She can't possibly be old enough for this already.

NINE WHOLE YEARS

...and from the getgo, they've all been...

...interesting.

I love you, my TLA.

Morning Walk: 6AM

Inside THE HOUSE

It's funny the things that are making me happy about this house! For one, I'll have a utility sink. I've always wanted a utility sink (happy sigh).

For another, I'll have cabinet space in my kitchen. This is more exciting than you could possibly know! And this picture is showing LESS THAN HALF of the cupboards I'll have!

WE'LL HAVE A BATHTUB THAT'S BIG ENOUGH FOR AN ADULT TO SOAK IN!!!!! I've never been a "bath" person, but this tub might change my mind about that!

The living room is 15 feet wide and 25 feet long (give an inch or two - my tape measure wasn't quite long enough to be totally accurate). Are you KIDDING ME??? That's about TWICE what I've had for the last 8 years! ....And to be honest, it's a little intimidating. I don't have nearly enough furniture to fill this room....but then, all the wide open space might be reeeally, reeeally nice!

Eleven Months Old

Hey, baby girl! You're eleven months old today! Let's take some pictures.

Would you like to hold your dolly in some of the pictures? C'mon...hold the dolly....

...y'know, you look a lot better when you're sitting up by those pillows.

OK....but now you need to smile. Can you give me a smile? KootcheekootcheKOOOOoooo....

.......That's not a smile.

There we go! That's gorgeous! Let's see if we can do it again.

Hey! You were supposed to stay by the pillows for the second take!

I'm serious. I think I need to take another picture of you smiling. Would you please go back to that spot by the pillows?

WHOA! Hey! NO TOUCHY the camera!

.........Hi.

Our New House - WHOOOOOPEEEEEEE!!!

Isn't it nice?!

OK. The yard...it doesn't look so good. But this picture was taken a year ago by my hubs before the landscaper had been by to grade the yard and plant the grass.

So here's the story.... a couple years back, my sweet hubby was hired to build the porch you're looking at. One thing led to another, and he ended up laying the floors (hardwood and tile), building/putting in the kitchen cabinetry (granite countertops!!), doing tile work in the bathrooms, and then basically finishing the house. There are tiny things left to do, but for the most part, it's finished.

And the house has stood empty this entire time.

Meanwhile, we were living in a petri dish. I don't know what it was about the last couple of winters, but the mold in our house literally seemed to have EXPLODED. It was absolutely everywhere. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I wanted OUT OF HERE.

And finally, this spring, my hubs came to the same conclusion - we just couldn't live in our house anymore. Hubby said that he thought we should move out of our old house by August. Then we found out that our landlord's daughter wanted to buy our house from her dad. We said, "But the mold, the rotten floors, the rotten roof, the failing foundation." He said, "I know, I know. They're just talking. I'm not telling you to move."

So we (I) started actively looking for a house. And we found out just how REALLY, REALLY expensive homes are in our little town. Ridiculously expensive. Way out of our league expensive. We did some research on buying a house and discovered....we could only afford to buy a place that was in even worse condition than our current house, and aside from that, we just didn't have any peace about buying at this time. So we looked for affordable, DECENT rental places in Mahomet....and found none. The houses we found that we could afford to rent were...well, just as bad as the house we were currently living in. If we wanted to get rid of our cat and dog, have no yard, live in an apartment that was smaller than our current house....yes, we could probably have found something like that in town. But we didn't want to do that. So we kept on looking, and praying for God to show us the house He had for us. We kept looking and praying and praying and looking... and feeling generally very discouraged.

Very discouraged. At least, I was. And a little desperate.

So, after much praying, (have I mentioned that we prayed about this a lot?) hubs gently broached the subject of renting that nice house from the lady who owned it. She'd been a little worried about it sitting empty, but she didn't really want to have tenants to take care of way out where the house is. So, we kept praying while she thought it over.

My sweet husband was pretty sure, considering the VERY NICE materials that are on the interior, etc, that the house would be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too expensive for us to rent it, if she thought renting it out was a good idea. So we continued to pray, and he set before the Lord a certain price that we said, if she wants more than that, we know that its NOT the house for us. The price we set was...ridiculously low. Within a couple of days, she got back to us. Yes, she would LOVE to rent US the house....she was relieved that someone would be living there, and that she could trust them to take care of it, and, oh, she supposed she would rent it for....and the price was $50 LESS than the ridiculously low price we'd set before the Lord. And she said even that price was negotiable - if any work gets done on the house, it goes toward the rent.

So we agreed to rent the house. We believe that it's God's provision for us. We are very much at peace with it. Every "but" we've come up with has been met with a peaceful answer.

On Saturday, we came home to a note on our door telling us that the daughter was planning to close on the sale of our house August 1st.

And today, we made it final with the landlady, went and looked for a fridge and a dishwasher (she's supplying, but wanted us to pick something we'd like), and that's....it. We're going to move. And we get to move into a PALACE.

The one sacrifice we make in moving to this house is that we move out of our current little town. The house is 15 minutes to the west-ish from here, in another little town. It's two blocks behind my step-sister's house, so my girls are already planning how they'll play with their two cousins that live there. It will be an adjustment, but both of us, my hubs and me, think it will be a really good opportunity to begin to live deliberately, instead of just letting life take us where it will as we have been for the last 8 years.

We are going to start moving all our non-essential stuff in the next couple of weeks, and we plan to move officially after the beginning of July.

I am so excited!!!!!!!!

Today's the day.

Today, Lord willing, we will have finalized our new living arrangements.

A house.

A nice house.

A really, really, REALLY nice house.

OK, maybe it's just a normal house. I don't know. It seems really, really, REALLY nice compared to where we are living now.

But today we'll know for sure if we get to live there, and when.

I am so excited.

And really nervous.

But mostly excited.