Home Prep!

As you know, I haven't been in touch with you lovelies for over a couple weeks now and that's because I have been bogged down with so many home things! Every second I'm not working, I've been doing something house related! Minus the many hours it took to get us out of our apartment. We had to pack everything up, repaint our accent walls, & scrub its every inch...really ended up being an extremely time consuming project in itself! I am sooo happy to be done with that part of the move!Everything now is thankfully at our house stuffed away in boxes... BUT, I don't want to start putting things away until I can fix some of the necessity's.

Part of the "Urgent Matters" list includes:

• Install Newly Purchased Toilets
• Paint The Front Door
• Pick Accent Colors To Paint The Walls
• Purchase A New Couch/Possibly Two/Chairs
• 2 Upholstered/Fabric Chairs For Ends of Dinning Table
  
• Completely Renovate The Kitchen, Hall Bath & Master Bath Cabinets
• Get Curtains Or Make/Get Them All Hung
• Install Newly Purchased Knobs EVERYWHERE In The House
• Paint Fireplace Mantel For Now
• Possibly "Leafy" Ceiling Fans, Capiz Chandelier For Above Dinning Table, Hall Sconces & Lighting For Above Kitchen Sink
• Fix Up Laundry Room/Look for Wood Ladder
  
• Clean The Pantries
• Line All Cabinets
• Fix All Door Hinges & Knobs
  
• Fix All Light Switch Covers
• Completely Renovate My Hutch
• Put Up New Address
• Fix Corner Tile Pieces in Kitchen
  

Our "Not-So-Urgent" list includes(when I say not so urgent, I mean before the end of summer):

• Hardwood floors
• Take Off The Tile On Fireplace, Restore Brick, Get New Mantle
• Patio Furniture
• Work On Front & Backyard Landscape
  
• Get & Plant Uncle's Sago Palms
• Replace Kitchen Counters
• New Kitchen Appliances
  
• Renovate Master Bathroom
• Remove Popcorn Ceiling
  

Thankful I have been given the gift of being able to visualize. I like to make ugly things pretty, which really works in my favor because I can usually find things more reasonably priced and make them look better. I can really see the potential in not so flatter things. I actually think that's the only reason we purchased the house that we did. A person might have walked through it and not been able to see past all the current flaws!

Here are some pics of what we've been up to the last few weeks!

The First Official Roll Of Painting/Marking OUR Home!

Lots & LOTS Of Painting, Never Realized How Long It Would Take To Paint An Entire House

The Best Helpers Around


Nick Putting On Our (DIY-Oil Rubbed Bronze)Pineapple Door Bell

Preparing For The Crawl Space!Couldn't Pay Me To Get Under There

One Of The New Toilets-Unfortunately Now Postponed!

Finally, My Future Art/Craft Room

Hideous Painted Wall Paper

And You Know- Just Layers Upon Layers Of Painted Wallpaper That We Had To Remove

Can NOT Wait To Redo These Cabinets/Paint/Add Some Curtains!

I will defiantly be posting DIY things, along with before & after pics of everything...As our Fresno beach cottage in the making, progresses!

God is Amazing!Our First Home-Buying Story!

We have already updated the front of the house majorly, will post more later!

In the past, Nick and I have looked into purchasing a new home, but with our budget, the home and the yard would have had to been minuscule- you could literally reach your hand across to touch the next door neighbors home. Nick was not a fan of that at all, so we quickly scrapped that idea and knew that we would eventually be buying a older home that had some fixing up to do... which ended up being my absolute favorite part! We also knew would be getting more for our money if we found an older decent home, that needed some fixing. We could customize it to our liking, at a more reasonable price and get a better size home, in our opinion, then a brand new home.

