We're Homeowners!

If you know me personally, you know that the past 2 weeks has been a roller coaster in the home buying process. However, we've gotten off the ride because we are officially homeowners !! We are thankful and feel so blessed for this house to finally be ours. We closed last Thursday evening, and after closing we went to the house, then to the storage unit where all of our stuff has been for the past two months, we found the easiest bed to get out of the Jenga grid of belongings and loaded it in the truck. We got pizza to take to the house for dinner and then after going to my parents' house to get some clothes, we were headed back to our house to spend our very first night there.

Friday was spent moving, unpacking, and organizing. We got SO much done Friday and I was glad with my decision to take that day off. We are grateful for all who helped us in this moving process! Friday evening we quit unpacking and headed to my brothers' football game. It rained the whole time, but we enjoyed watching anyways.

Saturday we finished moving everything in and had it all moved by noon. We spent more time unpacking and organizing. Preston and I headed to Hobby Lobby (it just opened in our town) and I got some chalk pens, cannisters, and some fall decorations. Saturday evening we had family game night at church which was really fun, so grateful for a wonderful church family!

Sunday was church and more organizing....

Monday I was off for Columbus Day (woohoo!!) and we finished putting everything away inside the house, now to organize the garage. Also on Monday, I may or may not have made another trip to Hobby Lobby :)

So thankful to be in our home, we love it! God has blessed us beyond measure and I can't wait to see what the future in this house will bring!

More house pictures coming soon!

Friiiiiday!!

Friday, so nice to see you are here! This week wasn't as bad as last week work wise, but I'm always happy when Friday rolls around and I can look forward to spending a couple of days at home.

We're ending the week on a good note, we did a walk through in our house last night and we love how it has turned out. A few small things will be completed today and then we will hopefully be closing next week. This process is something, I tell ya! I will be so glad when it is all taken care of, we have closed, and have our stuff moved in. I must say though, we have been blessed with the greatest realtor who has helped us in any way imaginable. The builder and his crew have worked so hard to get the house completed on time. While waiting is extremely difficult, especially with our builder leaving for 2 weeks and our storage unit rental running up, I am trying to remember that God has a plan and it will work out. I'm not posting interior pictures until we have closed and I've gotten to decorate some, but I will leave you with a picture of the exterior of our soon to be home. Have a great weekend!

Cha Cha Cha Chaaanges

At the beginning of the month, I had thought about 5 major things that are happening this month and things that we needed to do. It's almost the middle of the month and 3 of those 5 things have already been done. We've packed our stuff and we moved to Kentucky this past Saturday. It was tiring, but I'm glad we have everything boxed up and in the storage unit until our house is finished.

Speaking of the house, we meet with the builder this week to pick finishings. We had already chosen our cabinets, but now they are discontinued so we are back to the drawing board with that. We also picked our paint colors this week. I can't wait to see if finished and fast forward to when everything is unpacked and put away in it's proper place!

This past Sunday was our first Sunday at our new church. It went great, everyone was so welcoming! We are very excited to be involved there. One of my favorite things about church was the message on Sunday evening. I was reminded that work and my career are not everything. Of course, I know this, but it's always nice to have the reminder. My job is not who I am but what I do. "You don't have a job when you come into the world, and you don't have a job leaving the world, so you can't put all your eggs in that basket."

Chloe girl is adjusting to the move, however she's had a hard time. She does NOT like the stairs at my parents' house and I hope it's not a preview of how she will be with our stairs in our new house. I think she's just having to get use to them again, we've been in a 1 story for a while.

It seems like there are big changes for lots of people lately. Moving, changing jobs, expecting a baby, change in relationships, etc. One thing that is amazing to me is that God already knows what's going to happen and it's in His perfect plan- trusting Him.

Thoughts for August

It's Friday, and I'm having my lunch break at work, which means just half a day to go until the weekend! I have been thinking about some things we need to get done/ will be doing in the month of August, and honestly, there is a LOT! So, time to try to organize all of these things a little bit.

