Asher turns 1!

I can't believe my little boy is 1! Okay, I might be a few weeks late on the birthday post since his birthday was the 4th of July, but life has been pretty hectic here and I didn't even have a chance to download any of his birthday pictures to the computer until today.
I was feeling really dizzy and lightheaded this morning, and come to find out when I went in for my OB appointment my blood pressure was super low (82/50), so I've been ordered to sit back and take it easy this afternoon. It's easier said than done with a little one, but he's helping out by taking an extra long nap, which is nice, so I figured it was a good time to put my feet up and catch up on the ol' blog.

Here's our little guy on his big first birthday

 And a family photo to celebrate the big day:

I can't believe he has grown so much and just last year he was teeny tiny! It's true that time flies once you start having kids!
Asher is now walking all over the place and I'm having a hard time keeping up with him. This kid is so independent and outgoing that it's sometimes a little scary. I'm trying to soak up every special moment that we have together now, because I know that in about 2 1/2 weeks (hopefully not any earlier than that) my attention will be divided. I think Asher senses that things are about to change to, as he's been all into needing snuggles before he goes to sleep lately.

Everything else is good on the homefront, although life's been a bit crazy. Steve was in another car accident - the second one within a month where someone has run into him. So, he's been driving a rental for the last week and a half while the Subaru is in the shop. His car was pretty messed up in the back, so we're just happy that he's safe and okay!
We finally got new exterior doors on our house and it's definitely upped the curb appeal from what we had previously. Jeff did a great job installing them! I'm so glad to have the project marked off our list.
Despite being hugely pregnant and uncomfortable, I've actually been feeling SO much better than I had been in the previous few months. Looks like some of the extra amniotic fluid has gone down, which is really good news! I've been able to back off from all of the extra testing I was doing a couple time a week and only have to go in once a week now. It's been so nice! I never imagined that I'd feel better at the end of pregnancy than I did for my second trimester and first half of the third. It's just nice to walk again without feeling like I'm going to collapse from all the horrible pain I had been feeling.
We're set to meet our latest addition on August 5th, although my doctor is convinced that I'll go early. I'm not so convinced, so at this point don't want to change the date of my c-section.  I guess the worst that can happen is that my water would break and we'd still do a c-section anyway, so either way this baby is coming. I'd like to give him as much time as possible to bake in my big ol' oven!

That's it for now!

Oh Craigslist!

Despite the warnings for severe hail, tornado's and thunderstorms the weather was absolutely perfect here this weekend, so we took advantage of it!

We spent hours in our garage yesterday taking pictures of things to sell on craigslist.  Besides small random items, we have a stove, fridge, 2 electric guitar cases, a barstool, 2 entertainment centers, a bookcase, a wine rack, a file cabinet, some picture frames and random wall decor up for sale. All that, and we still have about 15 unopened boxes in our garage from when we moved here 2 1/2 years ago. I'm just so sick of all the clutter and we haven't had the time or motivation to attack our garage. I'm so glad we took the time to get started yesterday. We already have a bunch of interest in several of the items, so hopefully soon our garage will look a lot bigger and cleaner! We're gonna give most of this stuff a week before we just throw it to the curb. It would be nice to make a little money off some of it, but if not, we just want to get rid of it! So, friends in Madison, do you need anything? If so, it's yours for free!
Next comes the even harder project - tackling all those boxes! I'm kind of opting more towards just dropping it all off at goodwill. I really just don't wanna deal with it anymore. Once we get rid of this clutter, I never want to live like this again. Remarkably, you would never guess we had so much stuff if you've never seen our garage! For the most part, our house is pretty clutter-free.

So, that was our Sunday, a total pain, but totally worth and I feel so much better already! We ended the evening with a barbecue at a friends house. A perfect end to a beautiful day!

Digging out....

It's a family snow day. To bad Asher thought it would be fun to get up at 5:00 am and Steve will be outside clearing snow all day. Maybe a day off for snow isn't all it's cracked up to be.
This is what our house looks like  today.....

 Front of house

 There is a back door there somewhere!

 The view from our living room window

 I think I can, I think I can. Unfortunately the snow blower ran out of gas at this point. At least Steve was able to clear most of the neighbors snow and about half of ours before it died.

My hero!

Hope everyone is safe and warm with all these storms! The good news is that the groundhog had no shadow. Bring it on Spring!

