my to do list

To Do List – to be completed in 20 days by January 15th

Organize and achieve some sort of order out of all the toys the grandparents blessed the kids with for Christmas

Pack entire house

Unpack into new house

Have a baby or somehow find energy to do it all

Keep smiling

I seriously need to pinch myself often and wonder if it’s all a dream, because we move in to our new home January 15th. It’s been a long emotional roller coaster of real estate for us the past year. We walked, kicked and screamed through the journey of listing our current home for sale, with 16 showings in 40 days from buyers who seemed to be just “kicking tires”…to looking at house after house to accommodate our growing family…to then putting down a not-so-small deposit on building a new home…to that builder filing bankruptcy…to pulling out our money and being able to do so only because we took our current home off the market and our building contract was contingent on the sale of our home, which we now weren’t doing.

And now, things have worked themselves out in a way that we never expected, and GOD IS SO GOOD. We are keeping our current home, and renting it out to my sister and brother-in-law, and their own growing family. I love them so much, and I couldn’t be happier that they are starting the next chapter of their lives together with my nephew in what was our first home. I can’t wait to see what they do with it when they move in and make it their own. 

Jason and I just recently celebrated 6 years of marriage committment to each other. Through it all, our marriage has grown…and then stalled…and then leaped…and then baby-stepped…and then sprinted. Not necessarily in that order. We have come a long way, and never gave up. We’ve said we are going to, but never really meant it. Since we promised to love each other forever through anything and everything on November 30, 2003, we’ve changed into different people and God made it so that every single change that happened complimented the other in such a way that only promoted more change, even though sometimes it sucked.

We started out with the girls, my step-daughters, and have since added three more blessings and another on the way. Our family has multiplied but the square footage in our house hadn’t. We have filled our current home with so much love over the passed 5 years, but there was no denying that we just couldn’t stay here any longer. So, we looked. And looked, and looked and looked and looked. We looked at old. We looked at new. God closed every single door that wasn’t meant to be. We pray it every single time, but it still doesn’t take away the sting when it happens. We pray, “Lord, if this isn’t in your will, shut the door and keep it from happening.” And He does, and it hurts and we move on.

So, one Sunday morning we printed out our 5+ list of homes and packed everyone in the car for one of our regular “home tours”. We’d drive to all of them and scope out the neighborhood and the land before we bothered calling the real estate agent. When we drove up to this one, we were both intrigued. I think we said things like, “oh, this is really nice on the outside”, and “wow, look at that view”. We actually parked the van and got all three kids out of the car and stalked the yard. It was the very last one we looked at that day and the only one that we desired to see the inside of. When we made the appointment to go and see it, I absolutely could not play it cool. As we were walking around (without any kids, grandma had them) I knew that the rules of real estate was that I wasn’t to show the listing agent how in love I was, but I really could not stop smiling. My heart was bursting. Later on that night Jason and I were talking about the cost of heating the home and when I told him that I thought it felt really cozy when we were in there, he said it was “just my adrenaline”. I admit…I was amped.

And so we talked, and talked, and talked, and prayed, and talked and decided to make an offer. We handed it over to the Lord and said if it’s the home for us, then it will happen and if not, there’s another one out there. There was a counter-offer and a counter-to-the-counter-offer and then it happened. It was the home for us and I can’t wait to make it our own. It’s just perfect for our big family. Makes me want to have another one after this. Not so much. Biological baby #4 for me and #6 total spells DONE for us. We’re ready for the next stage of life…one without poop diapers.

I can’t show interior pictures yet sillies…I need to save eye candy for other posts.