1. The huge thing we'll be doing this month is moving to Kentucky. However, since our house is not complete yet, we will be staying with my parents until then. My parents have a spare room that we are able to stay in, but before then, we need to get it ready. My mom would like the carpets shampooed and the walls the be repainted, and I'm all for that, but before we can do that, the things in it have to go out. So, today on the first day of August, we are doing just that. Also with moving, we've got to pack everything.

2. Packing is such a large task, I think that it needs a bullet point to itself. So far, we've got our spare bathroom, half the kitchen, and the dining room packed... but the list of what we still have to do is endless. Since we are only staying with my parents for a short time, we plan on just using our large suitcases for our casual clothes and then hanging our work clothes, so that will be easy. Hopefully tomorrow morning I will get the blankets and candles that are in one of our closets boxed up. Preston is off this next week so that will be helpful in getting a lot of it done. I'm trying to figure out a way to take a day off just for packing, but I've got lots of appointments next week so I don't know if that is do-able.

3. Start ministry at our new church. Preston's official first day is August 10th, however we are going to meet up with some of the youth group and sponsors tomorrow. Also, next weekend they are having a church picnic they have invited us to so we are hoping to go to that. We are very excited to get started at this church- good things are coming, I can feel it.

4. We need to officially buy our house! Our offer has been accepted and the contract has been signed, so now we are going through the other steps working towards closing. We were shooting for closing some time in the last week of August, however it's likely to be middle of September. But I am hopeful, so that is why it's still listed in my August thoughts. And if we don't actually close this month, we'll still be doing several things to contribute to closing.

5. Speaking of our new house, this month we will meet with the builder to pick out the finishings. I'm excited about being able to pick and choose what kind of things are going into our house and I cannot wait to see the final outcome! Also excited to see the drive way cement, it is gravels right now.

Well, I only did 5 things, but I feel that those 5 things to do this month are pretty huge.... crazy to know that by the end of next month we'll be in our new house!! Wooo!

Moving & Organization

Hello friends!

Last time I posted on here (half a month ago... I'm slacking) I talked about us moving and not knowing exactly what we were going to do next. Well, if you remember me talking about finding a house we were interested, we have now had an accepted offer on that house and things are starting to become real.

The house is currently being built, and since we found it when we did, the builder is allowing us to have some say so in the finishings of the house. We were able to meet him to choose cabinets, countertops, carpet, laminate, etc. I'm still looking for the perfect paint colors, but I have an idea in mind.

We are currently in the process of packing up our things to move them. Here's where I'm looking for your input. We've moved several times, we're pretty organized in the moving/packing process, but do any of you have any suggestions or your favorite organizing techniques in your home that we could keep in mind for when we unpack them into our new house? Or, are there any specific organizing materials/objects that you think are a must have? We greatly appreciate any tips or tricks!

My lack of blogging totally stinks, I haven't been very into it lately. Likely due to how hectic things have been recently, hang in there with me, I'll be back more regularly soon!

Prayer, Faith, and Moving

Earlier in the summer, a church from my home town contacted Preston about the possibility of him being the youth minister there. We are currently living an hour away from this church, so we would definitely be moving. We prayed, we talked about it, we prayed, we talked about it, and then we prayed some more. The decision was on our minds constantly for weeks. I think that God was already working on our hearts.

We decided that Preston should at least meet with the minister from the church to find out more details. I was anxiously waiting a call at work from Preston to hear how it went... the 2.5 hour meeting went great and the potential aspects of the new job sounded great! Could we really make it work though? We're currently in a parsonage, so moving would mean adding bills. What about my job... keep it, change, what to do? Where in the world are we going to live? I wish I had written down all of the questions we had thought about and discussed, because through the past few weeks, God has answered nearly all of them.