Fall Fun

We had a good weekend. Didn't have to much on the agenda, so that was nice. We went out to Schusters and did the corn maze, hayride and bonfire thing with our church and had a great time! I just really enjoyed getting out to do something fun!

We met with our window guy on Sunday afternoon and finally settled on our contract for new windows. So scary! I've been stressing out about all of the costly home repairs that have come up lately and yesterdays message at church was so timely. It was all about having faith and trusting God with everything. I know in my heart that everything I have is really not mine, but God's anyway, but still I've been pretty stressed about all of the major expenses that have come up for us in the recent months and weeks.

Steve and I feel a peace about this stupid $4,500.00 window investment, but I just couldn't help but find myself stressing out about this major purchase anyway. It was so good for me to be reminded that regardless of what is in our bank account God is in control and has always provided for our every need. We always pray together about major decisions - especially when it involves money and we feel in our hearts that this home repair is one that needs to be made. As stressful as major purchases are, I felt so good yesterday after we finalized the details with the contractor. I sure was getting sick of having different companies in our home every other day for estimates. I know we did our homework and found the best deal for a quality product, but actually sitting down and signing the contract was still overwhelming. I felt the same way both times that we've purchased homes as well. Once it's all said and done though, I have such a peace when I know we've made the right decision.

I am just so, so grateful for a God that cares about every detail of our lives - big and small. I'm glad I can rest easy at night knowing that no matter what comes our way God is in control - always has been and always will be. Thank God (literally!) for that, because if I had to depend on myself to figure things out, I would be up a creek without a paddle.

Next on the home repair agenda? A new heater. I know that someday we will be so grateful for all of these home repairs once we decide to sell our house - I just gotta keep reminding myself of that.

Baby Room Pictures!

38 Weeks!

Things are shaping up around here! I finally feel like I'm starting to feel more prepared for this little guy to arrive! Good thing, since I have just 2 weeks left! The baby's room is finally complete, minus a few little things. Yesterday I was able to get our neglected living room clean and most of the kitchen. Let's not even talk about the basement though which is quickly filling up with boxes of stuff that need to be sorted, thrown out or stored.

I was finally able to get our printer out of the crawl space and set it up....yea! This has been in it's unopened box for well over a year now and somehow ended up in the crawl space before we had some people move in with us. Access to the crawl space is through the guest bedroom closet, so we've been without a printer for as long as we've had people living with us. You never really know just how much you need a printer until you don't have one.

Anyway back to the baby's room! Here are the completed pictures!

A few months ago I had found this wall decal on etsy with a tree and an owl that I really loved, but couldn't justify spending the money on. I then decided to go with an owl theme, until I got this super cute elephant picture (you can kind of see it in one of the below pictures) in the mail from my good friend Sara (yes, out of my 7 seven closest friends, 3 of them happen to be named Sarah - it can get kind of confusing). So, I decided to switch the theme up to elephants. These little wall decals are so cheap and add so much to a room! I'm really happy with how it turned out!

I've never been a person that prefers polka dots and stripes together, but since I needed an area rug and already had this one sitting around (fall clearance at Target 2 years ago for $5.00) I decided to see if I could make it work with the polka dot crib sheets and throw pillow (also clearance from Target) and think it actually doesn't look so bad! Definitely forcing me out of my box, and I still can't say that I prefer it 100%, but it still works!

Changing table - you can kind of see the elephant picture I mentioned. The changing pad cover was also clearance at Target from a totally different line than the crib sheets, but somehow the colors still match perfectly and they look like a set that goes together!

Other side of the room.

You all know I'm a cheap wad, but I actually spent more money on the baby's room than I think I have ever spent on any room of any house we've had (see our guest room for under $100 here ) .

That being said, I think we still got a pretty good bargain on this room considering how much new furniture we bought for it. I spent a total of $450 on baby's room, but that includes the crib, crib mattress, dresser/changing table, glider chair (which was originally over $500 in itself until we found it on clearance), wall decor, crib sheets, changing pad and covers, area rug, curtains, curtain rod, throw pillow and paint). One of the dressers -the one that looks a little beat up (above) and the lamp we already had.

I'm happy with how everything turned out - mostly I'm just happy that we were able to finish it before our little guy arrived! I'm also pleased with the green paint. I was nervous that it might look bad with all the other different greens in the room, but I think it turned out okay.