So towards the end of July we set on our search for our home, which entailed a TON of looking. Then at the beginning of August, before we left for family vacation, we found a Short Sale home we really liked! We fell in love with the location, the potential of the home and could see ourselves living there for a long time. The backyard was an okay size, not to big and not too small(and had a pool). It also had a small driveway/garage and a front yard, inside laundry room and a Christmas Tree Window-they may sound odd to some, but was my personal criteria for any house we bought, ask our Realtor! So we decided to put in an offer right away. The homeowner accepted our offer within a few days, but we also had to wait for the bank to accept too, which is a lengthy process. If you know nothing about Short Sale you can find more info here.
About 4 months in, lots of prayer and drive by's, we got an approval from the bank too! We were given a VERY short time to close escrow, forcing us to ask for an extension. We were thankfully granted a 19 day extension, which gave us tell December 28th to close, but it was still VERY tight to close by then. AND could kill the deal if we didn't make that date. It was literately down to the minuet, with closing on time.
The days right before the 28th were soo hard! Lots of paperwork, not knowing if everything could get done on time...Then the underwriter got in a car accident and was unable to work on our file for a couple of days, unbeknown by our lender, so we lost some time there and the whole thing was up in the air by everyone working on our file, if it could even be done.
On the 28th, I was of course in touch with our Lender multiple times. She emailed me around 3:00 telling me Congrats, the we are going to be homeowners in about an hour or so, when its all done being recorded! I was jumping for joy and could not stop smiling! Then I check my email a few minuets later with her saying, that a legal form was not attached correctly, and our file got kicked back and wouldn't be able to close now until the next day- which would make our extension expire from the bank. I was absolutely devastated!
I began to pray for a miracle. I know that he is a God of miracles and can do anything, so that if this house was supposed to be for us, to please let something happen! About 30 minuets later, our Realtor text me and said that we are on record and Congratulations! I thought he just didn't hear the news yet...but right after that text, our lender called me saying that someone drove our paperwork to the recorders office and the house was officially now ours! I almost burst into tears! I was in complete shock and could not believe what I was hearing. I knew God had this planned from the beginning, each and every step. He made it happen, and just in the knick of time! I think that he was trying to teach me that everything will work out according to his plan and that I just needed trust him no matter what and to NEVER give up hope!!!
I still can't believe after all this time, its our home. There is A LOT of fixing up to do, to get to the point we want, but we really think that is the best part! We will make it our home and add all of our touches on it, down to the doorbell! (it is now a cute little pineapple!)These are the moments I have been waiting for, for a long time! and I will now, also have LOTS of HOME things I can be posting about too!YAY!

We also have some people who made our home happen and want to say THANK YOU!
Our God-for his faithfulness!
Our Relator- Jason Farris!Many text messages to this man throughout the 5 months!haha He is a VERY hard worker, never quits, and always wants the best for his clients.
Corrie Tufte- Assisted our Realtor and I know did tons of things to make it all happen!
Our lender- Tonisha Pacheco!Got us a home loan (with a fabulous rate) and all the headaches that entails!
Our Friends and Family-Who continued to pray for us and Gods plan for us!

Thank you all for helping us get into our first home, we are so happy for this next step in life!

The house is OURS!!!!!!!

I can't believe I am actually saying these words, but the house is officially mine and Nick's! God is soo good and his timing is always perfect. We have been waiting since the beginning of August for our house and it has paid off! I can't even begin to describe all the emotional ups and downs there has been, but am thankful to have finally closed on it and we get the keys at 10:00 tomorrow!

All the Christmas Joy!

Every Christmas eve, Nick and I open the presents we got for one another. We think its such a special time for just the two of us to enjoy our own lil Christmas together, as much as we love being with each of our families.

Family Photo

Oh, and before I forget, I want to compliment the hubsman-he always gets me theee BEST gifts, it really blows my mind! I usually don't put in requests because he ends up getting me better things then I even think I want:)!

Carrera Christmas Time

The best nephews around!

My Family's Christmas at my parents in Caruthers

Patrick & Kimber

Rusty, Amanda & Logan

Rusty playing his famous song on the piano, that none of us know the name of, along with some other shots from the day!

Christmas Morning

I am usually never surprised by the gifts I get from my parents on Christmas, partly because I am the one who goes shopping with my mom for everyone, and end up finding things I want along the way haha...but this year, I was completely surprised: My mother got me the Jonathan Adler cup I broke!!!(thanks to my sister-in-law,Kimber for finding it)

Traditional pic on the couch with most of the family & Grams

My niece Alyssa getting ready to open her gifts, from who I like to call her favorite Auntie:)
Christmas Night with part of the Carrera Clan! Getting ready to head up to Ducey's for dinner on the lake.



As we all know, another year has flown by and its almost time to start a new one again! I hope that you were all able to spend time with your families & friends and enjoy all the special moments. I am trying to soak in the last of this year, but am really ready to start a new one, especially with all the stressful things that have been going on! I know this coming year is going to have A LOT of good things in store, along with some bad-I'm sure, but it always feels so great to create a new start, when the new year rolls around.

