exciting news!

James and I have officially bought a house and become real grown ups!

We searched for MONTHS and nothing ever really seemed to fit what I thought would be a great home for a family. And to tell you the absolute truth, I can't honestly say this one gave me that "this is home" feeling when I walked through it the first time either. But after we left, I could not stop thinking about it! And it started to grow + grow on me until we decided to put an offer in. I didn't want to get my hopes up, since we'd already lost one house we fell in love with, but we had gone and seen the house just a few hours after it had been put on the market and I was NOT going to lose another great house again!

So we put in an offer a little lower than they were asking and they came back with a full price counter offer. We accepted! And the paperwork has now begun! Now we are watching and waiting as they fix it up (it was a foreclosure) and as all foreclosures are, the closing part is taking a lot of time. We have a date of May 11th, but we keep hearing that it may come even sooner than that!

We signed the bank papers on my birthday--talk about a great day! And I have to give James major props for getting pretty much everything done on his own and making this a lot less stressful for me. He's done everything on the back end and I appreciate it so so much more than he knows. I really did get myself a keeper.

I am SO excited to finally have a place that is 100% ours. No renting, no borrowing. I can make permanent changes and add things to the walls that will stay there! It has been quite a learning experience and very stressful (especially when you + your husband have different tastes) but I have to say we have been so so blessed. We got the best opportunity when we moved here to stay in a home rent-free and just take care of it. HUGE huge blessing. We have a patient and caring set of in-laws who have taken us in off the streets when we had to leave our first home together. Another huge blessing. And we got a great deal on a great home that was pretty close to where we wanted to be. I mean, I really just couldn't ask for more! I'll give more details as they come, but that's been our main focus for months now and I'm so excited to see it all coming together!

This is just a sneak peek! More photos to come!