Fun Pics

Steven's company had a family picnic and we enjoyed it to the fullest!

Aunt Bobbie came with us and was the super Aunt of the day!!

Um, yeah, I stole it...

I totally stole this picture from my thither'th blog. I just had to. I think it is a very good picture of us. :)

A LONG Weekend!

We have been helping our relatives move. UGH!

Don't get me wrong, I love to help people move. I just get very frustrated because they don't do it the way I would/do/have.

I know, I know; that is VERY self-absorbed of me. I don't usually think that my way is best. Okay, maybe I do; I just don't say it out loud very often!

I have moved so many times in my life that it is an actual science now that is challenging only in how to do it better and faster.

I DO NOT WANT TO MOVE AGAIN

Anyway, we did that on Friday and dh did more on Saturday. Saturday evening I was able to go to dinner and a movie with a girlfriend.

psst...I was without children for the whole evening and when I got home, they were in bed!

Needless to say I was up late both Friday and Saturday. (so were the kids) Sunday we went to dh's relatives house (the movers) to visit with his little brother and his wife. We stayed most of the day and came home to get ready for company that evening.

That couple (who is getting married in December!) stayed until around midnight. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and mentoring a young couple. (I am discovering a passion for mentoring young married or about to be married couples.)

Monday, we were able to be a somewhat lazy until I realized my bread maker was broken. I had to get a new one so I could make cinnamon rolls for the company that was coming over that evening!

We went to the movies in the afternoon and saw Kit Kitridge. It was great and tied into the history we are studying in Tapestry of Grace. Fun times.

After the movie, we rushed home to get ready for more company.

Our company that night was another young couple who has been married under five years. It just happened to be dh's youngest brother! We had a sweet time of fellowship and they stayed until 1am!!!

Needless to say, this morning we all overslept. Except dh, that is. We are all tired and ready for a quiet night at home doing absolutely nothing. :)

Nothing, except building nests for science and finishing the Wright Flyers and folding laundry and ironing and...

It really happened!!!

Well...We actually signed the papers and sold our house today! I am doing the dance of joy right now! LOL I didn't think it was going to happen, really. After everything that went on. For the last week, I was really feeling burndened to pray for the other couple and we got to meet them today. They are our age and have had so much financial trouble as well as personal trouble that they were terribly greatful for the house and how patient we were with all the problems that came up. We were able to look at them and tell them that God had blessed us so how could we not bless them? It was really neat. They were surprised at how calm we were about all the problems and just kept thanking us for hanging in there so they could have the house! I am hoping that God is using this to show Himself to them in a mighty way.

WE ARE SOOO EXCITED!! :) Oh, and because we had to make one more house payment on the old house, our closing costs were less than we thought! WOOHOO!! Now, we just have to wait to close on this house until next week when the sellers get back from vacation. Then, this house will officially be ours! God is so good. :)

So far, so good...

We heard from our realtor last night that the underwriters had okayed the purchase of our house for the buyers and the appraisor would have his paper work in on Monday. It looks like everything is a go, for now anyway!! We are set to sign the papers on Tuesday afternoon. Then we will not sign papers to buy this house until the following week. I am trying not to get pessimistic about this. I am trying to keep a positive attitude and still be realistic at the same time.

On an up note, the people we are buying this house from called and said that we are not moving out of this house. They truly believe that God wants us to be in this house and they will help us get that done. Can you believe these people? What a blessing they are and how faithful they are to God's call on their life. An example for sure.

Here's to hoping for Tuesday!! LOL

Still Waiting...

Well, we are still waiting to sign the contracts to buy and sell. Can you believe it? Last week it was the lender changing underwriters. This week the lenders discovered that the buyers have had over 60 hits on their credit in the last 60 days. They didn't do any of them, so they think that it was identity theft. It will take approximately 2-3 months to get them all cleared off their credit. So, we are going to rent our house to them and we are going to rent this house. It isn't a great solution, but it works. We are just waiting to sign the renters contracts to make it official. I am really frustrated and trying to keep focused on the fact that God brought us this house and it is His will for us to be here. I firmly believe that He will work it out for us. I'm believing God.

Our new house!!!

This is our new house that God gave us. He brought it to us and completely blessed our socks off with it. It is more than we could have ever dreamed of and we are incredibly grateful.

That is the 'Formal Dining Room' IT HAS A BAY WINDOW!!! I have wanted one for years and now God has given me one. Someone has also given us a new china hutch for the dining room that we will get in the next few weeks. Notice the dh again! He is following me around. LOL

This is the 'Formal Living Room'!! This is the first room you see when you walk in. It is bigger than this, I just couldn't get it all in the picture. On the wall to the right in the photo we have our piano. And the good looking man in the picture is my dh!!

This is our Kitchen and 'breakfast nook'. It has a ton of cabinet space. The stove top is in the island with cabinets underneath and the stove is on the wall to the right in the picture with more cabinets above and below it!!! It is a wonderfully big kitchen!

This is the pantry that is on the wall beside the oven. I am sooo excited by this that I just open the door and turn the light on and look into it!! there are shelves top to bottom. There is another storage room on this same wall that I didn't take pictures of; but, it has shelves in it and it is is big enough you can walk into it and turn around and not bump into anything else. LOL

This is the hallway looking from our bedroom to the main bathroom. Can you tell who that head is? Yup-my dh. He really was following me around! Along this hallway on the left is the coat closet, dd#3 and #4' room(they share), and the spare room. Yes, I said a spare room. We can actually have overnight guests that don't have to sleep on a couch now. I guess we better get another bed!

