Out with the Old and In with the New

Well we have been packing, packing and packing some more. I was no where near ready when Brad announced that we could move to the new house a little bit earlier than expected. I had been packing at a leisurely pace trying to stay organized and expecting that I had at least 5 more days to finish; however, Brad and the kids decided that we needed to sleep in the new house Friday night (keep in mind that we got the "go ahead" about 1 pm on Friday). So, we took what we had packed, the mattresses, and we slept at the new house. We returned to the old house Saturday morning. Thank goodness that a sweet friend from church came to help me pack some more. Brad loaded more packed boxes (and boxes as we packed) making several trips to the new house. We continue to move things... aaaaahhhhh! I kind of feel a little crazy and very disorganized with this move now... it's not the way I started out and certainly not the way I planned it... but it will get there.
The old house is in a state of disarray. We still have the heavy pieces of furniture (and the special pieces...my huge grandfather clock and the huge doll house my grandpa made for me). We have tons of cleaning to do, and an appraiser is coming today. We thought the contract had stalled, but apparently that is not the case. Someone is coming out today to make the appraisal for our buyers. Please pray that it will appraise well and that we can move forward on this sale. It is a touch and go contract because the buyers have an FHA loan. There are certain qualifications for a house to be approved for this type of loan. Since the house is very old, it may have too many marks against it. I am trying my best to just "Trust in the Lord"! I know that He will either see this sale through, or He will provide a different buyer. I know that it is all His perfect timing... but we sure need it to be soon.

Our New Puppy...

Today was the day! The kids were all awake, morning chores done, and ready to get their puppy by 6:45 am. Don't tell them, but mom and dad were almost as excited as they were to have him come home. It seemed to take forever for time to pass, but departure time finally arrived. Brad, Nolan, and Garrett went to pick Elvis up from the breeder. The other kids watched the clock and the door. There was lots of noise and chaos when Elvis finally arrived. He has been doing so well all day. The kids tend to get into many arguments about whose turn it is to hold and play with him(bet ya it won't take 2 days for the new to wear off :)! ). Nolan will be his primary care taker, and Elvis seems fairly close to him already(of course, Nate, our resident dog "whisperer" has already succeeded in getting the pup to bond with him). Nolan will have to use that to his benefit... puppy making messes... get Nate.

BREAKING NEWS on our house:

We received an offer and made our counter offer yesterday. The news today is that they have accepted the counter offer. We haven't officially signed off on it yet, but we feel that this is answered prayer. So, we pray that all the other details(ie., appraisal,inspections, and such) will go just as smoothly. God is in control...

A Day at the Park

The "Big Uns" climing on the rope bridge...
Can She make it?....

Nate and UNDERDOG to the rescue... He very seldom leaves the house without a dog in tow. UNDERDOG taking a rest "under" the bridge...
Older brother playing with the others... or is he "pestering"?...Can you tell that the "princess" is getting hot?

Well today turned out to be kind of crazy in our household, but then what else is new around here. It is what makes life so much fun! We had to be out of the house today, so we went to a local park. The kids seemed to have a good time playing. We even ran into a church friend and her boys. Nate was very excited as one of the boys was on his Tball team and in his Sunday school class. The morning started out beautifully and then progressed to extrememly hot. When we all could stand the heat no longer, we returned home only to find that the people had not made it to see the house. They wanted to see it at our lunchtime. The kids were hot, hungry, cranky and not very cooperative. We decided that they could look at the house with us in it (of course, when it was all over mom thought it was a big mistake). At the same time, the lady that we bought our new house from called to offer moving boxes and to talk. I felt so bad that I had to get her off the phone (she sounded as if she needed to talk). The kids all gathered around the poor woman who wanted to see our house. Do your kids do that...have to see what everything is all about and get right in the middle? We are working on that, but the girls are really bad about it...they just stand and stare. The same lady had looked at the house the night before, and wanted to see our "crawl space basement". The selling agent was unable to open the door last night. Brad had left it open this morning, but I had Nolan close it as I thought they had already come through(kind of surreal...Nolan was closing the door as the phone rang). We had such fun struggling to open the door(it sticks because we repainted the floors in that room). It turned into one of those "Calgon could you please take me away" moments. Apparently we weren't too much out of sorts, she made an offer ... we have to see if we can work out the details...so stay tuned.