We continued to pray about the possible transition, that God would guide and direct us, showing us His plans for us. Staying in our current jobs would be the easiest thing to do, no job change, no added bills, no moving (for the 5th time in 3 years). The thing is, ministry isn't easy. Actually, a lot of the time, it's really hard. As we continued to pray about the situation, we began getting answers to our questions. Preston had a meeting/interview with leaders of the church, we got a better glimpse of the church by walking through the building, looking at classrooms, fellowship hall, etc. One thing that we've learned is this church is moving forward, and it seems that God is going to use us as a tool there.

Through many talks and discussions about the possibility, Preston and I agreed that moving and ministering in Kentucky is where God is leading us. This past Sunday, Preston formally resigned as of August 3rd at our current church and Zebulon (the church we will be moving to) announced that they have hired a youth minister. As for me and my job, I am going to continue working at my current job and will commute.

We've debated between buying and renting and we want to buy a home. We have rented since we've been married and we're so stinking excited ready to have our own place, something that we own and can do with it what we please. The house hunt has been going on for several weeks... we've looked and looked, and we have now found one we are very interested in.

Please pray for us friends, that we will continue to have faith that God will work all of the details out, and that we will find a definite place to live. There are some uncertainties, of course. Moving and a new job always brings uncertainties, but that's where faith comes in. If God put it on us that we were meant to do his work at this church, then it will work out, even if we aren't sure how just yet.

Family, prayer, and a whole lot of faith will make this move all that we have imagined and more.

"And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

Wonderful weekends (moving, yard work, and pumpkin bars)

Good morning and happy Monday! Hope your weekend was a good one, we enjoyed ours, but as always, it ended to quickly. I am looking forward to Veteran's Day (nov. 11) because I get that day off as a paid holiday... a long weekend? I'll take it! Anyways, on with our past weekend.
Friday evening we went to Kentucky to watch Bradley's football game. They were ahead the first half, but things went down hill in the second half, wish they could have won, but they played great. We also got to visit with my grandparents for a little bit before the game which was nice. After the game we headed back to our house.
Saturday morning I was determined I was going to sleep in at least until 9:00am. After sleeping a little bit, we went to our old house to get the last things out. We got everything out and finished cleaning. Then we got ready and went to a fall festival with some kiddos from church. It was a fun evening and it was great to see lots of our friends that we don't always see.
Sunday was a normal Sunday, church, home, and church again. It's nice that we are in walking distance to church... since Preston needs to go earlier, he can get up and go and I can sleep a little longer (can you tell I love sleep on the weekends?) and then go without having to worry about extra gas being used. Sunday morning I was super excited because I was having a good hair day, my hair is always flat and I never have volume, so when I had a little bit, I was ecstatic... it was a fabulous start to tthe day. After church we walked back to our house and had a quick lunch and then went to our old house. I had planted some roses earlier in the year and I wanted to move some of them to our new house since they have been doing well. We dug them up and then got them to our new house and dug holes and replanted them. I really like where they are and I can't wait to see them once they bloom again (since I haven't been at the place they were at they were a bit neglected, but I'm sure they'll be okay). After getting cleaned back up it was back to church. After the evening service we went back to the old house and put up the owner's decorations that we had boxed away why we lived there. We are completely done with that house now and there won't be anymore trips back and forth, can you hear the angels singing?! Hallelujah!! We ended the evening with some pumpkin bars I made with cream cheese frosting and a little bit of "Hocus Pocus".
And now for some pictures from our weekend:

Well, that brings us to this morning, it's a gloomy rainy day.. I'm hoping it gets a little bit nicer outside, we are buildind a flower box this evening! A post on that is in the near future, so check back!

