Moving!!!!

It's slowly starting to sink in . . . we're moving (again)!!! Last Friday we looked at the house, made an offer, and the offer was accepted, all in one day!

We've been casually house-hunting, while trying to decide if we wanted to buy, build, or add-on to our current home. We weren't having much luck. Either the price was too high, or the house required a lot of work, or there were other houses too close . . . etc.

Then last Wed, I looked at a new listing that seemed to have promise. The pictures looked good. Checking out the property using google map's satellite view, it looked like it might work. . . Thursday after music lessons, we drove by it to see if the lot would really work. There are houses nearby, but not too close, and the way the house sits on the lot, it works . . . Time to see what hubby thinks. But he was busy, and didn't really look at the link I sent him that afternoon. Or that evening. Friday morning I asked (again) if he'd looked at it, and he agreed to let me show him the pictures. As I was showing him the pictures, he went ahead and called the listing agent. If he'd waited until we'd gone through all the pictures, it probably wouldn't have worked out. The house is rented, and the tenant gets 24 hour notice before a showing. The girls and I were leaving right after church the next day to go to my parents' house and wouldn't get home until Thursday. BUT . . . if we could leave RIGHT AWAY, we could look at it while the tenants were already out of the house for another showing.

My parents had talked about leaving first thing Friday morning, but decided to stay until mid-day, so they were still here. I'd mentioned the house to my mom the day before, but Dad knew nothing about it until I went out to where they were working on the deck, and told them we were leaving NOW to go see a house. Dad got changed, I got dressed (one of the perks of being a homeschool mom is getting to stay in your jammies till noon some days), we quickly made room for all 7 of us to fit in the minivan. And we left. Got there right on time, looked over the yard until the other potential buyers left, then went into the house. The rooms were smaller than I'd expected from the pictures, but we still really liked the house. My dad was impressed with how well it had been maintained. The girls liked that the "rustic" wood floors have some gaps between the boards, allowing them to "spy" on the main floor from their bedrooms. . .

The realtor mentioned that there were something like 7 other people who'd asked to see the house either that day or the next and suggested that, if we were interested, we might want to make an offer yet that day.

We went home, talked about it, looked over the sellers' disclosures the realtor e-mailed us and that afternoon, put in a formal offer. After some back and forth with the seller, early Fri evening, the seller accepted our offer and we are buying the house! We'll be closing on it, pending inspections, the end of October.

From the beginning of this journey, I've begged God to make His will crystal clear. I want to know we are making the right decision for our family. And I truly feel how amazingly all the puzzle pieces fell into place that Friday are a pretty good indication of exactly that!

My 2 "don't like change" daughters and I are still reeling a bit, but we're starting to get over the fact that it happened so fast LOL. I keep wanting to plan things out and realize that I didn't pay attention to those tiny little details that I would have noticed if I'd realized we wouldn't be going back to look at the house again. I figure once the tenant has moved out I'll ask the realtor if we can go back in and look at things so I can plan better, but it's not worth bothering a tenant who's trying to accomplish their own move.

I also didn't think to take any pictures since it was our first time looking at the house, but did copy a few off the real estate listing before it was removed.

The outside of the house looks like a farm house:

I love the big front porch! I can't wait to drink my morning coffee on that porch! And yes, I realize it will be November before that happens and I may have to bundle up to do it, that's ok! There's also a deck off the back of the house and a fire pit in the trees behind the house.

The inside has much more of a "cabin" feel.

In addition to a good sized eat-in kitchen and this living room, there's also a similarly sized sun-room off the back of the kitchen. I have to admit, while we've never been huge entertainers, I'm really looking forward to having space to invite more than one or two people over if we want to. And having two living spaces means the kids can play in one while the grown-ups visit in the other. With the girls all old enough to like to do things individually, it will also be nice to be able to read to Little Bit in the sunroom while Ashlyn practices piano.

Ashlyn is looking forward to having her own room. Lexie and Little Bit are fine with sharing a room. Guess which of my children is the introvert LOL. There's room in the basement to do a guest room space and still have room for a "go get your wiggles out" space that will also house most of the bookcases and such.  Another exciting thing for our family full of girls, is 2 1/2 bathrooms! After sharing one bathroom amongst 4 and then 5 of us for the past 7 1/2 years, I have to admit I'm super excited to have a master bath again! I'm also excited to have a large walk-in master closet, though more for storing everything from craft supplies to the clothes that Lexie and Ashlyn have outgrown, that I'm keeping for Little Bit, than my own clothes. I've learned to be content with a minimal wardrobe and will probably keep it that way :) The girls are all looking forward to bigger closets too.

So, now the fun of packing and sorting and such. It's going to make for a busy autumn, but I think it will be a good move for our family.