Closing & The Week After

We closed on our new house on Friday, November 18th. Bryan had the code to the house during the month prior to us closing while all the repairs were being made and we were able to make trips out to see the progress during that time. That meant that on the day before closing he could get into the house too and he made a special trip out and set up a surprise for me.

The older kids babysat the younger while Bryan and I went to closing that Friday afternoon and then after closing he and I went to Tavern on the Green at the Summit for a celebratory dinner. We then of course drove out to the house to see it as "ours" for the first time. He had the following waiting for me at the house.


New wine glasses and some of my favorite wine for a celebratory toast. :)

During that week prior to closing we made many trips out to the new house to get things ready. We took loads of the smaller stuff out on each trip and I worked on getting those things unpacked and organized as we went along. The older kids were a huge help during those trips.

Our entire family went out on one day and everyone pitched in to help.


During that trip we ate our first meal together at the new house. Captain D's. :)

Houston set up and installed lighting along the front walkway. Emmy lined all of the bathroom and kitchen cabinets. Annie and Natalie vacumned and swept rooms and Ally and Camden helped me windex windows. It saved Bryan and I hours of work! We were so thankful and it was really fun to see the whole family working together to get things ready!


Emmy lining kitchen shelves


Lining put in kitchen


Lining put in guest bathroom


Ally & Camden cleaning windows


Annie and Houston working on the lighting out front


Houston installed most of it by himself with just a little help from Annie


This picture was taken on the day we took the dogs out to see the new house and walk the property


Only a few days before move in date- they were just a bit excited- can you tell? :)


Guarding their "teen territory" upstairs. :)


The Saturday that we moved in. The kids and I went over to the house that morning and Bryan and his dad drove to pick up the moving van and 2 friends from Bryan's work that came to help out too. We ended up with 5 people in addition to Bryan and Houston to load and unload. We were very thankful! It made things go much faster than it otherwise would have. We rented the largest moving van possible and it was still full even with all of the stuff we hauled off to get rid of and all of the stuff we moved over in our suburban prior to the big moving day. Crazy!

In the end- the move went really smoothly though with only 2 things being broken and neither were of sentimental value. Soooo thankful for all the help prior to and during our moving in.

Our House Story

It was late 2007 when our family made the move back down here to Sweet Home Alabama. Bryan had received an opportunity to transfer within Apple's retail division to the store that would be opening up at the Summit in Birmingham and after praying over it we felt lead to make the move back. We had enjoyed our years of living in Tennessee and North Carolina but had always said that if God opened up a door to go back to Alabama that we would go. At the time we moved back down here our North Carolina house had not yet sold. It had been on the market for close to a year and we had lived for 8 months with Bryan living down here in Alabama, sleeping on a friends couch, and the kids and I living in North Carolina trying to sell our home and wrap things up there. We finally decided that enough was enough and that we couldn't live apart anymore so we found the rental home we had been living in for the past 4 years and moved on down in September 2007. We moved with the faith that our  North Carolina house would sell but the next three years would prove to be difficult financially as that didn't happen as we had hoped and planned for it to. 

{Our North Carolina home} 

We started feeling last year like it was time to consider buying again. The rental home we had been living in was pretty small in comparison to the previous homes we had lived in. I appreciated that for the first two years as it forced me to really de-clutter and narrow down our "things". The smaller space didn't bother us those first couple of years but we started feeling the space issue this past year as the kids had all gotten older. We were also just ready to buy a place of our own again.

We casually started looking in 2010 to get a feel for what we wanted to do. We had a general idea of the area we wanted to buy in but we wanted to check out all options available to us. Bryan was considering building and we spent some time looking around at land. It was at the start of this year, 2011, that we decided that it was definitely time to get serious and buy again and so this past spring we began the house search.

We knew what we wanted. You don't move around and live in as many homes as we have lived in and not get a good idea of your needs and preferences. We also knew though that it wasn't going to be easy to find. Had we simply wanted any house in any nice neighborhood it would have been a much easier search. Our desire however was for a place in the country not too far out of the city, within 30 minutes or under for Bryan to work, and on a little acreage though we would consider a lot of acreage if the right house was on it. We knew from our brief looking prior to this past spring that we had a challenge cut out for us. The main challenge being that in rural Alabama most of the homes on acreage are either mobile homes or older homes that need work. If they are newer homes they are typically in neighborhoods/subdivisions. We had no desire to do the whole neighborhood thing again. Our home in North Carolina was in a neighborhood with a HOA and we learned from that experience that HOA's are of the devil and not for us. The idea of neighbors didn't bother us so much but we desired that country feeling with just a few people around, not an entire neighborhood with lots of traffic and houses stacked on top of one another. The main reason we wanted some acreage though was because we have desired for a long time now to raise chickens and to garden and most places that are inside of city limits do not allow chickens.