Here's a before pic taken before we moved everything out so Steve could start painting. It's amazing what a little paint and TLC can do!

Check out the hideous curtains (all wadded up). Those were courtesy of the previous owners - I was very happy to throw them in the trash!

Hello Maternity Leave!

It's supposedly my last day of work....woo hoo! I am so ready to be done. I hired my replacement, but may end up coming back for a little while next week to finish up some training. As much as I'm excited to not be working, I am going to miss my coworkers and all of my wonderful clients. I wouldn't say that I absolutely love my job, but I do like it and that's gotta count for something.

My coworkers threw me a baby shower on Wednesday. It was so sweet and thoughtful, and I ended up getting quite a few of the little necessities that I would have had to go out and buy otherwise, so it was a definite blessing! A couple of weeks ago all of my residents surprised me with a giant card signed by each one of them and it was stuffed with $1.00 bills. It was so sweet! I told Steve that I was scared to carry around all of those $1's, because I was afraid people might get the wrong idea of what kind of business I was in! Ha! :)

I'm starting to run out of energy. It will be a busy next few days. Brat fest with friends tonight, Minneapolis on Saturday and Sunday and Eau Claire on Monday. As much as I'm looking forward to fun, I'm not looking forward to coming home exhausted. At least I can sleep in (or try to) on Tuesday.

I am so proud of my husband. As you all may know he's not exactly the handiest guy ever, but he's been totally stepping out of his comfort zone lately. In the last week alone he's been working on constructing a box to fit our church BBQ grill in for easy transport, he's taken apart and fixed our garbage disposal which had completely gone out, fixed our garage door opener that hasn't worked in 2 months and installed a new a/c window unit in our bedroom (he had to do a bit of construction to make it fit).
One of the greatest gifts we ever received was the Home Depot 1-2-3 book that Jeff & Lindsay gave us when we bought our house here in Madison. They told us it was one of those "must have" books for homeowners, and Steve and I agree! He's learned so much and grown so much in his handy man skills in the past few years and I'm so proud of him!

Bangers, Mash, and a Dishwasher....

We have a fun St. Patty's day. We had a party and made some Bangers & Mash for the first time and it turned out really good! What can I say, my husband is a great cook!

We also doubled our St. Patty's day festivities with a "dishwasher warming" party! Yep, after sitting in our living room for 3 weeks we learned two things:

1. A dishwasher is really better when it's installed in a kitchen, and doesn't make for a very attractive end table while it sits in a cardboard box in the living room.
2. It's incredibly amazing to just throw dishes in the dishwasher and let it work it's magic!

Seriously, I think Jeff thought I was a maniac after he finished installing it and I couldn't wait to dirty up some dishes to throw in there. Luckily, with our St. Patty's day festivities I got my opportunity. No paper plates for this party....we went all out and used our finest Ikea dishes set!

I don't miss my cabinet space one bit...okay, maybe I miss the space but the dishwasher is totally worth it. I also am amazed at how large our living room looks now that the dishwasher is out of it!
Everything is good, life is happy!

Exciting Weekend!

What a busy weekend! So fun though, and we got a lot accomplished!
Friday night we went to a wine & cheese party. No worries, no drinking for this preggo, instead I feel asleep on AJ & Sarah's couch, so in reality I probably looked like a drunk. Why is it that when you're pregnant you always crave the things you can't have? I have been absolutely craving red wine and beer my entire pregnancy and have been caught on several occasions smelling Steve's alcoholic beverages. For now, just smelling them is good enough!

Saturday was girl's day....yea! Sarah S and I went to Milwaukee and did a bit of shopping. We walked around at Bayshore and had lunch at Bravo - it was so good to get away! While we were having a good time Steve and Nich stayed home and painted the baby's room and put the crib together. It looks really good and seriously filled my love tank to have this project taken care of.
Here's Steve prepping the room for paint:

And here's the finished product:

Sorry for the poor quality of the pics, I took them with my blackberry. I'm really happy with how the green turned out and now I can't wait to get to really decorating! Since the baby's room is kind of our storage room while Jessica is living in the basement, we're not really able to decorate or put to much away since there's a definite lack of space. Come June when she moves out though we'll be moving a lot of stuff back down to the basement and then the baby's room can really be a baby's room!