This is the main bathroom. It has a whirlpool/jacuzzi tub thingy. And that is the technical term for it in our house! I tried it out tonight and it felt great. I can tell that I will be spending a great amount of time in there! LOL It also has a window in it that lets in wonderful sonlight.

This is the downstairs. I have a basement now!! I almost can't believe it. There is somewhere to send the kids when I am trying to do my quiet time or am on the phone! WOOHOO! This is looking across the room from the stairs and the computer and desk is on the left and there is a bathroom on the right. We have a fireplace on the far wall.

This is the school room! TAADAA~It had the shelves already in it. We can also fit in a futon, a desk and a computer in there. Then there is still room for them to sit on the floor. It is truly a blessing to have somewhere to put all the school stuff and not have it spread all over the house. (It still kind of is, we just have somewhere to put it now!)

This is the bedroom for dd's #1 and 2. This room is big enough that they each have their own twin size beds, two dressers, a dressing table and a couch in it!!!! The also have closet spaces of their own.

They think the closets are soo cool!

This is almost the best part. This is our backyard. It has actual grass that we can walk around in barefoot!! It also has a patio that is big enough that the girls can ride their scooters on. We are really enjoying the grass. There are no stickers to be found in this yard-anywhere. I don't think that we will take grass for granted ever again.

We're HERE!!!

Well...We are in our new house! We moved on Saturday-all of it! We had at least 20 people show up to help us move and we moved our ENTIRE HOUSE in about 6 hours! We could not believe that it went so fast. Then we had so much help that my mom unpacked and set up the entire kitchen and friends helped set up the beds. Everyone had a bed to sleep in our first night. We ended up needing only three beds because two kids slept in beds with other kids! Oh well! Everyone was safe and happy.

We are loving our house! It truly is a blessing from a Father who cares for every need and want that we have. We are in awe of His lavish love every time we look around at what He gave us. There are almost no words that describe what we are feeling. How great is the love the Father has for His children!

We are having a little drama in that the closing has been delayed until next week. The FHA inspector couldn't get to our old house in time for the closing this week. It shouldn't be a problem unless he says that we have to do some major repairs or changes. Oh YEAH-I think I forgot-we have termites at the old house. We have to have that treated before we can sell it. That was wonderful news last week!-NOT. I cried so much that my eyes were almost swollen shut! Then I had someone remind me that God was in control and He would make it work. He did. The termite guy is giving us a HUGE discount and we can cover the price he gave us. Another blessing and provision from God! His goodness will never end.

For now, we are on our way to the old house to do some painting and ground work before the inspection. No school today! The girls are thirlled with that!! ;0

Has it really been that long?

I can't believe that it has been this long since I have posted! Life has been quite crazy here what with all the packing and such! We have also had other things in life going on(imagine that!).

We have moved a few things over to the new house!!!! We are finally getting excited about it. However, the buyers still haven't had an appraiser come to the house and that has to be done in order for them to buy it. We are getting nervous about that. But, God is in control and we will rest in that.

We take dd#3 back to the Ear, Nose, Throat Specialist on Wed. and hopefully she will let them do what they need to do so we can find out why she has hearing loss.

Soccer starts for dd's #1 and 2 tonight. We got them on the same team this year to save one night of practices and crazy times on games days. We'll see how it goes to have them together and if they drive each other, the coach, and their teammates crazy!

Dd#3 starts soccer on Friday-the same night we have a family picnic for our Homeschool group! So we have to decide which one to go to-there is no way to do both.

We also have to be completey ready to move the whole house on Saturday morning at 8am. That is when everyone is showing up to help us move. Being the OCD person that I am-EVERYTHING has to be done before anyone shows up! I think I am going to drive the entire family crazy this week.

PLUS----(like there needed to be anything else) We are doing school and starting a new curriculum this week!! WOOHOO!

I think I am certifiable!! What do you think? On second thought, don't answer that!

Our new house!

This is the house we are moving into in a few weeks. Isn't it beautiful? Notice the green stuff in the front yard? It's called grass and it is all over the front AND back yards!!! LOL At our current house we have stickers, sticker, and more stickers. We have already gone over and walked around barefoot! WOOHOO!! It has everything we have ever wanted in it. It has a schoolroom and room to grow! It has a wonderfully large kitchen with two pantries and tons of cabinet space. What a blessing this house is and we have already agreed to use it to host the people who help out with our camp for get togethers! I can't wait to see what God does through us in this house!

Maybe next time

Well, the deal for our house fell through. The buyers couldn't get the funding because of bad credit. So, we are back to showing the house again. I am pretty bummed about this as I was gearing up to pack and dreaming about the schoolroom in the other house. I know that God is in control and it will happen in His time; but I would really like that to be now!!!

We had someone look at it tonight. We are also changing real estate agencies. Our agent is moving agencies and so we will go with her which means that we get a new MLS number and that means that it goes out new all over again and maybe will generate some new interest. That with the new floor and the landscaping, maybe we can get some more people interested.

For now, we are trusting God for His timing.

Back and Forth

Well, we got a contract on the house on Saturday night-a verbal one at least. And on Sunday evening they still hadn't signed because their lending agent keeps adding fees and changing things on them. We hope/pray that they will change lending fees and we can proceed with the contract. Meanwhile, we are signing the contract on the house we want to buy on Monday night.

I have 17 days to pack and move our entire house. We also have inspections to go through on this house. That's a little scary because you don't know what they are going to say and ask for.

The baby is better and now dd#2 is sick with a sore throat and a wet cough. YEAH! That is why I am up so late/early. I have been up most of the night anyway, so I thought I would post.