Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from the ever growing Downing family. I know it's been a while since our last post but get ready because we will be posting away again! I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. We decided to host this year is our new house and it went pretty well. We had lots of food, fun and laughs! 

We were lucky the kids and I were feeling better and well enough to actually put on this shindig because the week leading up to this was ugly! Now Josh has fell victim to the spreading sickness and our Christmas decorating will be on hold until he is feeling better.

We did get a good start on our Christmas shopping though on Thanksgiving night. We braved the crowds of Walmart and Toys R Us and snagged a few very wanted items for Isla and Aiden. Of course Isla is old enough now to recognize things she wants on commercials, so her list grows longer every day :) 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend while I continue to Lysol and disinfect this house!

Back online

Hello everyone! We are officially moved and back online. I'm hoping to make a post in the next couple days to update everyone on the transition/move.

Happy Monday!

Nicolle

501 Kenneth Lane

Well the house is SOLD officially. We close on this house in just two weeks. It's crazy to think we have spent 6 years making this house our home and now we only have two weeks left. We have been looking forward to this move for several years now and as excited as we are to start the next chapter, it is a little sad as well. This is our first home, this is where we came after our wedding and opened all of our gifts with our family, where we started our life as Mr. & Mrs. This is where I hosted my first Thanksgiving dinner, where we brought our crazy dog home and our precious babies. We've celebrated many holidays, birthdays and even a little reunion of some of my close friends. This house is full of loving memories that I will cherish forever. This house was the beginning of our journey as the Downing Family. I will miss this house.

Here is the link to a video of our fondest memories in our home.

http://youtu.be/y390QYysj44

Enjoy :)

                                   

                             



                       

SOLD! Well.... Kind of

I apologize again for the amount of time between posts. As you already know we are very busy this summer and it doesn't seem that it will ever slow down. After reading the title of this post, one would assume we have sold our house. And that is partially correct, we are under contract. The official contract date was June 8th. Since then the buyers have had an inspection completed that took 3 hours long on a Thursday evening. On Monday we received the results of said inspection and let's just say we had to extend the 5 day negotiation period until this coming Monday. I won't burden you with the specifics but what the inspector reported may not actually be true but the buyers believe him so we wait. On Monday we will all gather to look at the "issues" with a professional to determine if the "issues" are actually "issues" at all. At this time. we are not that confident this purchase will go through as the buyers seem a bit demanding in their request to put in a pricey fix for something that very well may not be broken. So stay tuned as our quest to sell this house continues. Let's just all hope we can come to an agreement on Monday or else this deal may be done!

Happy Thursday!

Catching Up

Well hello everyone! So sorry it has been a little while since the last post. We have been busy busy busy around the Downing house. Amanda graduated, Vanessa graduated, Josh was in Texas for a week for work and more! Oh, and we had a anniversary that we have yet to celebrate :) While it was a busy month we are so proud and excited for everyone's accomplishments.

Amanda graduated from Missouri Western State University with her teaching degree and will be teaching in the St. Joseph MO school district starting in Aug. She is also moving into her very own apartment this weekend. We made the trip to St. Joe to watch her graduate and even brought a few things she left at our house to town last week on our way to Grant City. She is super excited to start this new chapter and we are excited for her too.

Then the following Thursday, Vanessa graduated from Southwest Baptist University with her Associates in Health Science. Her graduation was held in Springfield MO, so we took another road trip to watch her graduate too! She has been submitting resumes and has had a few interviews and we wish her luck on finding a job!

The next morning Josh left for Texas and the kids and I headed to Oak Grove for an extended weekend. Nana and Tim purchased a new home and we spent 3 days painting just the kitchen and living room. This place is pretty big! The kids got to spend some time outside with Grammy and we headed home a couple days later. 

He LOVES to climb on anything and everything

And finally last weekend after Josh got home we headed to Grant City to help Dennis clean house....literally! This weekend is Grant City clean up days and he wanted to get some closets and such cleaned out that were in desperate need. We also repainted Josh's old room and said goodbye to the blue splatter paint! It was an extremely productive weekend with a little tornado scare mixed in. The house looks wonderful and the bedroom is coming along nicely :)

That brings us up to speed now! We don't have anything too exciting planned for this weekend. Josh had a golf tournament this morning and everyone besides myself is napping at the moment. We decided we are going to try our first camping trip with the kids over Father's Day Weekend so we may make a trip this evening to check out some camping gear because what we have is slim. Tomorrow we actually have a whole day with nothing planned which hasn't happened in a long while. 

As always, we are anxiously awaiting calls for potential buyers to look at our home. We have had at least 1 per week for the last 4 weeks. We have considered going to look at a few homes to get an idea for what we like and don't like and the area itself. Keep your fingers and toes crossed that we can hopefully sell the house by the end of the summer! That's my own personal goal ;) 

Here are a few pictures from today---

                                            

Always climbing!

Yummy cupcakes Daddy brought home

This was the other day but I just love that smile!

Have a GREAT rest of the weekend!

A Baseball Birthday

On the 4th of May we celebrated our little man's 1st birthday! Hard to believe a year has already gone by. He has changed so much in this last year from looks to personality. He is such a sweet funny little boy and we truly enjoy every moment with him. He purposely does things to make you laugh and his smile is contagious. He is starting to talk a little more and he is still trying to master walking. He is a boy through and through who likes to wrestle with Daddy (and even Mommy during the day) a daredevil and not afraid of anything! You MUST have your eye on him at all times because if you can't see him, he is surely about to get into something or destroy something. All of which he can accomplish in the blink of an eye! 

We celebrated his 1st birthday with the whole family! We had peanuts and cracker jacks for snacks and an infamous Grandma Downing birthday cake. I did make Aiden's cake to look like a baseball and he definitely enjoyed eating it : ) He got a lot of big boy toys like dump trucks and tractors....and even a mini 4 wheeler! Isla even got a few gifts too....these grandparents enjoy spoiling these kids rotten. But we do love them for it : ) 

Here are a few pictures of the day~

Aiden's First Hair Cut

I know this is a couple weeks late but it's been a busy couple weeks! The last weekend we were in Grant City we took Aiden to get his first hair cut by the barber that cut Josh's hair when he was younger. Josh refers to him as "Ol Shaky" and after witnessing him cut Aiden's hair I understand why! Aiden did really well for the most part and his hair looks much better. It was so long it was hanging over his ears and I always said I would never let my son's hair get too long. I like a nice short little boy haircut. Now, it's not as short as I was hoping for but it's as short as I was comfortable with Ol Shaky getting! 

 

Before.....

After! Such a handsome boy :)