Sunday was another day full of accomplishment! I spent the entire afternoon working in our kitchen because pretty soon we're gonna have a new dishwasher! Yea! I am so excited! We never had a dishwasher in our last house, so having a dishwasher was a prerequisite with this house. Well, between buying a house while I didn't have a job and my husband was stuck in St. Louis and the stresses of life at the time we decided the dishwasher wasn't all that important after all. A year and a half later though I am finally getting my wish granted. Seriously, it sounds silly, but this ranks up there as almost as exciting as having a baby to me as I absolutely hate doing dishes! So, to make room for the dishwasher we're gonna have to get rid of a couple of drawers and lose some cupboard space, so that was my project for yesterday. I got rid of a lot of stuff and somehow found a home in other random places for the stuff in the cupboards and drawers that will soon be destroyed. I am overjoyed to give up this space though just to have an opportunity to be a little lazier with doing dishes in the long run. Jeff's coming over tomorrow to decide what he's going to need to do to get it installed (currently the dishwasher is sitting in its box in our living room) and then hopefully soon after that our dishes will be clean and my hands will be lazy! Yee haw!

Back to yesterday though, as exhausting as moving everything around was in the kitchen, I was so overjoyed to do it because I knew that eventually it would bring a lot of happiness into my life. Between the dishwasher and painted baby's room, I strangely feel so loved! We even got to top the evening off by having dinner with friends.
The weekend, although exhausting, couldn't have been more perfect!

PS...If you're still reading (which is doubtful, unless your my mom), sorry this is so long. Obviously, I'm a little bit overly excited about the dishwasher. I know the rest of you could probably care less about me cleaning out our kitchen drawers, but it's the little things like this in life that make me happy!

Family Room - Before and After

We've finally got our basement project about 90% completed - just in time for Jess to move in last Saturday. It feels good to finally be wrapping up this little project that has seemed to go on forever.
Here's a reminder of what the family room looked like in all of it's hideousness before (taken just when we started preparing for our new flooring):

And here's some of the "afters"Isn't this such a cute little area rug? We purchased it last spring at the Maple Bluff neighborhood garage sale for just $5.00. It doesn't look like it's ever been used! At the time I wasn't sure where we could put it, but I think it looks nice in this space.
The other part of the family room. You can't really see the cute light hanging about the chair very good, but it's something that we purchased a few years when we bought our first house back in St. Louis. I think we paid around $7 for it at Ikea, but it never ended up looking good in our old place, so never went to use. We were looking for some more light for this area when I remembered that we had this somewhere in a box in the garage. I think finding it was the hardest part!
The curtains aren't my favorite, but we needed some curtains in this room badly and I found them for super cheap at Target (I think they cost around $3.50) a few months back and figured they would work until I found another steal that would do the trick.
And yet the other part of the family room, where the stairs lead up to the kitchen. Not to exciting.
Steve actually had to reminded me to take pictures of our finished project (I think he's just mostly glad that he's done with all the hard work!). While I was taking pictures of the family room he reminded me that I hadn't taken pictures of the closet in the guest room (borrrrinng!) and wanted me to take another picture of the bathroom. I'll spare you the boring closet, but just for Steve here's a picture of the bathroom from afar.

Next project......baby's room!

Bedroom Before and Afters

We've finally finished our downstairs guest room, just in time for Jessica to arrive this weekend. I will be so happy once our entire basement project is complete. At least it's looking so much better.
I had a lot of fun when I realized how little we had spend on our little project. Here's the before picture of this oh so hideous room:
What was the worst about this room was without a doubt the concrete flooring, which suprisingly was a step up from the dog pee infested carpet that was in the room when we bought the house.
Here's what the room looks like now:
Because of my love for both decorating and doing it cheap, I was excited when I crunched some numbers and realized how little we spent on EVERYTHING to make this room look better.
Let's start with the floors:
We got this flooring at a great deal at lumber liquidators - $.59/sq. ft!
The room is 110 sq. feet total so the flooring cost a total of $64.90.
This cutie little rug I got a few years ago on clearance at Target for $4.88.I found this cute little reversible comforter and pillow set last year at Target on clearance and was so happy because it matches nicely with the rug.
Comforter and Pillow Covers = $12.00
Picture Frame = Ikea for $3.99 (The pictures inside are actually greeting cards that I got for free way back when I worked at Starbucks)
Also pictured are the two different paint colors we used for this room. As I mentioned before our entire basement project has been done with "Oops" paint. The darker khaki was $4.00/gallon at walmart and the lighter brown was also $4.00 for the gallon. The two gallons of paint not only went to good use in this room but we also used it in the family room, so total cost of paint for this room when you divide it out was just $4.00.On to the dresser....I've had this dresser for a few years. With my love for cheap/free stuff I actually found it on the side of the road back when I lived in St. Louis and gave it a very small amout of TLC.
Funny fact about us Rodriguez' is that actually every dresser or chest of drawers in our house have been found on the side of the road. To some people this might be gross, but we love the challenge of fixing things up. I can't even begin to tell you how many times we've recieved compliments on the matching dresser and chest of drawers in our bedroom that we refinished together and then stained to match our headboard (also consequently FREE) back when we first got married. I will have to do a post on our bedroom on another day though.
Cost of Dresser: FREE!
The pretty fresh flowers are compliments of my sweet friend Katie.
So that's it, the room is finished. We still would like to replace the ugly blue curtains that don't really match so well, but until I find a great bargain they'll do.
Total cost of a brand new guest room - flooring, paint, comforter, area rug, pictures frames and all....$94.65!

