We're First Time Homeowners!!

We closed on our house this week!!

It's all ours now and the hard work begins today!!

Exciting News!

If you follow me on Facebook or follow along with my other blog (The Cozy Old Farmhouse) then you might already know about this exciting news.  But for those of you who don't have Facebook and such I figured I'd share the news over here as well.

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We're buying a house!!!

It's a 3/2 doublewide that's sitting on almost 5 acres, and Lord willing we close on it within a week.  It was a foreclosure so that's how we were able to get it with our limited budget.  : )  It's been sitting empty for almost a year so it's pretty overgrown.  I can't wait to get it mowed down and looking purdified.

The outside is fairly plain (for now), but the inside is really nice and has lots of room and space to spread out.  :)

Above is a partial view of the front yard (half mowed, half not).

And this is a partial view of the backyard.  So much space, I love it!!

I won't bore you with a bunch of interior pictures, but I do have to share my favorite room of the house...

The kitchen!  It's SO big, well at least compared to anything I've ever had, and it's such a great functional layout.  I can't wait to get in there and start cookin'!

On the other end of the room is what will become the dining room.  Technically, it's supposed to be a family room, but I've never seen the point of having a separate living room and family room, and I've always wanted a big dining room right next to the kitchen so that's what it will become.  

One of our first projects will be to rip out the carpet and lay laminate wood flooring through the kitchen and dining areas.  Part of the existing laminate in the kitchen has been ruined by a leak in the fridge, so since it'll need replaced anyways we plan to just take it all out and lay the same flooring throughout the two rooms.

We have lots of other projects in mind for the future, but 3 main ones that we hope to accomplish before we move in, Lord willing by Christmas.

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!  :D

Halie's 6th Barbie Princess Birthday

Back in August we celebrated Halie's 6th birthday.  We made a quick weekend trip back to Hobe Sound so we could spend it with family and had the party at my mom and dad's house.  Months and months ago she had requested a Barbie party.  She still loves the color pink so I knew we had to incorporate that.

One day I was searching images of Barbie cakes and she saw the standing doll cake and gasped and declared that was the kind of cake she wanted!

I was able to find some Barbie Princess plates and cups on Ebay.  They were a discontinued item and apparently in high demand because they were kind of expensive!  So I only got one pack of each and supplemented with plain pink plates.

I added little clusters of purple dollar store flowers to keep things from being overly pink.

I had pink crepe paper leftover from her 4th birthday so we added a few streamers.

I also had pink tulle left from her 4th bday and I used it around the cake pedestal as well as to tie a pretty fluffy bow on her chair.

She only has two Barbies, one is purple and the other pink and she wanted those to be used in the decor somehow so we put them here on the punch table.  : )

The cake wasn't quite what I had wanted, and we had to request that a mistake be fixed before taking it from the store, BUT...she loved it and that's all that mattered.

She also had pink dress up necklace that she wanted used
as well, so we draped it around the cake pedestal.

Sweet little bubby was just as excited for her birthday as she was!

It was so cute that both Great Grandmas showed up wearing purple without even knowing what the colors of the party were going to be!  : )

BFF cousins - Halie and Emma

New roller skates from Papaw and Nana DeLamarter.

And a new bike from Papaw and Meemaw Cantrell.

We celebrated her birthday the Saturday before, but her actual birthday was on Monday.  I used a bit of leftover party decor to set the table for dinner to make it feel a little more special.

She thought she had opened all her gifts at her party, but I surprised her with two more.

She love love loves Doritos, and one day in Walmart she told me she wanted a whole bag of them all to herself for her birthday.  : )  The princess tent was an after Christmas clearance purchase I got for only $5!  Gotta love CVS!  : )

She's already put in her request for her 7th birthday - "Mommy, I want a horse...a real horse!"

Answer to an Un-prayed Prayer

Ok, so I know I'm posting this out of order and I totally skipped over June and our whole moving ordeal and all of that, but I'll come back to all of that...eventually.  For now, I wanted to share a blessing and an answer to an un-prayed prayer.

For those of you who don't know, we secured this rental house sight unseen and the real estate agent assured us it would be cleaned before we got here.  Well...it wasn't.  Far from it.  It was disgustingly dirty and I burst into tears after walking through it.  (I'll tell more about this whole ordeal later.)  The stove was really gross and I couldn't imagine having to cook on it.  My family ended up pitching in and we cleaned the house top to bottom before getting settled in.  They did a great job on the stove, as much as could have been done seeing how bad it was.  It was at least passable and I felt I could make a meal on it with only a small chance of contracting some disease.  :)

After it's scrub down, and from a distance it didn't seem too awfully bad.  But....when you looked up close...

The display was cracked in 3 places, the timer didn't work, it was yellowed and gross in all the hard to reach nooks and crannies (that was just for you WB!).....

The paint was bubbling and chipping off along the metal parts, there was just grease and thick grime in the places you couldn't get to.....

and the broiler drawer was a nightmare.  Corroded and rusty and disgusting.

The range hood above wasn't much better.  It was almond colored, but it was supposed to be white.  It had really yellowed from age and probably from smokers.

It was yellowed and gross around the switches, and the paint was chipping off all over it.

The very worst part was up underneath.  It was SO greasy and sticky and filthy that you couldn't even touch it!!  I tried to scrub it down with a steel wool SOS pad and even that wouldn't clean it!!  Bleck!! :P

So.....I said all of that to say, the very first night that I was finally able to cook a homemade meal I did spaghetti and garlic bread.  I got the pasta all made and went to heat the oven for the bread.  I checked it a couple of minutes later and....nothing.  No heat at all.  I called my dad, he told us what to try, we tried it, and it didn't work. I was secretly jumping for joy and praising the Lord it didn't work!!  I was hoping beyond hope that this would mean we could get a replacement.  