We found a house this past Spring that we really liked. It was mainly the acreage it was on that we fell in love with. We liked the house too but the acreage we loved! We placed an offer but in the end the house didn't appraise high enough and so we moved on.

We looked at quite a few places from the end of spring through the start of summer. The typical find for us was that we would love the acreage but not the house or love the house but not the acreage. And then their were the homes that we thought had a lot of potential but boy oh boy they needed a lot of work to get there and we knew we didn't want a fixer upper. We had way too much on our plate already to take on a major house project.

Around mid-summer we found another home that was love at first site and we placed an offer on it. It had been on the market for a year with no offers at all and on the same day we placed an offer, someone else did too, and their offer was better than ours and accepted. It was pretty obvious that God closed that door. We believed that without a doubt but we were also tired of the whole process of looking at this point. It had started to drain us and we actually started to wonder if we should remain where we were for a while longer. Maybe we were not supposed to move just yet? Our realtor had gone beyond the call of duty at this point with us and for that we will forever be grateful! Bryan had told him that we were considering giving up the search and he encouraged Bryan to search one last time before doing so. He was a Christian and had been praying for and with us over our house hunt. Bryan reluctantly decided to give it another try and sat down to do an internet search one last time and that's when the house that we bought came to Bryan's attention. It had been on the market for a year but had not come onto our radar because it was a foreclosure and when it was first put on the market it was priced above the money range we had set for ourselves even though it was priced well below its value. The bank had recently dropped the price of the home yet another $40,000 which brought it into the price range we had set and thus on our radar. Bryan knew the minute he saw the picture of the front that he wanted to see the inside but most of the foreclosures we had previously looked at needed quite a bit of work to even move into them so he didn't get his hope up. It was mid-summer when he got the code from our realtor and drove out one evening after work to see it. He came home and told me that I needed to go see this one! That weekend he and I drove out to take a look. I was in complete shock! Shocked at the price of the home, the amazing condition that it was in, how beautiful it was, that it sat on an acre of land that was pretty private, and how the floor plan of the home seemed custom built just for our needs. We took the kids out the next day and of course they fell in love with it too. We decided to place an offer. The home was already priced well below value and the bank had dropped the price $40,000 more since it first went on the market but Bryan decided to offer them $10,000 below that. What did we have to loose? To our amazing surprise the bank came back and accepted our offer! They just wanted to get rid of the place!

Our home is 30 minutes outside of the city of Birmingham and Bryan's work and only 15 minutes to major shopping. From the start of this process Bryan felt lead to go with a USDA loan. You have to be in certain areas and outside of city limits to qualify for a USDA loan. This home qualified. USDA is a lot more picky about their loans than a typical FHA or other funded loan. They require a lot more. I really didn't care either way what route we went down for a loan but Bryan felt strongly after researching that USDA was the way to go. He felt it was the best option loan wise. In the end it turned out to be a HUGE blessing for us that Bryan was lead to go down that route.

The home was in amazing condition, as I mentioned above. It is only 4 years old and was custom built. I love that it was custom built as it makes it very unique and the previous owners sunk some good money into some of the features in the home. There were a few things that needed repairing though. Our master shower is all marble and the top of the shower had been cracked some. Marble is incredibly expensive but we had figured we would just fix it after moving in. In Natalie and Ally's room it looked like someone had maybe stepped through the attic as their was a portion of the ceiling that was cracked in that room. The carpet had been ripped out of the master bedroom as had the ceiling fan. A ceiling fan was missing from one of the downstairs bedrooms and the third bathroom upstairs had never been completed. It simply had the tub and flooring but no sink or toilet. The loft upstairs didn't have a door on it. These were all things we thought WE would repair after moving in. USDA came back after their inspection and said it all needed to be fixed prior to closing. That was at the end of summer. We didn't want to make repairs on a home we didn't officially own yet though so our only option was to approach the selling bank and ask them to make them. Usually foreclosures are take the home as it is so I honestly didn't think the selling bank would go for it but guess what, they DID! They agreed to fix it all prior to closing. We were shocked!

So the repairs began at the end of summer. Everything was fixed and in the end we ended up with a home that we were able to move right into with no repairs needed! That has been a HUGE blessing for us. Especially the 3rd bathroom upstairs being completed. The selling bank installed a toilet and sink in it. If had we gone with a typical FHA or other loan they would not have required all of the repairs to be done prior to closing! I'm so thankful that God lead Bryan down the USDA road. I am so thankful that God reserved this home just for us! It is literally everything we desired in a home and then some more where as all of the other homes we looked at we would have been compromising in some areas. God protected us from that by closing those doors for us even though at the time we didn't understand it nor could we see the outcome. And after all of our struggles to sell our North Carolina home, and several years of financial struggles because of it, it felt like God was reminding us that we might not always understand why things happen the way they do but He has a plan and He loves us and provides for us, all in his timing.

