition to our new apartment, 3) for a renter for our OKC home and 4) that Jason will do well at Oracle once he starts actually selling (he is still in training).

Maddie's Words

I thought I would do a quick blog post with all of the words that Maddie has started to say the past couple weeks. She could already say some but it seemed like she decided to stop talking for a bit right before the move. Ever since we have been here at the ranch with my grandparents, she has become a little chatterbox. Here is a list of everything she is saying these days:

hi
bye (while waving)
mama
dada
uh-oh
baby
da ("dog"- she also makes the barking noise)
du ("duck")
be ("bear")
brush
papa (great grandpa)
G (great grandma, aka "GG")
toe (we think this means "toy")
go
no
yay
wee (she says this while swinging on the swing)
truck (and grandpa is working on tractor)

and every once in a while she points at something and says, "what's that?" (well, as best as she can say it)

Jason and I can't believe how much she is doing now. She has also decided that she wants to walk everywhere. She stands and reaches for our hands and as soon as she is holding on she starts walking full force. It is so cute. We suspect she will be walking by herself soon enough and then we will be chasing her everywhere. :)

I don't have any pictures to share right now, but I will have some when we get to move into our new place, hopefully in a week or so.

Halloween 2010

Our little bunny

Maddie and Hannah

Hannah

Maddie trying to crawl with her ears in the way.

Jason, Maddie and I spent Halloween with our good friends Chris and Melissa and their kids, Hannah and baby Owen. We had such a good time hanging out with them. Maddie loved playing with her new friend, Hannah. Here are some pictures of the girls in their costumes.