1 down, 2 to go!

I am very happy to say that we had our first closing (finally) today & we are ready to close on our new home tomorrow!  For the most part, the process has gone fairly smoothly.  This first one is the one that gave us the most trouble and is the one that we were most concerned about, but now that it's done, we can breathe a sigh of relief and have a drink...well, at least Jason can.  I will just pretend that I'm having a couple glasses of wine to celebrate.

How Noah experienced baby moving

Me:  "Noah, do you want to feel the baby moving?"
Noah:  (excitedly running over to me) "Yeah!"
I put his hand in mine and direct it over the area where the baby is moving the most & we wait...of course, it stops as soon as anyone other than myself places a hand on my belly.  It doesn't matter how long it's been jumping, it just stops.
Me:  "It should move again..."
Noah:  (looks right at Jason)  "I gotta pee."

Work, work, work

Selling homes is quite a process I tell you!  Not only do you have to fill out a ton of paperwork, but cleaning it, showing it, and then making the appraiser/inspector happy is a whole 'nother deal!  We had a few things to touch up at the rental home, and so the appraiser needed to come back a second time.  When we got the notice that the inspection for our current home would be coming up soon, we decided to try to get our house in tip-top shape in hopes that he would only have to come the one time and we could save ourselves the headache of having to set it all up again.

So, last week, we spent our time scraping and cleaning the railings on the deck.  A project that was long overdue, and was recommended by the realtor on Day 1 that we should consider doing right away.  So, it was a process that began before our first showing, but turned out not really necessary to get an offer.  With the process already begun, I knew that I didn't want to leave it like that, and considering that we had to paint areas with peeling paint at the other house, I knew we wouldn't get a clean inspection with it looking the way it did.  After several days, it was finally done & I am happy that we'll get to enjoy it for a month before we move.

Well, when you have freshly painted railings, the peeling paint on the house doesn't look so great either, so we spent all day yesterday scraping and fixing old wood and then getting it painted.  Luckily, our local hardware store has a wonderful machine that can take a piece of old paint and match it.  That saved us the hassle and cost of having to paint the entire house!

(This back doorway to the garage was completely rotted and almost all of the paint was peeling because it gets so hot.)

When you have a freshly painted house and railings, then the deck that I stained last year, looked faded in many spots, so guess what I spent the day doing today?!  Overall, I am thrilled with how everything looks and am prepared for the inspection tomorrow (well, after we clean again).  Needless to say, my pregnant body is not so happy with all of the work and I have spent the rest of my evenings with an ice pack on my lower back and my shoulder.  But now that the work is done, we can enjoy the outdoors in between the moments of sorting through our belongings and beginning the next process...packing!

(This is the front deck that I finally stained as well, so now it matches the back.)

Halfway!

On Friday, I had my 20 week ultrasound.  I decided to have all of the kids come this time so they could see the baby "live" rather than on a fuzzy black and white photo I brought home.  I also thought that since they learned about babies in the womb this year through a Spiritual Adoption Program I introduced at their school, this would be a great opportunity for them to see their own sibling inside Mommy's belly.

Everything is looking good with baby, although it wasn't cooperating well with position, so my doctor asked me to come back in a month so they can get a better look at the heart. 

The kids all lasted about 10 minutes and then decided that the live version wasn't as exciting as Mommy said it would be.  The thing about ultrasounds is that they want still pictures of things, so when you get a good view of the baby moving, they pause it to take a picture and then quickly move on to the next area to examine.  Not a very interesting thing for kids to watch, especially at 4:30 in the afternoon.

But we made a family evening out of it as well, by going to the park, out to eat, and then to a musical that casted a few members of our community.  It was a much-needed family night out, especially with all that is going on with our moving transitions.  I will update on that in the next post...

We sold it!

We did it!  We signed the purchase agreement to begin the process of selling our current house & we couldn't be more excited!  What a relief it is to know that keeping the house show-worthy is not necessary anymore, especially now that the kids are done with the school year!  We didn't fully get our asking price, and we are paying closing costs on another home, but it's worth it to get it over and done with.  We are set to close July 15th, which is a week after we move out, so things are planned for our move.  God has set His plan in motion & has made things happen in such a wonderful way!  Now we continue to move forward to go through things that we don't need and get rid of the junk that has been neglected for the past few years.  It's probably a good thing that we move every few years, just so I can keep from being such a hoarder!