3rd bathroom upstairs before being completed.

After completion.

Loft upstairs without a door

Door on loft

Master bedroom without carpet

Master with carpet

Master bedroom with no ceiling fan

Master bedroom with ceiling fan.

Our home is two stories and has 2800 square feet, 5 bedrooms (one being a large loft), 3 full bathrooms, formal dining and eat in kitchen area, and a large den which we will be turning into our school room. 

If you would like to see more pictures of the inside of our new home, prior to repairs or us moving in, you can do so by clicking, HERE.

In the end we paid far below the appraisal for this home. We are so incredibly thankful to God for that huge blessing! We moved in over the weekend, just in time to start celebrating Christmas. Saturday night was our first night in the new house and we are so thankful to have a place to call our own again!

Unsell Land Related Links: 
Making Our House a Home Blog Posts

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."
James 1:17

A New Place to Call Home!

We closed today on a new house!







We are very busy packing away right now. We will be moving some smaller things over this weekend and throughout this next week and next weekend all of the big stuff will be moved on Saturday. I have a ton of pictures of the inside to post and share and I promise to do so very soon. For now, here's a quick rundown.

The house is 2800 square feet. Custom built- only 4 years old. Living room, Den (very large- which will be our school room), kitchen, formal dining, eat in kitchen area, laundry, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms on a couple of acres in the country. :)

More to come very soon......

Fall Bliss~ Part 3

In October the kids made some homemade Jack-o-Lantern puzzles.


I taped together some craft sticks and they painted one side orange. When that had dried I had them paint their own Jack-O-Lanterns on them. Once that dried we took the tape off the back and have been using them as puzzles.


What is really cool about these puzzles is that because the painting is not precise it makes the puzzles a bit challenging. The kids were actually surprised the first few times they mixed up their sticks as to how difficult it was to put them back together. The first time I tried each of their puzzles, I was challenged. They got a kick out of that!


Fall bliss is receiving 24 caramel covered candied apples! Thank you again Nana and Papa K! We sure have enjoyed them!


Last month we did some marble painting with shaving cream. Here's the fall colors the kids poured over our shaving cream.


Stirring it together.


Ally and Cam wanted to keep mixing the colors. That was their favorite part.


Then the kids pressed some leaves that we had cut-out of poster board onto the shaving cream mixture.


Their finished fall leaves.

9 Weeks Past 40: And Still Reflecting on my 30's

I ended my last post towards the end of summer 2005.

Because of the location of the Apple Store in Charlotte, more celebrities visited the store there than some of the other locations. That summer Rod Stewart visited Charlotte for a concert and his staff came into the store. Because Bryan helped them out he was given free tickets to the concert. We couldn't get a babysitter for the evening of the concert so Bryan took Houston with him and they had a wonderful night out on the town with Rod Stewart!


This was Houston's first concert to attend. When they got back home and I asked Houston what he thought his reply was "It was loud!" LOL

That summer I did my first painting and wallpapering around our new house. I painted and wallpapered in our formal dining room. I also wallpapered our downstairs guest bathroom and I painted a trim around our fireplace in our living room.


This is the wallpaper that I put up in our downstairs bathroom. I love toile print and I loved that bathroom because of the way it turned out with this wallpaper.


Here is the formal dining room before I worked on it.


And here it is after with the paint, wallpaper, and border.


Another view of formal dining


The wall below our staircase- opposite formal dining room


Downstairs guest bathroom- half with paint and half the toile wallpaper.


What I did around our fireplace/mantel

Here's a few more pictures from part of downstairs that fall.


Kitchen


Kitchen


Eat in kitchen area. I love the curtains we found for this area and above our kitchen sink.

I have always enjoyed making our house a home.

We had a really fun fall in 2005.

For starters that October Bryan's mom and Larry came for a week long visit. It was fun to visit some of the fall activities around the area with them. We took the kids to a pumpkin farm one day. It was located about 30 minutes from our home and they had a few animals set up for the kids to pet. They had a large pumpkin patch for the kids to go out in to pick their own pumpkins and they let the kids use small wagons to pull their pumpkins around in. It was a fun place to visit.


Ally pulling her pumpkin around.



During their visit we also attended the annual Carolina Renaissance Festival. It turned out to be our most favorite thing to visit during our time in North Carolina. I've been to several Medieval and Renaissance festivals in my lifetime and the Carolina one is by far the most amazing I've ever been too. It's pretty large. It takes place for a full 2 months every fall, during October and November. The shows and activities are soooo much fun!