I emailed the agent told her the problem (along with all the other things wrong with it) and asked about the possibility of replacing it with a nice used one instead of trying to repair it.  I offered for us to do the leg work of finding one and installing it, saying that it would make it easier on her, but really it was so that I could pick out my own and not have to worry that they'd come in with some avocado green monstrosity that I'd stroke over.  Amazingly the owners said we could spend up to $400 on a replacement.  They never even questioned the fact that we were claiming it didn't work.

We started searching Craigslist, but weren't having a whole lot of luck finding a gas range that was nice, in good condition, the right color, and in our price range.  Finally we found one for $250, but the guy told us he wouldn't be able to meet with us until the following evening.  Later that night we called to confirm that we could still come see it and found that he had sold it out from under us!  I was so aggravated, but I was trying to trust that God had something better in mind.

So...the next morning we headed out to a town a little over an hour away to check out a used appliance store.  There we found a really nice, really clean GE range for $250.  I hadn't actually asked the landlord about replacing the range hood, but figured it really needed done even if we had to foot the bill.  I didn't see any in his shop, but went ahead and asked if he happened to have any.  He thought for a moment, then went and dug out the only one he had.  A brand new, never been out of the box, beautiful white one.  He said he'd sell it for $35 (the cheapest one I saw at Sears was $170!).

He gave us a discount for paying cash as well as a little discount for bringing in the old stove, so we got both items for a grand total of $265, well under the budget.  It is SUCH a huge improvement in the kitchen and makes me so much happier to cook on.

Ahhhh...much better!!

It worked out really well that Robert hadn't started work yet because it allowed us to run all over tarnation hunting one down, and also it gave him time to do the installation.  It was set up for natural gas, but we have propane here so he had to convert all the fittings and reset all the orifices correctly.  Thankfully he had plenty of time to complete it all.

I hadn't even prayed about the disgusting stove.  I just figured it was one of those things I'd have to learn to be content with, but God saw fit to provide a blessing even though I hadn't asked for it.  I am so very grateful for His all knowing ways and for His love for me that shows even in the little details of life.

A Highlight Reel

Since I seem to always be running behind on this family blog, and the last post I did was about January and it's now June...I decided to just give you a highlight reel of the past few months to get you caught up.

Valentines Day - The kids helped make a paper chain to decorate with and I set the table so that we could have a festive family breakfast that morning.

I made a big platter full of heart shaped pancakes and Robert made scrambled eggs and bacon to go with it.

Dad D. was visiting a friend in Michigan so the kiddos and I made a day trip and drove up to spend part of a day with him.  It sure was good to see him!

Somewhere along the lines of this time frame we got a bunch more snow and the kiddos had a blast playing in it for a few days.

Burl discovered a love for puzzles.

The one in the above picture is supposed to be for ages 4+, but after just a couple of tries and a minimal amount of help he had it all figured out.

Great Grandma Staffa learned of his puzzle hobby and sent him a brand new one in the mail.  I timed him on this one, from the time I took it out of the box and when he had it complete was 7 minutes!  He amazes me!

Once the weather started to warm up just a bit we had a fun family day and visited a children's science museum.

I continued the kiddos schooling.  Here Burl is doing a name recognition activity.  By the end of the year he had learned all his colors and shapes, can count to 10, recognizes and can say about half of the alphabet letters, and recognizes and can tell you how to spell his name.

We made a trip down to Lebanon, OH for our little cousin Jaxon's birthday party.  Afterwards, we went out to eat at Frisch's with them.  The kids have so much fun together!

Our kitchen becomes a barber shop every couple of weeks.  : )

At the end of March, Robert and I made a harried trip to Florida to do some job and house hunting.

We were able to meet up with my family for a little bit while we were there.

Papaw and Meemaw Cantrell came and took care of the kids while we were in Florida.  

They had lots of fun together doing crafts and other super fun things.

Dad and Robert celebrated their birthdays together a little early.

At the young adult church get together for the month of April, the hostess surprised Robert with balloons and cupcakes for his big 3-0.  

I thought they were quite hilarious.  :D

Celebratiing at home.

Burl filled up his potty training chart and was doing awesome at keeping his pull up dry at nap time so we told him we'd do something fun.  He wanted to go bowling.

Cute shirt that Meemaw and Papaw had personalized for him.

As the weather continued to warm up more and more time was spent playing outside, and more and more days I was washing very muddy clothes!

Halie and one of the neighbor girls being crazy.  :)

We finished up Halie's Kindergarten year of homeschooling.  She averaged a 97% on her end of the year testing.  She'll be a big time 1st grader next year!

The kids had a blast going to a monster truck show.

Burl had been excited all week to wear his monster truck shirt to the monster truck show!

Robert won 1st place at a mechanic's contest at his school and won $1800 in tools!

In between all of the packing, packing, and more packing...

the kiddos and I have enjoyed a couple of outings to help break up the monotony.

And we even got in another evening with the fire pit.  

Can you tell Burl enjoyed his hot dog?  : )

So that gets you all caught up to our current status of being in limbo until we move.  Robert has just over 2 weeks of school left, and now has 2 job offers for us to consider.  After much prayer, discussion, number crunching, and more prayer, we hope to have some decisions made real soon.

Good Lord willin' we'll be Florida bound before long!