Psalm 40- The Long Journey Home

For those who want the short but sweet version, here it is: We sold our old house and bought a new one. It was a LONG, challenging journey but our new house is bigger and better and we've been living here a little over a week now. Now, for those of you who want the whole story, keep reading....

11 Do not withhold your mercy from me, Lord; may your love and faithfulness always protect me.

As you know we decided to try selling our house at the beginning of September. It honestly was a pretty impromptu decision. Three other houses on our street went on the market and with the first time home buyer credit we figured now was as good a time as any (probably better, actually). Our house was definitely perfect for a first time home buyer so we decided to give it a whirl. On September 27th we put in an offer on a house we fell in love with . It met all our specs: 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, fireplace, family friendly floor plan, 2 car garage, yard, more square footage, etc, etc. and was in the perfect spot; close to Dimond, family, church, friends and ballet school! The seller's agreed to accept our offer which was much lower than the listing price once we were in contract with a buyer for our house. So, we decided to list our house with our buyer's agent, Ruth (who turns out truly, TRULY was sent as a gift from God) to try to speed along the selling process so we could get into the house we sooooo loved. Our house was officially listed with our agent on September 29th.

On October 3rd we found out the sellers of the house we wanted got a full price offer and accepted it so we were back on the house hunt (and none too happy about it) :( We looked and looked and LOOKED at houses in our desired area and there just didn't seem to be ANYTHING that fit us the way the "Terry house" had been a perfect fit for our family. There were really three categories of perspective houses: "ABSOLUTELY not, I can't believe someone's living in that place!" "Um, no thank you, probably not." and "Well, maybe if we could figure out how to wall that room different or fence that yard different this place maybe could work if we really were out of options." Not a very successful hunt. We'd pretty much exhausted all the options that met our specs and we had just one house left to check out. It was a for sale by owner and was literally the last place on the list of prospects.

1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. 2 he lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

On the afternoon of September 7th we received an offer on our house. We decided to accept the offer and felt like the FSBO house might just be the one, given the timing. We looked at it that night and after about 45 minutes we felt like this place was a little more like it. It was plenty of space, and though the floor plan wasn't exactly the best fit, it had a great yard and wouldn't need TOO much overhauling to make it feel nice, fixed up and like home. It needed some carpet and paint and updates throughout but otherwise it was an alright place. We were ready to put in an offer and not feel like we were "settling" too much. We went home to wait for our agent to call with a proposed offer amount.

Lem was frantically checking his email watching for an email from Ruth and in came our automatic listing update. We'd been getting automated email updates whenever a new property that met our specs (in our area) came on the market. This particular update held 3 new listings. So, after a short discussion as to whether or not it was wise to "open that can of worms" so to speak, we opened it up. My jaw literally dropped and I'm sure my eyes about popped out of my head when Lem said, "BACK ON MARKET...guess what it is...?" THE TERRY HOUSE! The deal had fallen through with the other offer and it was back on the market-HIP HIP HOORAY!!! After about 2 minutes of debating and alot more prayer we made the decision to go with our original house love and put in another offer on the Terry House. The next day we wrote up and signed to submit our offer. We got word on September 9th that the seller's accepted our offer! My, oh my, God sure does work in wonderfully, awesome ways in our life!

17 But as for me, I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; you are my God, do not delay.

Sounds like a great story, huh? Happy ending and all...? Well, really, turns out that was just the beginning! On September 13th we got back the inspection on our old house and the buyer's inspector noted that the house needed a new roof. So for the next 6 days we were on the hunt for a roofer. It sounded like a simple enough solution to the roofing dilemma, the buyer's would up the purchase price by $4,000 to cover $4,000 of the roof and we'd cover the rest...somehow. It was definitely a struggle to keep our faith that God's hand was on this ordeal and that in the end, somehow He would provide us with a solution that was fair and affordable. We still felt like God was calling us to move to a new house and that He would get us there. After learning that escrowing the money (as originally planned) wasn't really the best financial plan for us we decided to get the roof replaced before we moved so we could use whatever company we wanted (i.e. the cheapest). On October 26th and 27th we got our new roof put on. With all the nonsense with the roof it took nearly two weeks to get a signed repair agreement for our old house. Then we had the inspection on our new house and the sellers agreed to do all the repairs we'd asked for-praise God, a break in the clouds!

12 For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me. 13 Be pleased to save me, Lord; come quickly, Lord, to help me.

