Rich Kirk Realty

Monica told me she was going to give Rich (our fabulous realtor) a shout-out on the blog. Then all I see is a completely ridiculous picture of Emr ruining Rich's beautiful sign. So let me do a proper shout-out.

In case you didn't know, we finally have all the t's crossed and i's dotted and the house is ours (or at least will be on June 23rd when we sell our house.) So a few things about "Mr. Rich," as our kids affectionately refer to him as.

1) In this crappy market, he sold our house for a great price. Other houses on our street have been selling for 260-280 and he got us $328,000! Go Rich!

2) Buying this "shell" from the bank was far from traditional, far from easy, and required non-stop work. We met with Dwayne Gross (the realtor for the bank) today and the first thing he said when he walked in was, "you have NO IDEA how much work Rich did to get this deal done." Dwayne, a realtor himself, just went on and on about how amazing of a job Rich did working on our behalf in this whole ordeal. "It never would have gotten done without him."

3) What we love about Rich is that he always has our best interest in mind. He doesn't just push us toward something that will get him a bigger payout, or push us for a more expensive house -Monica does that well enough on her own :) He's honest. He will tell us the truth, whether it's what we want to hear or not - which is a GOOD thing! Lastly, he is so knowledgeable. He always seems to price houses right (or at least he has with the two houses we've sold) and knows very well what prices to offer. Proper pricing is so key, and he's the king of that!

So if you're in the market for a good, no... make that great realtor, give Rich a call. I can guarantee that you won't be disappointed!

p.s. Rich promised us a 1% commission fee for anyone that uses him and references us, so tell him the Mangins sent you. --- just kidding!!! Rich deserves some free publicity b/c if you broke down hourly how much he's going to make off us this time, he'd barely be making minimum wage.

So thanks Rich... you're the best!

ED Golf Tournament

ED... not what you're thinking... It's the Eric-Dan golf tourney. Eric, Eric Schmidt, Dan Noble, and Dan Emr all golf as a team in the Calvary Golf Tourney each year.
Schmidt started the tradition of dressing the boys and this year he did an awesome job!
Sweet Ralph Lauren hats, and awesome plaid shorts ensured they won the best dressed award! (Not a real award, but they would have won it I'm sure!)

My husband is a DORK

Emr and Rich posing together! :)

The guys did awesome and I think they came in 3rd??? Not sure, but I think so!

Fox Hill Road

In case you haven't heard... we got the house! It's FINALLY a done deal. We have settlement on June 23rd (which seems insanely soon!) and then construction to finish the house will begin. We're so excited about starting a new chapter in our life, but we're also sad to be leaving such a wonderful group of neighbors and friends that we've grown to love over the past 5 years.

Kaden and Kira posing

the left side of the house, where the driveway will come in

some of the cleared sideyard and looking out into the woods

the back and the breakfast room... The future home of the next brick paver patio (hopefully!)

Thanks so much for everyone's encouragement and prayers over the last months. We have a busy few months coming up, but we trust that we'll make it through and it will be worth it in the long run.

We're moving out of our house on June 19th in the later afternoon. Our whole house will be packed into a storage unit for 2-3 months. Anyone that's around is more than welcome to help with the move! :)

Big Brother Helper

Kaden asked if he could give Callen a bottle the other day... I know he's 15 months, but like 2x a week we give him a bottle with milk- no idea why, but we haven't stopped. :)
Anyhow, Cal LOVED having his big brother help and I thought it was so cute!

and now back to watching cartoons- he can multi-task.

These two are going to share a room in the new house. It only has 4 bedrooms, but we made the boys room really large. I think that it's going to be really fun for them over the years. :)

Has anyone seen my Cheerio?

The older kids thought this was the funniest thing ever- they were rolling around laughing!

What's so funny mom??

Being a mom makes me laugh a lot!

MD Visit

Last weekend I got to go down to MD to visit my wonderful friend Mandy. It was so great to be with her and her family! Her little girls Ella and Lily are sooo sweet and I go to spend some time with them on Saturday morning bc Mandy had a baby shower to attend.
I got to do some outlet shopping, eat out, and have some awesome conversations with one of my dearest friends. It was such a fun weekend and I am excited that we're going to see eachother for 3 days in June too. :)

Thanks for a great visit Mandy!
(this is the only pic I remembered to snap! )

House Update

Well there was great news this week, but I didn't have a chance to post our announcement b/c I was busy being a ghost blogger for the Schmidts and having lots of fun taking and editing pictures of the twins.

