House

Holy Cow! We're getting a house!! It still doesn't feel real, so I feel kind of weird about it. We're still waiting on home inspection and appraisal to be done, so I guess it's not official until papers are signed, but they accepted our offer and we're moving forward. Closing is set for May 25th. I've already been on the phone at least 20 times this morning with house related stuff. Yikes!

I can't tell you how nice it will be to be done with all the waiting and wondering and get moved in!

The house is in the same neighborhood that the boys' school is in. They will be able to walk or ride their bikes to school. And I will only have to walk a few steps down the sidewalk to be able to watch them all the way to the door of the school. That is seriously the best part of the whole deal! And, there is a community playground a few steps from the house that Gracie will surely take advantage of especially while the boys are in school. And the community pool is right next to the park. Hello?! I'm almost jealous of myself!! :-)

It's 2220 sq ft. (almost 1,000 sq ft bigger than our BV house was when we were living in it). Needless to say, we will have room to spread out! The other day when we were looking at it with my dad, we heard Gracie hollering for us and we couldn't find her for a few seconds. I said, "How nice is it that I might be able to lose my own kids in my own house! Hallelujah!"
It is 2 stories. 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths. There's 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and the rest is downstairs.
We are planning to replace some flooring in the house right away before we move in. Depends on the finances at the time. We also intend to update the kitchen at some point. The kitchen is clean and the appliances work, so it will be fine. We will have to go ahead and buy a new fridge though because there isn't one in the house right now.
Also, the downstairs bedroom has it's own bathroom, but that is also the only downstairs bathroom besides the master. So, we are going to cut a hole in the wall and make a door into that bathroom accessible from the foyer area. That will come a little later probably. So, we'll just have to enter that bathroom thru that bedroom for a while. That downstairs bedroom is going to be my office for now. As the kids get older and the boys need their own rooms, then it will probably be Gracie's bedroom, and we'll let the boys have the whole upstairs.
Also, there is a little built in office off the living room- which is nestled under the staircase. At first I thought it was wacky and I wanted to close it in and use it for storage or something. Then, we decided that it would be a nice area that the kids could have a computer and do their homework and arts and crafts and stuff. THEN, I had the mother of all revelations as I woke up in the middle of the night... It can be mamma's scrapbook nook! HELLO!!!! I've always dreamed of having a place to do my scrapbooking. I love to keep up with them, but I've not picked up a single scrapbook since I was 5 months pregnant with Gracie. It's been over 3 years. So, that is the current plan. I can already picture myself in that room working away my stress all by my lonesome. :-)

Like I've said all along, God is in control of all of this and I belive if it's meant to be, then it will happen. If something were to go wrong with the home inspection or the appraisal or anything else between now and the closing date of May 25th, then it just means it wasn't meant to be. I am praying that it all works out though, because we really like the house. We know that it will be perfect with those few changes made and we feel like for the price, we will have a good investment on our hands after the upgrades are done and the housing market recovers down the road.

We are so excited! We are so blessed! This has been a long year of waiting and finally our prayers are being answered and we are even able to get more house than we had been hoping for. Thank you so much for praying for us and encouraging me to keep my head up through this last year. I would've truly lost my mind if not for those prayers and kind words.
We are also so thankful for the support of our parents through all of this. I don't know that I would've been so supportive if my kids up and moved my grandkids an hour away with no notice! We are thankful that they all love and support us even if it doesn't all make sense -and that they let us make our own decisions- even if we come to regret them later. Because that's how we've learned and grown through the years. I think we're pretty grown up for our age...and we owe it to them.
Thanks to PaPa for coming to check out the house with us this week even though he was busy with work. It would never be something he would want to live in (country boy in the city would never do!), but he was objective and gave us his opinions on everything. We never like to make big decisions like that without his input. So, overall, we got his seal of approval, and here we are!
I will keep you posted. Hope you all have a great rest of the week!