An update on my Mom!

If you haven't heard, my mom Joani Tucker, had a heart attack on Tuesday morning, shortly after arriving to her work at Valley Childrens. I received a call from one of her coworkers telling my that my mom had passed out and they did not know what was going on. She informed me they called 911 and an ambulance was on the way to take her to Clovis Community Hospital. Apparently they decided they could not make it all the way to Clovis, so they turned around and took her to the closest hospital available, St. Angus. Where a doctor in charge of the entire cardiac department was waiting to do surgery on her. They found a blockage in a coronary artery, so they put a balloon stint in the main artery and in 2-3 weeks will have to do two more surgeries on two of her other arteries. As of today, she is still in the hospital and is saying they will let to go home today!But then again, my mom might just be telling me that:), we will see shortly! Please continue to pray for her recovery, upcoming surgeries and our family. This has been a very scary thing for us all. There is already so much going on this time of year; for us its been trying to buy a house, survive Christmas craziness, and then add Mom almost dying to the mix, is VERY overwhelming. We appreciate all the love, prayer and support from everyone. We know that something good will come from this and we truly thank God for sparing her life. Hopefully this will be a wake up call for some of us. Please don't take a second of your life for granted, make time to take care of YOURSELF over your kids or whoever! Try to eat a little healthier and go on a bike ride or something! Don't take a second for granted with family either, you NEVER know when something might change. I can't imagine loosing my mom and this was a big scare. We all need our mommies around for a long time, I talk to mine 2-3 times a day! So please, this Christmas make sure you enjoy every second as much as you can and try not to stress, its very bad on your heart!!!I am being lectured on this one myself:)

After all this, sort of put a halt to many things I had planned this season, including my 25 days of Christmas posts! So I am genuinely sorry anyone who was reading them, I was enjoying posting. Hopefully we can all start up a new year fresh and plan to take on a little less stress!

The winner of the TOMS Start Something That Matters book is...

Sorry this is a day late! but here is the winner and please forgive my embarrassing video!




Thank you for all who entered! I truly appreciate it and really do wish I had one for each of you! But keep watch as I am planning more giveaways in the future!

Day 17:Christmas Party Beauty Must-Have's!

Before heading out to your next Christmas get together, you may seriously want to check out the beauty finds below that I am obsessed with, especially during the holidays!

1. OPI Nail Polish in "Love is a Racket" & "Pros & Bronze" $14.50 I can't get over the new Serena Glam Slam series by OPI! Either one of the two colors are perfect for going to any type of holiday get together and they dry SUPER fast- so you can do it in a last minuet hurry!
   
2. MAC eye Kohl in Smolder $15.00- This is the best eye liner I have found to date. Just one of these pencils has lasted me over 1.5 years... and I'm not even exaggerating- I use it on a daily basis and its still going!
3. MAC Creme D'Nude Lipstick $14.50- This lipstick goes perfect with any eye color look, but I especially love a neutral lip, paired with a dark smokey eye.
4. MAC Full Lash Curler $16.00- Whoever has been telling me eyelash curlers don't work, was wrong! This curler is absolutely fab, it makes my lashes extra curly every-time I use it.
   
5. MAC Prep and Prime $23.00- This silky powder can be used for all shades of skin and provides an invisible way to set your make-up. I sometimes just use it over my foundation and then add a touch of blush or bronzer to give my cheeks some color and don't have to worry about anything looking "caked on".
   
6. MAC Eye Shadow in Black Tied $15.00- (I am blatantly a MAC admirer)This Shadow is perfect for creating a sexy smokey eye. It has little specks of silver in the highly-pigmented powder and looks great when going out!
   
7. VS Baked Mineral Bronzing Powder $16.00- In LOVE with this Victoria's Secret bronzer! It gives just the right touch of shimmer and provides that much sought after radiant glow, during the winter, so I don't look so pale!
   
8. Bare Minerals Well Rested SPF Multi-Tasker for eyes $18.00- I don't know about you, but the holidays are soo busy, that I don't get as much sleep as I usually do. As a result, I end up getting extremely dark circles under my eyes and this product is an absolute life-savor! It was an accidental find and have not turned back since.