Choose-A-Home Competition 2012

Hello, ladies and gentlemen.  As you may know, five people in a three bedroom apartment on the third floor of a building with no elevator is tricky business, so we are entertaining the idea of looking elsewhere for our living needs.

That's where you come in!  There are a lot of homes on the market, and given our history of indecisiveness, it's impossible to make such an important decision on our own.  So we've selected a handful of representative house styles within our price range, which you can vote on to guide our future.

So without further ado, here are the finalists.

1. Classic Suburbia

This type of home seems to be all the rage these days. Comes with a nice, quiet neighborhood full of middle class families far from the hustle and bustle of downtown and where all the houses look the same.

2. The Deck

This type of home has proven popular with others in the past. Located on a hill, the chances of it being wrecked by a flood are low, but you have to do your own cooking.

3. The Manor

This home would do well to prevent the "stuck staring at the same four walls" syndrome so many other houses can cause. Another plus is that you could get away with three screaming kids throwing tantrums and not have to worry about all your neighbors hearing you. You can also put all the water you want on the driveway without fear of the cops getting called, which is good if the fountain ever starts leaking.

4. The Basketball Jones

This is the ideal home for the up-and-coming Basketball Jones. Just look at that basketball hoop location and imagine all the trick shots you could pull off. Throwing the ball through one window and having it bounce out the other and into the hoop is just one of countless possibilities.

5. The Yo Shack

We're rather partial to this one. It's on the lower end of our budget, meaning we could fill it with better furniture, a quality entertainment system and lots of fancy toys for the kids that we wouldn't be able to afford elsewhere. And should a natural disaster ever happen to destroy the place, rebuilding it is a simple one-afternoon affair.

6. The Castle

This provides a good balance between all the other options.  Looks fancy but stays modest, and it would be great to come home to in the winter where the warm glow of the fire is waiting with marshmallows and hot cocoa.  We could also play host to murder mystery dinners without any extra effort to fit the theme.

7. Home Sweet Home

It might not have the height of its neighbors, but this cozy split-level is far more homely. And it's got a flagpole. You don't get much better than a flagpole. The lawn is also impeccable and it has a spacious, fenced backyard - perfect for our plans to add one mini-golf hole a year for the next 18 years.

8. Bane of Mailmen

Moving closer to older part of Madison, this would provide both a nice location and vintage feel. But it probably has a mail slot, so not only would we need to subscribe to as many magazines and catalogs as we possibly can, we would also need a dog for the porch area to sit guard and wait to snap at any tasty fingers that might poke through.


So there you have it. Where should we live? Cast your votes now in the comments section. Don't let this opportunity to take part in the Heit Family's future slip by!

Candid Catch-up

We have been doing stuff you guys we really have! We have been busy enjoying the spring weather. Last night we had a thunderstorm and thunder literally shook our apartment once. It was pretty cool. Good thing none of the kids decided to notice. :)

Here's Kairi welcoming you with a new fashion she played with for a few days: Pants on the head. Oh yah!

We went to a Madison's Children's Expo in March and got some really cool stuff for free by walking around and playing the activities. Here Kairi and Kate are showing off balloon swords.

There were some baby chicks (and goats which I thought were cuter) that the kids could look at.Kate's favorite was this one that she lingered at for a long time. 

We did see the hot dog car! 

 Oh intermission, here's a dress I finished making. Okay.

 Here is Mr. Conductor (from Dinosaur Train) made out of legos! He actually lasted a few weeks.

So I know this is rather blurry, but Wesley enjoyed playing mini-golf at the expo. He had to play this same course (with one hole) about three times.

In the month of March, we also went to the Children's Madison Museum for free because someone in the ward had a free pass they needed to use that weekend. We took it. It was a good way to get out kids energy between Saturday conference sessions. 

Here we have, a mom, Kate, Wesley, and Kairi

Kate loves crawling through tunnels!

We've been giving Wesley and Kairi early driving lessons. Just so long as they stay on the sidewalk with that thing they should be okay.

I totally remember playing with a small broom as a little girl. The girls liked playing with them at the museum. At home they play with the much larger version, one going for the broom and the other one for the mop. I like the smaller versions better since the handles didn't keep whacking me.

Here the kids are playing with a water attraction.

With spring weather comes parks! Wesley really likes this chitty chitty bang bang car. Kate, Wesley, Kairi.

Here's a tire tunnel shot.

We have made it to April! A few months back Wesley caught onto the idea of April fools day and hid a lego clown in the fridge making sure to tell us April Fools when we found it. So for the actual day, we decided to bring the clown back around. He sure did around...He was in about six or so different places on April first.

I thought this was a cute one of Kairi pointing. I've been trying to get a picture of her scrunched up nose face, but still haven't managed to grab it. 

 Kate rides a dino!

 And now on to Easter! I wish we could have done the egg hunt outside like we did last year, but the wind on Easter was rather fierce and we didn't think the kids would even look for one egg let alone ten or so when they were complaining about the wind.
Kate didn't do too much looking anyway. It was way more fun to push Wesley's stroller all over the place.

Wesley had a few special eggs. This one was his favorite. Lego Harry Potter!

I got to hunt for a few eggs too. It was a little hard to do since Wesley wanted to help me find them all. I tried to stay an egg ahead of him.

After the egg hunt the girls started to climb some stairs. They got pretty high.

Warning: These next pictures were not taken by me. I wouldn't put them up at all except at the end of the day I asked Chris what his favorite part of our Easter excursion was and he said getting Wesley to take this picture (well the one following this). It's Wesley with a mad face a scary prop. I don't know it's a either a guy thing or just a "this would bother mom thing" so scroll down past it quick!

Oh much nicer down here! We made our way around to ride on some swings. We didn't stay out long since it was still windy.

This last weekend (as in yesterday) we went to visit the Jelly Belly warehouse that is out here. Here is the Jelly Belly car.

The girls liked to play on the chairs afterward while we tried out samples. We tried earthworm and birthday cake. I found earthworm to taste a little like a red pepper.

We all had to wear these hats on the train ride since we were in a warehouse. I thought the hats were cool and now they're by the toys, which probably means that I'll throw them away if they get ignored in the next week, or throw them away once they get torn to bits.

This is not an Easter Post

So time to get up some videos Wesley and I have created a while back! This one was originally created in August of last year (2011). It's still pretty cool though.

And here is this years creation made in March!

I hope you all enjoyed your movies! See you again sometime soon since we really need to update this, but I ran out of time again.... Bye.