As part of our offer on the Terry House we'd asked for early occupancy since the house had been vacant for months and that would allow us to get the carpets and house cleaned and have the old house all ready for the new buyers to move in on closing day on November 6th. Once we'd had our inspection and appraisal we took Sycely on over to tour the new house. We showed her all around and let her check out her new room and get a feel for the "lay of the land" at our new home. On the 28th, just 2 days before we were supposed to get the keys we found out that the seller's never signed the early occupancy agreement and wouldn't until they got back the appraisal, so, here we were two days til moving and didn't know when we'd be able to move in. The appraisal had been done and finally on the afternoon of the 30th it came back to the lender and was sent to the seller's. By 11pm that night we still didn't have a signed copy of the early occupancy agreement. Did I mention that the sellers live in Oregon so every step of the process is further delayed by the added distance?! Anyway, Halloween morning we finally got the signed agreement (well, ONE page was signed anyway...they forgot to sign the second page!) and got the go ahead to move in.

We took a few loads over in our vehicles that day and Lem and his dad with some help from his bro got to painting the master bedroom and Ella's bedroom. They also got our bed filled and warming up so it'd be ready for our first night. It wasn't until the next morning that we learned the carpets had never been cleaned...soooo, we couldn't put any furniture in the girls' room our first day/night in the new house! AARRRRRGGGHHH! So, technically we were in and living in the new house on Sunday, November 1st, we just couldn't really use half the bedrooms. Not quite a seamless transition for our girls like we'd planned. They did both spend the first night in their rooms, Sycely's mattress on the floor, Ella in the playpen but it wasn't until the next day after the carpets dried that we were really able to get much of anything done with their rooms. That same day we found out the the fridge wasn't working so it was more phone calls to the selling agent (whose assistant apparently quit w/o notice and w/o figuring things out with our sellers) so we spent the first 5 days with all our fridge stuff in coolers on the back deck...that sure put a wrench in things for us, especially the girls.

4 Blessed are those who make the Lord their trust...

Meanwhile back at the old house, the carpets were getting cleaned, some tile work was getting done and everything was getting professionally cleaned for our buyers. All the repairs had been completed so we were officially done with our responsibilities there. On November 5th the re inspection on the old house was completed (the tile work was still not done!) and there were some discrepancies between the items listed as required repairs on the original report and what the reinspect was showing (about 6 hours before closing!!!!) Eventually things got worked out with the inspector and we were given the go ahead to close at 4:00 that afternoon. Then we got a call that the Title company didn't have our closing documents (are you kidding me?!) less than 2 hours before closing. Our lender called over and they were actually at the Title company waiting for us, but they had to be fedexed to Oregon for our sellers to sign which put us in jeopardy of not being able to record on our closing date (November 6th) the next day. We went in and signed all the closing documents for the sale of the old house and the purchase of the new house with a lady who actually goes to our church and prayed our sale would record on Friday. It didn't end up recording until Monday, but praise God, as of Monday, November 9th, we officially own our new home!

5 Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. none can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.

On a side adventure, Lem and Ian headed out to Eagle River after we closed to pick up our new fridge. Our agent was buying a new one and just felt so bad that no one had taken care of our fridge situation that she offered to just give us her old one. It's only a couple years old and is nothing fancy but it was free and it keeps our food cold (inside the house!). Ruth has been such an amazing, unexpected blessing to us. She has gone so over and beyond for us in so many ways. She definitely looks at her work as a service to the Lord (which she told us the first time we met her) and we have definitely benefited from her dedication to that service. What a blessing this sister in Christ has been to us! So, we now have a new fridge, and we got a super great steal of a deal on a new washer and dryer from Lowes our first week in the new house. Now I can do laundry, cook meals and even store the leftovers. I just can't reheat them because, believe or not, the microwave stopped working after the first time we used it (yeah, the day AFTER we got the new fridge). Fortunately our home warranty will cover getting it fixed or possibly replaced so we should be hearing about that today.