So mid-week this week we found out that the bank had given us an offer that we could accept and the house was ours! We were happy with the changes they made and ready to move forward. We're actually using the Bank's builder b/c they were comfortable with him and actually we're going to be getting some additional upgrades that we weren't planning on. :) We needed to take the contract to a lawyer to make sure that we were comfy with all that was in it. We were really excited!

Then, last night around 5pm we got a call from Rich (our realtor) that the bank had withdrawn its offer! The board members for that property met and some of them wanted more money. So, in a very nontraditional practice, they withdrew the offer and said they wanted 25K more.

That's not going to float with us, but the bank's realtor and builder is not pleased and meetings were going to be taking place last night and this weekend to try and make a last ditch effort. Please be praying that our buyer is patient and can wait a few more days. We just don't want to lose the sale of our house.

Hopefully we'll have the final word soon.

The Twinkies

Yesterday our friends Eric and Lindsey had their twin baby boys and we're so happy for them! Jordan David (JD) and Landon William were born via C-Section at 1:12 and 1:13. Linds and Eric did an amazing job adapting to the news of a C-section and now, no matter how they arrived, they're here and healthy and adorable. I had the priv. of being at the hospital with the family and taking pics. I wasn't able to be in the delivery room b/c of the C, but it was special to be able to get lots of pics of the family waiting, and Eric sharing the news etc. I got to be a ghost blogger for Lindsey yesterday, so check out the pics and slideshow at www.twinkiesandus.blogspot.com
I can't wait to hold JD and Landon. It was really special to see these wonderful twin boys God has blessed our friends with.

Update

Things are looking pretty positive, but we still don't have the final okay. I guess at this point we'd say we're 90% sure it's gonna work out. Tomorrow we have a phone conference with the bank rep. to give them all our financial info and to get the approval from a loan perspective. Then we need to have our lawyer look over the contract and make sure we're not getting hosed :) and then it will very likely be a done deal.

We're excited, but tonight we're more excited that Lindsey and Eric were induced at 5pm and we're waiting on the arrival of their baby boys. I get to go to the hospital and take some pics as soon as she pops 'em out! I'm excited to meet the little men! So that's what we're excited about tonight, house is number two.

More update to follow soon I'm sure!

Plea

So we're waiting... and waiting...
I know it needs shutters, and the long grass is all gone and grading has been started, and it's not everyone's idea of the perfect home, but it would really be awesome to raise my kiddos here.

Mother's Day Tradition

We finally have a mother's day tradition... We go to Color Me Mine after church and each kiddo makes a tile and then we make one that has all of our fingerprints. I have a nice collection of these tiles now b/c we do them 2x a year, Mother's Day and around Christmas. I'm hoping to incorporate them into the new house somewhere. I want them in a place where each year we can remove blank tiles and replace them with the new kids ones. Any creative ideas???
The family tile from this year.
Lion- Kaden
Turtle- Kenz
Bunny- Kira
Beaver- Callen (my favorite of the animals!)

The Gang, minus Cal b/c daddy was holding him and taking a pic...
Bull in a china shop!

All made from Kira's little fingerprints

Kade's fingers made this scary skeleton! Cool Dude!

Kenzie made this one without any help! I was really impressed b/c the skinny black ink pens are hard to use!

Just KJ being cheesy on the ride home

And our fun festivities tuckered the little man out!

Kenzie made a new friend

Kenzie was so looking forward to going riding! She was a little sad that they didn't get to go on a long trail ride, so daddy got the horse to go faster and of course he got a " Dad! Dad! Stop!"

Break time

This was the highlight of Kenzie's weekend... the camp dog- Riley.

This little girl wants a dog so badly! Hopefully if we get the new house she will soon have one.

Shooting Time

Uncle Bry would be proud of this sharp shooter!

Proud of their shooting!

little Robin Hood

Daddy Hood

Beautiful Girls!