Snowy House

We had to get some pictures of the new house on Christmas day in the snow!
Only one more day!!!

Christmas 2012

It was a great weekend, followed by a great holiday. Tonight we finished the day with a fantastic dinner at my Aunt Janet's house. It was yummy and wonderful. My grandmother, Aunt Kim, Janet, and cousins were there. Hudson had a fantastic time!

 Hudson's highlight of the morning was Slinky the Dog

He LOVED opening gifts this year.

                                                
 Loves his matchbox cars-thanks Grandma & Grandpa!

 Nothing like watching The Christmas Story over and over. Especially on a swinging TV.

 A tapir, zebra, and lots of cars!

 The North Pole! Cutest ride ever.

The Broadmoor!

So gorgeous.

Our Christmas! Hudson picked out the pink lights for his traveling tree....and Target had a mass shortage of any other color :)

Merry Christmas Eve!

So plans don't always go the way you think they will. We received word late thursday that we might not be able to close on time, because the final appraisal to change the condition of the house on the appraisal work from incomplete to complete did not occur on wednesday. The house had just been completed too slow. There were a lot of people to blame as to why this occurred, but the bottom line is that the appraisal occurred late in the afternoon thursday and notice of consent to close issued friday morning. By the time the bank received all of the consents to the close for the day, we were too far down on the list. The bank was closed Christmas Eve.  So-we got bumped, and the movers can only move us on the 28th. We are closing early the 27th.  

Our Christmas was based on moving into our new home. However, Christmas isn't about new homes or wreaths. So-we went to a quick plan B. We quickly checked our favorite place in Colorado to see if they had any availability-The Broadmoor. They did! We just wanted a relaxing holiday weekend with our little boy. We wanted to enjoy each other and have lovely meals and relaxing times. So-we left town early saturday and have been staying in a beautiful suite, with a Christmas tree we bought on the way here!

The snow is set to arrive this evening. We didn't want to commute on Christmas from Colorado Springs to Denver in the snow (we have family dinner plans in Arvada), so we decided we would leave Christmas Eve and go stay in downtown Denver. We rented a suite, with fireplace (for Santa of course :)), and will bring our traveling Christmas tree and Hudson's newly purchased temporary Buzz Lightyear stocking.  We have sushi reservations for Christmas Eve dinner :) Non-traditional but very memorable.

We have had a gorgeous time in the Springs. Checking on the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and Manitou Springs yesterday.  The day before relaxing in this beautiful room watching Christmas movies and reading Christmas books, and having champagne delivered to our room.  Beautiful meals and lovely times.

It has been relaxing, wonderful and great. We head downtown tonight. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas!!! We will update soon after we FINALLY close on our new home!!! :)

Closing is tomorrow!

Can't believe we close tomorrow! We are super excited. It has been quite cold in the Denver area and is about 8 degrees right now. Luckily it is supposed to be back up in the fifties in time for the move on Saturday.

In other amazing news, Brandon and I became Auntie and Uncle again to our beautiful new niece Rosalia Marie Albano today. She is gorgeous and we are so excited to meet her soon!! Pictures to come!

Shutters

So excited about the shutters!

On the mend

H is finally starting to feel better and we are healing this week and getting ready for the big move. Very excited about that! Here is a picture of my big boy eating frozen yogurt yesterday:

He is so huge and absolutely adorable these days. We are so amazingly blessed to have him as our son. He didn't have a booboo, just loves bandaids.

Can't believe this time next week we will be living in our new house! A lot to be done this weekend including starting to pack up! Luckily Becca will watch H on friday and saturday while we are moving.  Then we are looking forward to a long Christmas vacation at home together in our new home.

Merry Christmas to all!

Walk through is Complete....

 New lantern

Entryway still awaiting shutters, rails, etc.

I think we made great progress!

The day of walkthrough....

Side porch with stairs (awaiting railings). All outside doors including this one will be painted black.

Front portico (redone and painted) also awaiting railing

And the front of the house-almost done! 

We have our final walkthrough today. The shutters aren't on, railing not up, the vents on the roof not painted yet, the mantle not on and the microwave mysteriously missing. Other than that, things are starting to come together. We close in a week!!! We can't wait. In the meantime, we are facing a nasty bit of croup for Hudson (which has been even more fun because my week is full of court appearances and is insanely busy). We will start packing the loft up this weekend-we got it rented starting Jan. 5 so won't have any overlapping payments except for about a week (til end of Dec). Got my Christmas cards out-so now I just need to get all my gifts purchased!

Stairs and New Portico

The portico has been redone as it was incorrect, and the stairs have gone up. The portico is still waiting for paint, and the stairs still need railings. The house is still waiting for shutters!

Walkthrough is on thursday, and so is our professional inspection. We shall see what the inspector finds. Hopefully not a ton of things. Can't wait for those black shutters to go up! The pictures make the house look more yellow than it really is in person.

Three Days Until Our Final Walkthrough

And the house is still in a bit of disarray! We thought for sure they would be caught up by now. Here's hoping to a very productive three days for the builder to get things in shape before we walkthrough.

On another note-we are slowly getting ready to move again here in the Albano house, as closing is coming up in less than two weeks now!

Our weekend has been fun and filled with things to do. Saturday H had to get a long overdue haircut:

He is getting so big and looks grown up all of the sudden! We had to do the little tasks we won't have time to do: getting a list of items together to bring up at the walkthrough, replenishing dog food, replacing a bulb in a burned out tail light, laundry...the list goes on and on.....

I bought two wreaths for the two main doors (porch and front). Very much looking forward to seeing them up on our doors in less than two weeks!! YAY!

We have appliances

 The hood is covered in plastic still...

Still awaiting the microwave :)

More pics

 Kitchen awaiting paint touchups

 Brick walk (Still awaiting stairs)

Glass cabinet doors

Me and my bug

Thanks Missy for taking amazing photos. Love that we captured H at this age.

House

We are getting closer to closing and it can't come soon enough!

Kitchen

Just awaiting hardware, appliances, glass on two cabinets, hood.

Progress

The house is a mess as they finish touchups-but here is a picture of H holding our address plate and the kitchen with lights on. It is so nice to see it with lights on. :) We are still missing our mantle, our hood in the kitchen, appliances, the glass doors, hardware, etc.  Not to mention the trim needs to be finished, baseboards, etc. Hopefully this week! Walk through in 8 days! They better hurry :)