3 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.
All in all, it's been a whirlwind 2 months for us. It's been a challenge trying to keep things consistent and stable for the girls when we had stuff packed up and potential buyers wanting to come look at our house at all hours-naptime, dinnertime, bedtime. Then or course there were all the ups and downs of putting in our offer then missing out on the house we loved, then getting the offer on our house, then getting another shot at the house we loved. Follow that up with some major hurdles to clear on both the selling and buying sides of the table and we found ourselves facing some tests of our faith. But like Abraham, even when there was no reason for hope, we clung to God's promise and faithfulness. Even when we didn't know how we were literally going to put a roof over our heads, I kept on packing. We just kept saying, and believing, we are moving, God is moving us and He will bring forth solutions in His timing and as our faithful God does, He fulfilled each one of His promises and had brought forth abundant blessing in our lives. We have an amazing, beautiful (almost twice the square footage) home that meets all the needs and so much more of our family, is more convenient to all our activities and is going to allow us to do so much for His kingdom. Oh, and did I mention that selling our house allowed us to pay off all our credit card debt, too?! Through the whole journey we tried to bear in mind that "you can't have a testimony without a test" and sure, we had some pretty gigantic tests, but just look at the testimony we have to show for it!

9 I proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, Lord, as you know. 10 I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help. I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness from the great assembly.

Our new home features 1900 plus square feet, living room, dining room, kitchen (with pantry), family room (with fireplace), breakfast nook, coat closet, access to our backyard and 2 car garage and a 1/2 bath/laundy room and all new carpet downstairs. Upstairs are 3 bedrooms plus the spacious master suite (our favorite part of the house-no this picture does not do it justice at all!) which boasts a fabulous walk-in closet and its own fabulous bathroom with Jack and Jill sinks and an amazing oversized soaking tub! The girls also have their own bathroom (with a linen closet) upstairs. Our back yard is has a great deck with outdoor fireplace and lots of space for us to enjoy our summers and is even somewhat sloped so we have some sledding fun this winter, right at home!

Following are some pictures of the house to acquiese all of you who keep harrassing us for photos! We're just starting to get things up on the wall and tackle the decor end of things so these pics are nothing fancy, just kind of a rough idea of our floor plan, etc. And my camera was on some weird setting when I took them so I apologize for the lower clarity. I promise to snap some more and share them once we get things looking a little more homey.

Halloween

Like everything else in October, Halloween was crazy busy. We carved our pumpkin at home with help from Ella and Daddy. Sycely started her Halloween celebrating on Wednesday with some trick-or-treating fun at school. Her classroom was set up carnival game style and the kids wore with their costumes and did trick-or-treating around the other classrooms in the school. Sycely stopped in for a special pic with the Principal, Mr.Okada, who used to be the principal at Dimond when Lem and I were there. I just keep hoping those are the only kind of visits she'll be making to the Principal's office!

Friday night Lem and I joined our friends for a costume get together. We pulled off a pretty convincing Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra. Lem even had tunes coming out of his suit jacket and carried a microphone. We enjoyed some delicious treats, good drinks and fun game playing, etc without any kiddos! It was a super stressful couple of days but it was really great to at least get a couple hour break to have some fun.

Miss Theresa allowed the girls to wear their costumes to ballet so it made for an extra cute crowd of mini-ballerinas Saturday morning. After ballet wrapped up, Sycely and made a trip to Target and then we went to the new house to set up the girls' new bathroom. Sycely really wanted a butterfly bathroom and I have to admit it's pretty perfect for our little girly girls and ended up going perfectly with the (bizarre) already green paint!

We went back to the other house, got Ella in her costume and picked up her and Nanny and headed from a Halloween carnival. It was a blustery, cold day and the coming and going wasn't too fun but the games and prizes were. The girls even each got to pick out their own pumpkin from the makeshift pumpkin patch. Ella's costume turned out super cute and it sure helped the cuteness factor that she snuggled her Minnie Mouse close all afternoon. Sycely got her face painted with a blue butterfly-pretty much the main highlight of the whole Halloween adventure this year.

We headed back to the new house to get a few boxes unpacked and get the girls in and warmed up for a while. The girls headed over to Nanny and Papa's for dinner while Lem and his dad worked on painting at the new house and I went on a Home Depot run. Ella stayed with Nanny since it was getting late into the evening while Sycely and I checked out the carnival at Nanny and Papa's church. It was definitely NOT for Sycely's age and all the activities were WAY too old for her. She was pretty overstimulated by all the noise, hustle and bustle of the older, wilder kids. All she really cared about was getting her face painted again (the aforementioned butterfly had mostly rubbed off by mid evening). We looked and looked and finally found the face painting and after an more than 10 minute wait she got her second butterfly and that was it. She didn't even want to try anything else or look at the other activities, she just asked to go home. So we headed back to Nanny's where she did one door-front trick-or-treat at Nanny's neighbor's house and then it was off to our last night in our old house....