Bathroom Before & After

We've been slaving away at our house and think we finally got the downstairs bathroom almost done.
Steve and I have had this little experiment with our basement project....to try and do it all as cheaply as possible. That being said I've been totally out of my comfort zone with what we've done concerning paint colors. I am a color nazi. Every other time that we've painted any room in our house it's taken a million paint swatch colors - some of them practically the same exact shade and I've gone back and forth for weeks before I chose a color.
This project has been different (hence the trying to do things as cheap as possible) and I hate to admit it, but somewhat fun. We've been shopping strictly for the "oops" paint only. We've had swatches to get some basic ideas, but after that we've been at the mercy of the Walmart, Menards and Home Depot paint department to choose our colors. This involves taking a weekly trip to the stores to see if any new mess up paints have become available. It's kind of following the "one man's trash is another man's treasure" concept. Obviously we're not going to paint a hideous color that we actually hate, but it has been kind of fun to live on the edge and not be so in control of our paint colors and instead let the mess up colors from our local paint departments decide the fate of what our rooms will look like. So far we've spent a total of $12.00 on paint and have purchased 4 whole gallons! Normally that would have cost us about $70.00 for that amount of paint!
I was a little nervous about this green we used in the bathroom, but I think it actually turned out okay and ended up kind of fun. Definitely different from the normal colors I choose.
Here's the boring before picture:

And the after (not shown is the cabinets, we painted them gray and used that as an accent color to go nicely with the rug we put in there)



















All in all I'm pleased! We finished painting up the downstairs guest room last night and I think the two colors we chose in there turned out nice as well. Next up is to find something for the family room!

All work and a little play...

Our weekend was filled with work and play. Friday night we had Nich & Sarah over for dinner and watched "The Proposal." Such a funny movie and if your a fan of Oscar from The Office prepare to laugh!
We woke up bright and early Saturday morning to go pick up our new floors and get to work. Steve knocked out a bunch of the family room and I got most of the downstairs bathroom painted and new mirrors and artwork hung.


Later on in the afternoon we paid a visit to our first Wisconsin Corn Maze! So fun!
Schuster's Playtime Farm is where it's at! The corn maze was supposed to take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half and we made in to the end in about an hour. We also went on a hayride, watched some pig races and then had a bonfire. The guys had a good time being guys, playing on the playground (which I think was really supposed to be for kids) and wrestling with each other.
Wisconsin is such a fun place in the fall!
After the fun stopped Steve and I went home to stay up late and work more on the house.
Besides church on Sunday the entire rest of our weekend consisted of working on that darn basement. I will be so glad once this project is done.
I know I've said it before, but I truly believe with all of my heart that I have the best husband in the entire world. He has been working so hard to put our new floors in and has had to deal with a lot of mishaps along the way (let's just say we found some surprises under the 2 layers of linoleum that we've had to tear up from underneath the washer and dryer). He has been working non-stop all weekend and since he came home from work yesterday only to take a break for community group last night. I am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man.
Tomorrow is Steve's birthday so I'm taking him out to dinner for a much needed night off. Just a few more pictures of my sweet husband...