House Bucket List

Hey readers!
Remember me telling you about us moving to a new [to us] house? Well, this past weekend (sorry I haven't got a weekend post up)we started staying in our new house. We have most things put away, but there are a few boxes that still need to be unpacked and we need to organize our storage room. Right now totes are just stacked in there and I want to label them better and organize them by season/category. Anyways,I want to create a bucket list of things for our house... okay, so maybe it's not a bucket list but more like a to-do list. Some of these things are short term, some may be more long term. I'm sure I will revisit this list in the future to add and cross things off.
So here we go, a room by room list of to-dos....

Kitchen
-peel wallpaper above cabinets and paint where paper was
- hang coffee sign on wall

Storage room
-Organize tote boxes by category
-Make "other" room into craft area
-Organize craft materials

Hall bathroom
-paint walls
-Change mirror above vanity
-Change floor

Living Room
-Hang mirror on wall
-create TV stand from old dresser
-Purchase a bigger area rug
-Change light switches and cover plates

Entry way/Foyer
-Put small table by front wall
-organize bookshelf beside desk
-add rug

Master Bedroom
-Purchase rug for the end of the bed

Guest Bedroom
-Purchase new mattress
-Purchase new bedding

Dining room
-make table runner

OUTSIDE
-make raised flower box
-plant bulbs into existing flower bed
-make grass area by sidewalk into flower bed
-Get rid of bushes in front of house and landscape
-pressure wash front porch and swing
-pressure wash sides of house
-destroy hornet nest in front tree (!! Winter !!)

I'm sure that is not everything that we need to do, but as you can see, we have enough to keep us busy and get us started on making our house our home...

New [to us] house... so much WORK!

Hello! Just a little warning, this post may be boring for you to read, and if so, just come back when I post something else... but, I am not sure if I have shared or not, but Preston and I are moving into a new (to us) house this month. The house comes in part of Preston's benefit package from his job, so we are being tremendously blessed with a spacious house. This post is for me to be able to remember all the hard work we have been putting into it, I wasn't even going to write about it, but I want to be able to look back in a few years and see how far we've come! So...

The house is an older house, but has recently been upgraded, workers have done these upgrades, not us. Our master bathroom has been completely re done with new floor, bath tub, vanity, and toilet. Also in the upgrades, some walls were painted with a fresh white coat and others were painted colors that we were able to pick (the kitchen, dining room, and game room). Also, new laminate hardwood floors, that I love, are all throughout the house now, except for the bathrooms. The house is looking very nice, but there are some things that we still want to do before we move in. We will be working on some of it this Saturday, our families are even coming to help (so thankful)! I will be posting another post for a house to do wish list that I would like us to work on now, and in years to come.

Now that the renovations have been complete, what have we been doing? CLEANING! Every evening after I get off work I have been going to the house to clean. There were items in the house that we don't want to use, such as dishes, that we wanted to box up and store in the attic. We have got the items in boxes, now we just have to get them in the attic. At first the cleaning was over whelming and I didn't know where to start, so I made a room by room checklist of things to clean. The list had a total of 46 things for me to clean, from cleaning windows, to sweeping, mopping, and dusting fan blades, there has been a lot to do. However, as I have crossed my list off, I now have just 8 things left to clean. I am hoping to get those 8 things done before Saturday so that we don't have to worry about cleaning then.

We've also been working on things outside the house as well. This week, my dad used his pressure washer and cleaned the porches for us. He will be coming back at a later time to clean the sides of the house (brick). Preston has mowed the grass and weed eated as well, it looks so great! I am planning on revamping the flower bed that is there, well, right now it was more of a garden bed.... I pulled some of the things up and have been clearing out the space so that I can plant the bulbs I am ordering. I cannot wait to see our front yard in the spring!

I would also like to make note that in this cleaning process, I have had an in grown toe nail and I had it removed last Friday, the whole nail (ouch!!!!). So I had 2 days of rest that I didn't clean, but other than that, we have been working on it every day.

I know that all of our hard work will pay off, I am so looking forward to everything being moved in and in place (can we just fast forward to that time, please?). I'm thankful for the blessing this house will be to our family and I am excited to see what this house brings us.