Moving

So there has been a hiatus from the blog.  Mom is trying to fill in the gaps, but has decided to give herself grace for this season.  We placed an offer on a house in August.  We had been looking about a month casually.  Well, let's back up.  Dad had been looking online for a few years.  Every now and then he checked in with Mom and there was no interest in moving.  Last July, the kids went to Kansas for a week.  Mom had decided that Dad was probably right and it would be nice for the kids to have more space and several open house dates were planned for this week.  The very first house was everything we wanted.  We couldn't tell if it was just the fun of looking at houses or if this could become "the one".  A few houses later, nothing else came close to the first house.  So in late August we made the offer and the selling family did not want to close till October as they were building a new house.  This was fine with us as we had not put our house on the market yet and we hoped we could sell it in the meantime.  It was one of those times in our lives where it was so clear to us that we were hearing God and truly in sync in our family goals.

So we put our house on the market in early September, had Ben's 7th birthday, went to Disney World over Fall Break and then closed the following week on the new house.  Whew!  We were showing our old house this whole time, but hadn't closed yet.  This allowed us to move slowly, but also kept Dad working on touching up the old house and maintaining it.  We were so grateful when it sold before Christmas and closed right after the new year.  What a blessing!!

During the time right after we moved to our new house, we took a couple of quick weekend trips that were already planned to Dallas and Branson.  They were super fun, but cut into our unpacking time.  So what better time than to sign up to host a few Christmas parties?  What?  That was part of why we bought this house.  We wanted to be able to host and fellowship.  Might as well start right away!  This inspired some quick work of the common areas and getting things in order to be able to have groups over.  Just having moved, though, also gave us an excuse that we did not have a dining table or anything to sit on in our formal dining and living rooms.  :)  We were so blessed and cannot wait to continue to open our home.  It was a wonderful way to spend the holiday season. 

Now that we are into the new year, things are still yet to be done, but coming together.  We have started to hang things on the walls and get the less used rooms organized.  We are at the point we actually seem to have a manageable list of what we want to accomplish.  The kids' rooms are a work in progress, but very well loved already.  

This isn't our furniture, but shows that Ben's room has Marvel comic wallpaper border and E's room is PINK!

It was part of our life plan, but it definitely wasn't on the "to do" list for the fall (especially when it felt like we already had a busy season planned).  But there is never a good time to move.  On this side of things we are so glad we went ahead and are loving our new home.  It has literally felt like home from the first day.  We are feeling so blessed!