I don't remember how many acres the fair is but it is set up with buildings that replicate the renaissance era. Street performers wander around the streets. Carnival rides that revolve around the Renaissance era are set up in a certain area of the festival to ride.


This fairy was at the festival each year.



Other areas have stages where shows take place and a section is set up for the animals. A petting zoo and animals you can ride. And of course, theirs the food and gift stores. Renaissance food is so much fun!

We ended up attending the festival each fall until we moved from North Carolina. We really miss it and keep saying that we are going to need to take a trip back up to NC one of these years just to take the kids to the festival again.


The festival holds jousting tournaments throughout the day every day. It was Houston's favorite part of the festival.








Bryan's mom and Larry with the kids after the Jousting tournament.




Our family after one of the jousting tournaments.


One of our favorite shows every year was these guys. I can't remember the name of their group but they juggled and were quite entertaining performers. They made us laugh a lot.


The kids touching a dove that one of the street vendors was carrying around.

The festival had elephant and camel rides and Bryan and the kids rode the elephant together.





I have a lot of other pictures from that festival but they are on a hard-drive that we don't currently have hooked up to our computers. Perhaps I can share more in the future. If you live close to Charlotte, NC or are ever in the area during October or November I highly recommend visiting the festival.


Here's another family picture that was taken that week. Bryan's mom took this of us after church that Sunday.

That October was Bryan's birthday and his mom brought a special gift for him when they came to visit that fall.


The Apple stores supply their employees with shirts to wear that have the apple logo on them. New shirts are given out every few months. At this point Bryan had been working for Apple for 4 years so we had quite a collection of Apple shirts on hand. Bins full to be exact. Bryan's mom had us mail her some and she made this quilt for Bryan as a special keepsake regarding his work with Apple. Isn't it beautiful!

That fall I hosted a book party with our local Charlotte Mason homeschool group. We had 22 kids come to the party and Houston, Emmy, and Annie had a lot of fun helping me prepare for it. Every child brought their favorite picture book with them and the kids took turns reading passages from their books. The kids and I set up a display on our kitchen table of several of our favorite children's picture books and we made snacks that represented each one to serve to our guests. We also made a musical books game which was kind of like musical chairs but each place had a book to give-a-way. We enjoyed giving away some of our favorite picture books. It was a really fun time of getting to know some of the other homeschool families in our group.

In our homeschool that fall our favorite Five in A Row book that we rowed was The Duchess Bakes a Cake and we rowed it during the two weeks prior to going to the Renaissance Festival. I love it when we can tie in our school studies to local festivals and events.


As you can tell from the title, the book is set in the Medieval, Renaiisance time period with a Duchess, Castle, etc. in the storyline. It's a really fun book!

We had a fun week learning about knights, castles, and so much more.


Houston decked out as a knight.


Dressing a knight on the computer.


His coat of arms that he created.


Working on an art lesson on action in illustrations from our storybook.


Paper dolls we made.




As we were going through books on middle ages the girls noticed the hairstyles of the women during that time period and wanted to try some of them out.


Braids pulled into a bun.


Braids into a bun on the side of the head.


Another art lesson was on the Old English alphabet.




We read about Medieval feasts and then tried our hand at making our meat pie which was a popular dish at the feasts.


We made our own shields of faith by rolling up newspaper into a cross, gluing to a cut-out of a shield, and then painting them.


Houston's shield of faith


Emmy's shield of faith


Annie's shield of faith


Natalie's shield of faith

Another fun thing we did that fall with this school book was to make our catapults using craft sticks, rubber bands, and a plastic spoon.






We had fun catapulting marshmallows and trying to catch them in our mouths.






Ally trying her hand at the catapult.


Dancing to Medieval music


At the end of our time with The Duchess Bakes a Cake I surprised the kids with this castle cake. I had soooo much fun making it for them.




Their reaction when they first came downstair and saw the cake.



That Fall Ally began with Before Five in a Row. She was just turning 2 (that December) so we really just enjoyed reading the books and doing some fun activities with her to help her develop that love for books and reading. One of the first books that we did was ABC bunny.


I made her this rabbit set out of felt and foam so she could reenact being a bunny.


She had so much fun with this!






Her bunny tail. :)

That November held two milestones in our lives. The first is, I began blogging that November. Not on this blog though. We started out over on another website. We have those files saved from each of those blog posts but they are no longer visible online. We ended up having issues with that site which made it hard for some to visit our blog and get it to load and I had issues doing some posts, so in the end, we decided to switch over to blogger a few years back, and have been very happy here.

The really big milestone from that November though was that we learned that we were pregnant with Camden right before Thanksgiving! We were all very, very excited, as you can imagine. :)

And that's it for this week.....coming up next week......December/Christmas of 2005!