P.S. Oh... and a Lady Bug joined us at the park...Do you think it might bring Good Luck?

Meet Elvis...

We are getting a new puppy. We chose to get another Golden Lab. This time we went to a breeder and selected a puppy from a litter born on April 20th. We were able to meet both the momma and papa dogs as well as the grandma and grandpa dogs. This gave us peace of mind knowing that none of them showed signs (and no history) of hip displacia. We are very excited and cannot wait to bring him home this Friday.

Happy Father's Day

My Dad... (He went home to be with Jesus in 2003)... He and my mom had 5 children. Both of them were dedicated to their family and raising their children to love the Lord. "Paw" as the grandkids called him loved his grandkids. Favorite memories of Paw always have to include "M&M's"... that was his love sign to all his babies. They would enter the house asking Paw for some candy, and he always made sure that the candy jar was full. There are now 11 grandchildren on my side of the family.

My Papa... He is 93 years old and such a love! He was a devoted husband to my Ooma(She went to be with Jesus in 2005 at the age of 93). He has always been devoted to His family and loves us all. We all can say that our Papa loves us "special". He holds a very important place in my heart.
This picture was taken at Thanksgiving 2007. Papa is loving our five kiddos. He is father to 4 girls, grandfather to 8 grandkids(3boys and 5girls), and great grandpa to 14 gr.grandchildren(9boys,5girls)... and his love keeps growing...Two of my favorite men... my wonderful hubby and his daddy. Brad's dad(Tommy) helped raise him to be the wonderful father that he is to our children. Through Tommy's love and example, he taught my hubby the value of hardwork and devotion to family.
Our kiddos think their Grandpa is pretty special. He is fun to tease and be around, and certainly keeps us all laughing. We praise God for his wonderful sense of humor.MY MOST SPECIAL MAN...

I prayed many years for a wonderful man to be my husband. One of my prayers was that he would love children as much as I did. God certainly blessed me with that answered prayer. He loves his children and is such a wonderful daddy.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all those special men out there. God has certainly surrounded me and blessed me with very special men in my life.

Some Pictures of the new house...

These are some of the pictures Brad took while inspecting the house. They don't really give a good scope of the size of the house...but you can see the "Lovely" decor inside. The house really has a lot of potential, but is in serious need of a decorative makeover. To describe the house, we borrow a quote from a movie we saw the other night ...Beauty Shop starring Queen Latifha(sp?) and Kevin Bacon. (It really was a silly movie but had some very funny lines.)Queen Latifha plays a beauty shop owner named Gina. She buys her own salon which isn't in the greatest shape. When she brings in her stylist to look the place over, one of them says,"It looks like someone swallowed the seventies and done threw it up in here." That would be our house (: !
The Front porch of our home...A whole lot of ugly (of course that's my opinion)... this will be the first project I tackle... this is the entry hall to our home. Is it a basement... or is it a bowling alley. Stuck in the seventies....
The front bathroom... check out the aqua blue toilet...

A small section of the kitchen...
I really like my new house and am so excited to have lots of room and most importantly 3 bathrooms. We like to pick fun at the decor of the place, but we will have so much fun making this home our own. We will try to get better pictures when we finally move in. Our official move in date is July 1, but we may get to move in sooner.

Living Life

Wow! Where did our week go? Doctor and dentist appointments, baseball games, dance classes, trying to sell one house and buying another can sure fill your time. There is never a dull moment in our household! Our weekend was a relaxed one, but apparently many of us were cranky and not feeling up to much. I spent much of the day Sat. suffering with a migraine, and the kids were not cooperative in the least. We had hoped to go to a picnic with other adoptive families from our area, but we opted to stay home. It turned out for the good because we got a bit of rest and a refreshed attitude. Sunday brought church, and friends for lunch.... and I started thinking about packing the house... never quite made it to boxing things up, however.