October

I'm going to hit you all with some major updates all at once so I apologize in advance for all the reading you're going to be doing. Things have been pretty insanely crazy the last 6 weeks or so and we've been through some pretty major events/transitions. And it's time you all got caught up! FYI Halloween and the whole housing deal are getting their own blogs so keep reading :)

October was full of all our usual activities: school, work, ballet, skating, family and otherwise and on top of all that we had the whole selling/buying a house thing going on. What a crazy time!

Sycely's in full swing at Pre-School and is enjoying her time there. She apparently has begun daily ballet instruction for the student-teachers and spends almost all her time at school either dancing or doing art. Her teachers are all amazed that she can spend 80 minutes at the art area without ever needing anyone for anything. Yep, she's a girly girl for sure! Her artwork is getting really super cute and more and more detailed. She's done a sunflower series that will be hung in our dining room sometime soon and has done about 10 pieces in her Olivia (the pig) series. Last night she spent two hours decorating the scenery for her play of "Hey fiddle fiddle the cat and the fiddle" as she called it. The backdrop came complete with mountains, a volcano, trees (with fruit growing on them) and flowers, "floaty" clouds and of course a moon for the cow (that'd be Lem) to jump over. Her and Ella have had quite a fun time decorating all our moving boxes, too.


Ella is cute as can be, toddling around and yacking non-stop. Her vocabulary grows daily and she's got a a whole slough of new words all the time. Lately they've included body parts and clothing items. Some of my favorite recent additions are couch, panties (one of her favorite security items), poopy (of course!), yes (which evidently really starts with a J), bless you and stand up. This week she got her 8th and 9th teeth (including her first molar) and in the last two weeks or so she's gone from using the one-legged scoot about 80% of the time to walking 90% of the time. She's pretty quick to launch herself up on her feet and take off toddling wherever she's headed. She's still just a tiny little thing (maybe SOMEDAY we'll get to change her carseat to forward facing!) and her little wobbly walking stance (picture drunken cowboy after long day on horse) is really adorable.


The girls are starting to be able to play together more (by together I mean near) and Sycely always wants to include Ella as a character in whatever pretend play she's into at the moment. She loves to play Lionesses and Bears (Ella is always the baby) and they've taken to playing Pride Rock on the landing. For those of you wondering, Sycely is STILL way into the Lion King perfromance. Someone (NANNY) thought it was a great idea to get her the soundtrack from the stage performance so we get to listen to that every car ride AND pretty much every other moment of the day through Sycely's strikingly accurate recreations on a daily basis.

Lem finished up first quarter and did his first round of parent conferences this month and is heading into local Model UN weekend this week. The final tennis banquet officially wrapped up the end of his duties there and before we know it, it'll be Thanksgiving weekend and then we'll be looking at the end of the semester and Christmas break!


I pretty much spent the whole month of October packing, seriously. I spent some time making some serious moo-lah on Craigslist and ran around town donating the rest of our unwanted items. We got all new furniture and bedding for our bedroom and some new furniture throughout the rest of the house (especially our awesome new red couches!) I concentrated the rest of my efforts on trying to keep things consisitent (as much as possible) and stable for the girls. It was no easy feat but we all made it through pretty much unharmed :) We had no snow until this week which was nice in some ways, but we did face colder temperatures which made for chilly school drop offs and errands, especially with our garage full of boxes and cars parking in the driveway overnight. Now we have a little snow (and this afternoon is bringing on a blizzard!) and it is starting to LOOK like winter as much as it FEELS like winter. Fine by me, bring on the Holidays!

Pre-School Princess

Our little princess has officially started Pre-School! Seems Mommy is having a lot harder time handling the transition than Sycely is, but I am enjoying the special one-on-one time I'm getting with Ella while Sycely's at school. Sycely's attending at the King Career Center's Early Childhood Education program. KCC is a career and technical school here in town that offers courses for high school students in various fields and prepares them for specialized positions in the workforce. As part of their high school program they offer an Early Childhood training program. This program teams the high school students with two certified adult teachers (whom I'm been working with for the last 7 years or so) in a lab school setting. The students learn about child development through classroom instruction, observation and developing and implementing activities for the children. They have lots of hands-on opportunities to learn about working with young chidlren. There are two sessions, morning and afternoon. Sycely's in the later class for two hours three days a week. There are 14 kids in her class, including only 5 boys! In addition to the two adult teachers there are about 12 or 14 high school student teachers.

