Moving!

Well, I got quite behind on the blog! I knew that would happen with the move. Especially since we didn't have Internet for the first week of living in our new house.  But I did take pictures along the way (of course!) and will be updating what has been happening over the last couple weeks.

We have been so blessed the past four years (and one year prior to our marriage for me) to rent our house from my mom and dad.  They had planned to have it as their retirement home in the future, so it was a great set up for both of us.
It was a perfect house for us as we started our family....but we quickly outgrew it:)

We had been looking for a home for about two years. Along the way, we had put in a couple offers and even had one accepted that fell through (it was a short sale) and others were all outbid by investors.
When we decided to adopt, we put the house hunting on hold. We were very content to be in our three bedroom house for a bit longer, but as the market and rates increase, we knew we needed to start looking again. So in June, Brent came home and said we need to start looking.

We went on Father's Day weekend- we looked at the house on Saturday, made the offer on Sunday, and it was accepted on Monday! It was a quick and easy decision because it had all we needed for our family.

So, now we are first time homebuyers! It is so fun to have purchased our own home and make decisions and changes as we want.  Of course, while looking I had a couple requirements--an island, and the island had to be opening up to the family room. It had just that! It didn't have the sink in the island as I would have also loved, but that is ok:)  And Brent's hope was for a big back yard, but this back yard will do for us.  It is big enough for a swing set and our play pool and for the kids to run around.  It is currently all rock, so Brent is excited to start the project of landscaping grass in!

Here are a couple of the photos that are "before" and I will post some as we make improvements for comparing.

Standing at front door. Through little walkway is the family room and kitchen.

Standing at the walkway looking at front door

family room

kitchen

kitchen

the island!! :)

loft

We closed the house on July 18. On Friday morning our moms, Kacia, and Marissa all went in before we moved to clean it. We are so thankful for that!!!! I brought them all iced tea from AJs...my first outing with the babies...boy was I thankful there was a cart in the parking lot!!!  Wasn't sure how I was going to carry a car seat and big bubba boy into the store at the same time!

It was worthy of a picture...I was so relieved there was a cart! :)

On July 19, we got the U-Haul and Marissa, Brent's brothers Grant and Garrett, Brent's dad, and Matt Pagel came over to load it up! It was filled to the max in less than three hours!  That night, since the loading went so quick, we all went to the new house and everyone as well as Brent's brother Kyle, helped unload.  It allowed everyone to sleep in a little bit on Saturday morning, which was the day we had planned to move.  Instead, everyone, along with Pete and PJ Smith met at the old house to do the clean sweep of things that were left.  Mimi had Declan overnight and Grandma had Raelynn overnight, so that was SO helpful! 

 

 

supervising!

 can't forget the playset!

 fully loaded!!!

last meal in the Pampa house!

Elliana fell asleep in Daddy's arms Friday night