Yesterday we had to make a trip to KC for a doctor's appointment for Mandy. We weren't able to find a sitter, and decided to make it into a family outing. The kids were terrific and behaved beautifully as we waited for Brad and Mandy to make the visit with the doctor. Then, we took the kids to the KC Zoo. My kids love to explore different zoos (and I must confess I do too). This zoo was very different... the jury is still out, as to whether I really liked it all that much. It had great potential to be one of the better zoos; however, it seemed as if you walked forever and never saw any animals. It had lots of activities, but everything cost a ton of money to do or ride. After the morning storms the afternoon turned hot and muggy. So, we felt like we were sweltering in the heat, and so two hours was plentyof time for our exploration(it was nice that we received a discount with our zoo pass). We will probably make a return trip at some point and be better prepared. In spite of the downfalls, we had a great time just enjoying the great outdoors and spending time as a family. We finished the day by treating the kids to dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. It was a bit pricey, but the kids enjoyed the atmosphere and most of them ate the food. We hope they enjoyed their outing because for the next few months we will be on a tight budget.

We went for our final walk through and closed on the new house this morning. We are now the official owners of two homes (a bit scary). It looks as if the offer we received on the old house has been withdrawn. We continue to get no information from their selling agent. It all just seems a little strange, but we are choosing to just trust in God's perfect timing. We continue to show the house a great deal, and we continue to pray that we will have a serious buyer very soon. Please continue to pray that our old house will sell quickly.

I have one more prayer request ...please keep my 3yr old nephew in your prayers. He had heart surgery yesterday morning for ASD. He made it through surgery with flying colors and seems to be recovering well. My sister said that they are trying to keep him still and quiet... good luck with that(he is ALL BOY). We pray that all of you have a tremendous and blessed week.

More house news

Well the news on the house is turning into a "saga" ... we decided to make an informed decision. So, we had our realtor contact the buyer's realtor here, and then she in turn is contacting the selling agent on their home. We have no information as to where they live, how long their house has been on the market and how houses are selling in their area. So we are awaiting answers... and there seems to be a snag... no information has been forthcoming all week. So, we continue to show the house, and have done so everyday this week. Apparently, two of the lookers are showing a strong interest in the house; however, there are still no offers forthcoming. We continue to pray for God's wisdom and discernment on what His will and plan is for our lives. Thanks for all the prayers as we continue this saga....

Some House news...

A picture of the new house... we will have to post a better one after our closing date.

It looks as if we are officially closing on our new house on June 10th. Hooray! However, the seller has asked for some extra time to move out. She is an elderly lady with health problems, and (I believe I mentioned before) her husband passed away during the process of selling their home. She is trying to finish and close a chapter in her life, and we aren't extremely rushed to move in. Our official move in date will be July 1st. AND...
We may have a contract on our current home. I say "may" because there is a hitch... we had an offer on our house Saturday, but the buyers are wanting a contingency contract on selling their current home. Logically, we want to say no...we can't take our house off the market for the summer months but.... In my opinion there is more to it. Let me digress a little... Saturday morning we were awakened(we were sleeping in a little...ok I was) with a telephone call. Before Brad could even tell me , I knew they were wanting to show the house and soon(1 hour to be exact). So, we rushed through our morning chores and were out the door. As I was making the final check, I prayed over every room of the house and ask God ferverantly for a buyer on the house who would fill it with the love we had over the past few years. I prayed that a contract would be offered on that day. Guess what? God answered.... Saturday evening our agent called.
Our first reaction was ...No Way... and no we can't do the contingency... but that decision didn't give me peace... as a matter of fact ...I felt as if I were slapping God in the face, and there is a little matter of trust...trusting in God...letting him have control.
So, we continue to pray and will make decisions this week....really I think they have already been made ... What do you think?

What do you think?

Mandy: "Momma,you know the God? "
Momma: "yes,Mandy..."
Mandy: "Does the God of America talk to the God of China?"
"...and Can the God of America speak Chinese?"

I am reminded on a daily basis the awesome responsibility that God has given to me as a parent, and I am often reminded just how precious ALL of His children are to him...

My answer: "Well sweetheart, there is only ONE GOD and he is God to all people,even the people of China...and I am pretty sure He can speak Chinese."