Two weeks ago we went in for "open house" an abbrieviated school day to let the kids get familiar with the classroom and meet their teachers with parents staying during this time. We pretty much went through the typical school day routine: free choice time, circle, lunch and outside time. Sycely is one of only a few students new this year so she was surrounded by kiddos who knew the drill. I just kept my distance and let her explore and get comfortable in this new environment and with all these new people. She was super open talking with and sitting with her teachers and already has a couple favorites, some of which, ironically are students in Daddy's class in the morning :)
Sycely started off her first trip to school with finding her name tag and dropping her things off in her cubby. Then she chose an activity-pets. They have a HUGE tortoise named Tort, she's been hearing about for a long time now, and a new bunny this year, too. Yep, a real live tortoise and the hare combo! From there she did some painting, some dressing up in dramatic play and then lounged in the pillow-filled bathtub for some book time with me. We followed all that up with lunch and circle and a trip outside to check out the playground then it was time to head home! Ahhh, our first step toward school success!

When the time came, she was all ready-set-go for her first day of Pre-School all on her own!

September

This month has been one heck of a busy one. The JV tennis season wrapped up, school and skating continues and the girls and I are in full swing of our fall routine and of course, I also started leading a Mom's Group at church this month and there's been lots of action on the housing front.

As far as an update on our house situation, we've been showing our house about 4-5 times a week, we've looked at houses, picked one out, and made an offer. It was quite a bit lower than the listing price but the sellers have agreed to accept it once we are in contract with a buyer for our current house. So, we're keeping things immaculate (hard enough in itself with two girls who aren't entirely onboard with that endeavor!) and working like crazy to get us a buyer. We've recently signed on with our Buyer's agent, Ruth, to list our house and we hope that will get us enough increased traffic to get us a buyer signed on the next two weeks. Continue to pray that God will bring us the right buyer and that everything with selling and buying will work together smoothly to bring about the good things we know He has in store for our family. We're pretty excited about our new house and hope to be celebrating the Holidays there, gathered around the fireplace making new family traditions and memories.

We got to celbrate our friend Julie's birthday a couple weeks ago. We went on a large group date to play Bingo, always looking for a new adventure. It was fun, mostly because we had such a big, fun group that were all Bingo rookies. But the real fun came between games when we got to take in some rat racing. Think roulette with a rat instead of a ball. It was a hoot! I actually even won $6 on one turn when the rat went into my birthday number, 28! Such a fun adventure for all of us. I feel so blessed to have such great, fun, supportive friends in my life.

Ella and Sycely have both been battling yucky germs, both having colds about two weeks ago. Since then Sycely came down with a bladder infection. She'd been fighting a high fever for about 6 days and after a visit to the pediatrician we finally found out what was causing it. They thought she had something viral and had told us to keep her hyfrated and as long as her fever was responding to Tylenol we were ok, but if it went up to 105 then that meant it was bacterial and to bring her in. Once we hit 105.9 we called and got her in asap. She's on antibiotics and her fever disappeared completely. She's had to miss two days of pre-school and one week of ballet school already, but was able to get back to all her regular activities this week. Little did we know she wasn't contagious that whole time afterall!

Ella got two new teeth this week for a totaly of six now, with what looks like one more on the way. She's been building up some confidence in the walking department and will take a couple lunging steps now, and took abotu 8 steps between me and Lem the other day, but she still favors the one legged crab-style side scoot for getting around most of the time. She's talking up a storm, using two word phrases and the like. She also says Sycely's name now which is really adorable. She's quite the little cutey pie these days. She LOVES the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See and will bounce and bounce chanting "brown bear brown bear brown bear" when she reads it. Her hair is turning out just as curly as Sycely's and is developing its own unruly flips here and there.

Sycely and Ella are really starting to play together now that Ella is getting a little older. They build with legos together and have tea parties and play with Little People and animals together. Sycely is so generous with her little sister and is always offering her one of her special stuffed animals or a favored toy with phrases like, "Here you go, Sweetie, Honey."

