Wow, its been a while...

Wow, its been a while.  A lot has happened in the past 3 months.  We've sold our house, moved in with my incredibly gracious in-laws then moved into our new house.  Oh yeah and there was Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations as well.  I've written about 20 blog posts in my head yet not had enough time to sit down and formulate one that I could post. 


I can't explain the amount of stress that Hubby and I were under nor the excitement, but one thing is for sure God provided for us constantly.  Here is my list reminding myself of God's goodness in the past 3 months.

1. Celebration of Jesus coming to earth as a baby.  The wonder in this story takes my breath away.
2. Our house sold after being shown once and for full value.  I know this is unheard of in this market.
3. Lovely friends that cooked dinner for our family so it was easy to be out of the house during the showing.  
4. Having the ideal buyer for the condo.  He didn't ask for anything to be fixed just the window bench Hubby had made for me to fit the full length of the windows of the house.  A nice pat on the back for Hubby's excellent workmanship and honestly where would we have put it in our new house?
5. 1.5 month rent back before having to move so we could pack and possibly find a house so we didn't need interim housing.
6. My parents and brother came down to look at a house we really liked.  Seeing that my dad has built 3 homes its like having a home inspector with us.  It was incredibly helpful. 
7. Had our offer on a new house accepted the day we moved into our in-laws.

   

   You can be impressed with this packing job.

    
9.    My brother took off work and put his 5 years of working for a moving company to work with our too small van to fit our entire condo into a 17ft. van...yeah just as a note it may say 1-2 bedrooms but unless you are as good as my brother its not happening. 
10.  Loved living with my in-laws.  Hubby's parents were helpful and so gracious as I'm sure its not easy to live with a 4 year old, 2.5 year old, and 4 month when you haven't had young ones living with you for 30 years.  Although having kids run to give you hugs every time you come in the door does help;)  
11. I didn't fold a load of laundry the entire time I was living there.  How amazing is this!  I do A LOT of laundry and all of it was neatly folded for me every time! 
12. 

13. 

    Little Man enjoying his Christmas present.

14.  
15.  Little Man is the most easy going baby of my 3 lovely children.  I'm grateful. 
16. We settled on our house even though the husband of the couple selling pass away Wednesday before our Friday settlement.  No realtor I know has ever had this happen, yet it went smoothly.
17. We survived 2 weeks of refinishing 1300 square feet of hardwood floors in the month of Dec.  It was a hard job, but they are beautiful! 
18. Love Bug and Cuddle Bug were in a Christmas play at our church that helped them to memorize the scriptures from the Christmas story.  Christmas morning we acted out the play again to celebrate Christ's birth but switched up the roles our girls played.  They knew most of the lines of the play. 
19. We celebrated Christmas, with snow!! with my family and all my siblings.  It was so much fun to be with all of them. 



Lovebug and Cuddlebug enjoying our new kitchen

20. 3 days after Christmas we moved into our new house.  It's been a bit of a construction zone, but the girls have been patient and fairly good about leaving tools alone.  Again God provided multiple people to help us move.  Which was no small task since we were storing all of our stuff about an hour from the house we were moving into.  The reason was because my parents were giving us a mini-storage unit for free at the mini-storage they own.
21. Our house size is over double what we had in our condo and we have a HUGE (for this area) yard.  That is fenced in.  So grateful!
22. Many friends and family have babysat our kids, worked on the house, or just covered some responsibility we couldn't cover at church.  We are grateful for how those around us have supported us during this crazy time.  We're also grateful as we're feeling the stress being lifted for all of us.  For example Cuddlebug had many night terrors during all the changes.  She hasn't had one since the first week we moved into our new house. 

Though this list can't possibly contain the swings of emotion, both stressful and joyful, we experienced during this time, anyone who has gone through a similar situation will certainly understand.  Anyway, I'm happy to say that we're on the outset of settling in and I'm ready to get back to writing.  I've really missed it.  You'll be hearing from me again soon!