Empty Nesters

Another weekend has come and gone. It was a very quiet weekend - and the first weekend since we've moved to Madison where we've had the house all to ourselves.
Dale and Jacq moved into their new place on Saturday and it was so eerie in our house without them there. We found out a few things in their absence:

1. Our refrigerator and freezer are absolutely gigantic. Seriously, even with 4 people living under one roof we rarely ran out of space in the fridge, but now that it's just Steve and I, our fridge looks practically empty.

2. Our house feels absolutely HUGE! The basement area where Dale and Jacq stayed is not glorious by any means (we're working on that though), nor is it spacious. But, it's amazing how an extra bedroom, bathroom and family room make our house feel like a mansion!

Steve and I are still getting used to living on our own. In the last 2 years with all of this selling of our house, moving, and buying a new house we've lived with lots of people, including us in Steve's parents house, me in the house of complete strangers for a few months and then Dale & Jacqueline with us for a year. After getting used to living with people it feels strange to have to get used to living on our own again.

Steve and I both enjoy being around people, so it all feels a little weird with just the two of us in the house. It was kind of sad for me to wake up on Saturday morning and not have other people in the house to chat with over coffee.

All of this weirdness will be short lived as the house will be full again in January with the arrival of Jess. In the meantime though we'll be plenty busy with fixing up our basement.

On the to-do list tonight: paint the bathroom (while Steve's out stuffing his face with the guys to see who can put back the most chicken wings)

I am so not looking forward to this!

just an update...

I've been a blog neglector lately. Life hasn't been all the exciting, but it's been kind of fun. Last week Steve, Dale & Jacqueline came to visit me for a few days and that was a lot of fun. A few days later I hopped in the car and headed to St. Louis to welcome Caleb into the world. Isn't he so sweet?

I had a great weekend in St. Louis visiting with friends and it was SO hard for me to head back to Madison. I made a pit stop in Chicago to do some shopping at Ikea on the way home so that made me feel a little better.
It's worked out really nice this last month where almost every weekend I've had one friend or another come up to visit so it's been fun to see friends and Steve has come along with them.
This weekend Steve is coming up with Pat & Julie and I'm so excited! The weekend after that is moving weekend so it will be my Steve and Steve M and from what I heard Chris, Dan & Amy are maybe going to be stopping by to Madison to see us and help with unpacking the moving truck.

That will be one busy weekend! Because the house we're buying makes me want to vomit with the dog pee smell we'll be tearing out all the carpet and giving the house a good clean before we move anything in. Two weeks after we move in Dale & Jacq will be heading up here to live in the basement, so I'm hoping i can get everything in order by myself before they get here.
I'm super excited about our nice kitchen! Our house in Dupo had such a small kitchen and although this one isn't huge it's quite a bit bigger and has brand new stainless appliances! All we need is a dishwasher. If any one has suggestions on where to get a good deal on dishwashers let me know!

The place we're buying has so much potential, it just needs a bit of work and a really good cleaning! Most of it will be minor though and totally worth it for the good deal we good and hopefully the money it will bring us in a few years if we choose to sell.

All in all life is good. It's been rough living with out Steve. We're going into week 5 now. We didn't think it would be this long that he would have to stay back in St. Louis, but we know that God has plans in store that we don't yet see and He's given us a lot of grace for this rough season. Does it suck? Yes, totally....but we're learning a lot and learning what it really means to say that we put our trust in God in a totally different degree than we've had to trust Him before.

Today is the day....

We close on our house! YEA! I am so happy and so ready for this stress to be over.

My emotions have kind of been all over the place the last few days. I really am SO sad to be selling our house! This is the first house we bought together and we've put a lot of work into it as we've made it "ours" and exactly how we like it, so now it's hard to think about someone else moving in and us going back to square one with making a new house our home.

We moved everything out on Saturday and are now living in Barnhart with Steve's folks for the next 6 weeks until we make the big move to Madison. We're heading up to Madison this weekend with Dale & Jacqueline and will be doing a little house hunting and will hopefully find something we like enough to put down an offer on.

I also will be going in for a job interview when we're in town, so hopefully something will pan out there.

This all has been an overhwleming process, but it's been neat to see how God has put all of the puzzle pieces together one piece at a time. Realistically looking at our situation and all the unknowns I get overwhelmed, but it's in those times that within hours God seems to bring another piece into the puzzle and show us how everything will work out one step at a time. I'm grateful for his provision during this time!

SOLD!

I haven't been the best with keeping up with life on the old blog. We're been busy and will continue to be really busy for the next month as we prepare to move as our house sold already ! Yea!