Lem, Sycely and I went on a super special date to see the Broadway stage production of Lion King last week. Sycely has been fascinated with the speical features footage of the stage production on the movie DVD for months so when we found out Lion King was coming to town there was no doubt we were going. She even has a homemade rendition of Nala's costume and mask for the daily re-enactments she performs-and that was BEFORE we saw the show live! Ella stayed home with Nanny and Papa and Sycely, Lem and I donned our finest and had dinner and then headed to the Performing Arts Center. We had really great seats and were able to see EVERYTHING. The first 2 minutes alone gave me goose bumps and brough tears to my eyes, being able to share such an amazing with Sycely and seeing her astonishment was such a memorable blessing.

My birthday was kind of overshadowed by Sycely being sick so it wasn't as "golden" as I'd hoped but we did get a chance to go on a date for a nice dinner and then have dessert with a few friends. We also had dinner and a yummy Reese's Blizzard cake with Lem's family on Monday.

The snow is making a rather rapid decent down our mountains this year. There was none when we started last week, one day there was a dusting on the tips and by mid-afternoon the following day it was more than half way down and has continued it's gradual crawl over the last few days. The air is certainly crisp and quite chilly these days. No question winter is just around the corner. Time to unpack the winter gear and do some boot shopping, I guess.

Hope you're all enjoying a lovely fall. We welcome your prayers for health and a quick and smooth housing transition for our family. Hope you are all safe and healthy!

The Winds of Change...

So, we've decided to sell our house and it's now officially on the market. After a couple months of considering the possibility (sparked by our two neighbors putting theirs up for sale) we are finally taking the plunge. Two weekends ago we spent a few hours driving around the area we want to move to scouting for sale signs and pulling fliers. Last Wednesday we went and looked at 4 houses, 2 of which were great and real possibilities, 2 or which were absolutely out of the question, one because the floor plan didn't fit what we were looking for and had a not-sodesirable yard, and one because it was just plain too weird! The last house we looked at is one we've been eyeing for a little over a month. It's right at the end of the Gibson's street which makes it extra desirable, but we hadn't been real serious about being ready to move so we hadn't seen it inside. We looked at it on Wednesday and absolutely fell in love with it! It's absolutely gorgeous inside and the whole place has been updated and is just perfect for our little family. The bedrooms are extra large, it has a fireplace, the two story floor plan we're looking for and a beautiful back yard with a nice big deck like we have now. Did I mention it's greatest feature-location, location, location? :) The owners recently finished all their work on it and got it all perfect and found out their friends were moving and they could buy their house in the neighborhood they've always planned to move to. So, they've only got til the end of the month to have a sales agreement signed so that put us in a bit of a spot and kind of took the whole "contigency offer" plan out of the running for us. So, the mass overhaul of sale prepping our house began last Thursday.

Since last Thursday we have painted (including priming and ceilings) two bathrooms, two bedrooms, living room and hall, trim around two windows and one door. We've cleaned doors and trim (thank you Lord for whoever invented the magic eraser!), windows, gotten the lawns mowed, cleaned up both the front and back yard and deck and cleaned the house top to bottom-the nesting kind of cleaned, we're talking the top of trim and inside baseboards kind of cleaning, here. The great news is we got everything finished by Sunday (with help form the Gibsons and Nanny and Papa) so we spent Monday getting the house put back together and cleaned up as well as "staging" the house to be ready to show to prospective buyers. It gave us a great opportunity to go through some things and pack away alot of our clutter-stuff we either don't need to access or won't be using before we plan to move. The good news is the house looks immaculate and super fresh (but naked on the walls) with all it's new paint, etc but the bad news is our garage is full of boxes and stuff we've cleared out.

Monday night our house officially went on the market-we posted it on Craigslist and some other classified listing sites and yesterday we got our sign and fliers out. Because of the short timeline the sellers of the house we want, we really only have about 2 weeks tops to get a buyer for our house. We're REALLY praying that if this is the house God intends for us that He will bring us the right buying soon and that if it's not the house he intends for us that He will lead us to something we love just as much or even more if we miss out on this one. For now we're just praying for a quick sale either way and that He will lead the right buyer to us and us to the right house. We appreciate you joining us in praying for this. And, if you know of anyone looking for a charming 3 bedroom house with and awesome yard, send them to our craigslist posting (you can find it by searching for Bass in the housing listings) or have them call or email us or swing by for a flyer. We will be sure to keep you all posted on any developments as they might occur. Below are some pics of how things look now.