Way OverDue Update

It's been almost 2 1/2 months since I have posted.  Let's just say that things have been just a little bit busy around here during that time!

Around Christmas, Nate and I sat down and decided that it was finally time to list our house to sell in 2016.  We contacted our awesome realtor and she gave us some things to work on and told us we would try to list towards the end of February.  We worked hard, cleaned out a bunch of stuff and got it ready for market.  The night before it was going to list, we had a couple come look at it.  They liked it enough to put an offer on it, but they still had a house to sell.  Turns out their house was in the town we were wanting to move to.  We went to look at their house and we loved it and put an offer back on their house.   We were going to switch houses and were actually supposed to be moving this weekend.  But that was not the buyer God had for us and that was not the house God had for us.  The contracts fell through a week later.  It was very frustrating, but we were trusting God for His plan for us.

You see, we have been praying about this move for a long time.  We have some goals for our family and we just were not able to achieve them in this house.  We both have been feeling the need to simplify our life, do with a little less that we currently have.  We have felt the Lord's call on our hearts to homeschool our girls and we feel that call has been for us to do it all the way through high school.  It will still be a year to year thing, but the peace in my heart about this decision is amazing!  I fought it for awhile and then finally gave in. :)  Since I would be staying home with our girls, we also really needed a cheaper mortgage and to knock out what little debt we had other than our house.  All that to say, we had some specific things we were looking for in a house.  Specific price, location, layout of the house (not necessarily square footage), neighbors and still good schools in case homeschool didn't pan out later.

We have been amazed to watch God's hand work in our lives lately.  We firmly believe He laid all of these desires on our hearts for this move and we trusted and gave it all to Him.

The day after the contract fell through on our house, we listed it - had 8 showings and an offer for over asking price.  When our realtor called she told me to sit down because she couldn't believe it.  So far, it looks like that is going to pan out and we are set to close on April 7.  Over the past couple of weeks we were also able to find a house.  It has just the space we need and will truly cause us to be mindful about the "stuff" we collect.  We are on a cul de sac surrounded by what seem to be sweet neighbors, within walking distance of a great school!  And the kicker for us is, that if all of this works out and we close on May 10 like we are supposed to - we will have cut our mortgage almost exactly in half!!  That was our goal and God opened the door for that to happen.

There are still a lot of moving parts and nothing is set in stone until papers are signed at either closing, so we are still choosing to trust God.  He could still have a different plan for us and something could fall through.  We feel really good about both deals, but the first fall through has taught us to not get too attached until it is final.  He will walk through this with us and we hope to get to settle into our new home this summer!!

I will post some pictures of the girls in a couple of posts later this week!