Within just a week and a half on the market we had not one but TWO offers on our house! We've been negotiating between the two and now have a GREAT primary offer in place and are still waiting to hear back on our counter offer for a backup contract. We really couldn't be more thrilled.

Truthfully we're getting quite a bit more for the house than I thought we would. Being a Realtor I had prepared Steve as much as possible when we put it up for sale by telling him that with this market it might take months before there's even any interest (actually my words were "I wouldn't be surprised if we were still here at Thanksgiving"). All that to say I was beyond excited last weekend when within 24 hours we had 2 offers on the house! God really did provide for us and I know that without him we wouldn't have these offers in place. It really is a miracle!

So....the big closing date is set for July 22nd and we're praying that everything goes smoothly between now and then with inspections and such. After we close we'll move in with Steve's parents for a month or so before we make the big move. We're not exactly sure of our moving date yet as we've had a few things come up that would require one of us staying in St. Louis until September 14th. I'm thinking that I might move up there towards the beginning of September and start looking for a job (and hopefully will find one quick) and then Steve could come up a bit later. That way at least one of us is working at all times rather than we both just quit our jobs and leave.

The jobs and the housing situation in Madison are our 2 main hurdles to cross next. We found a condo we liked a few months ago when we were visiting town but unforunately it sold and we're not seeing too much else that we like so that (along with the much higher housing costs there) has been discouraging.

just a little update....

Blogging hasn't been my forte lately. I was so excited to get our house on the market in the hopes that life would slow down a little. In reality though, ever since we finally got the house up for sale we've been super busy catching up with all the friends we've neglected over the last 6 weeks while we were working so hard on the house. Someday maybe we'll get to sleep in on a Saturday.

Not this Saturday though cause we're going camping with friends! I'm excited cause I LOVE camping!

On to the house update though....we've had quite a bit of interest! We had a couple look at it a few days ago that according to their agent LOVED it! They're coming back tomorrow and will bringing their parents to get their opinion on the house and then will hopefully be writing and offer.
We also have another couple coming this afternoon to check it out who consequently will also be looking at my best friends house that's up for sale down the street right after ours. I wonder if it will creep them out a bit to go to two different houses and see pictures of the same kids hanging up on the walls in both houses?

I'll be honest it's been a little hard for me to relinquish control with the sale of our house. I'm a licensed Realtor in the state of Missouri, but that doesn't really help me much for our house since I'm living in Illinois. A Realtor friend of mine has our house listed, but being the control freak that I am it's been a little harder for me than I thought it would be. I really thought about forking over all that money just to get my license in Illinois so I could list and sell our house myself, but really that's a ridiculous financial decision...especially since my friend that is listing it is being so generous by giving me half of her commission on both mine and Dale & Missy's house sale as a referral fee as well as she's reduced the listing fee. The norm is just 25% (which really still is a lot for not really having to do any work but refer someone), so I feel very blessed! When I start to have those control moments where I just want to sell the house the way I think is best I just try to remind myself that really God is the one in control after all.

Hopefully by the beginning of next week we'll be under contract, then it's off to live with the in-laws for the next few months until we make the move. I'm sure those few months of living in the boonies will give me lots of opportunities to blog more and lots more topics too! Life should be interesting in the upcoming months!

We're UP! (on the market that is)

View from the street, not pictured is our 1 car detached garage and nice fenced backyard!

After lots of hard work we finally have our house on the market! We have been working so hard this past month (hence why I haven't been blogging much) just trying to get everything perfect and I have to say that if we were looking for a house I would definately buy our cutie little place! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit sad to be selling our place.

If anyone in the St. Louis metro area is looking for a great little house with lots of updates let's make a deal!


Bedroom 1 (upstairs) is bright and airy with 2 windows and beautiful wood floors. Also has a cable tv hookup

Bedroom 2 (upstairs) is comfy and fun. This room also has a nice walk-in closet.

Bedroom 2 (again) has beautiful wood floors just like the first bedroom as well as a cable hook up.

This is our living room, it's very comfy and has high ceilings and lots of character. It also opens up into the dining room. The carpets are about 2 years old but were recently profesionally cleaned and look like they're brand new!

View from Living room into dining room

That's all I have time for now, I will update more pics of the rest of the house later as time allows.
Please pray that our house will sell.....quickly!