IT'S OFFICIAL!

Praise the Lord!!! I am believing that the Lord lit a fire under Connie's rear this week for us - and things miraculously moved way faster than normal. As I had posted before, our appraisal came back at a great number, and Connie (the USDA lady) told us it'd take about 3 (working) days to allot the funds for us. Joe called her this afternoon with a question about our title insurance and she told us that we already got the money!!!! Hallelujah! We have a confirmation number for the funds, and there's just some more paperwork (of course) that needs to be taken care of and we are done the process! So we went ahead and actually placed the order for the house! So, it looks like the processes will line up really well, with the basement walls coming, the concrete, the electric, the setting of the house, etc. so we will hopefully be able to MOVE IN to our new house at the end of August (or very early September)! So, basically it's comparable to the "accepting the offer" part of buying a house. As excited as I am, it's still rather surreal, and I think it will be until I actually walk into this thing I've been dreaming about and planning for for the last 10 years! We went out as a family to celebrate tonight - to the Big M Steakhouse for dinner, went to the mall looking for a shower curtain and towels, which we ended up finding our favorite at Wal-Mart - but exciting none the less! We even popped open a bottle of champagne and toasted to answered prayer and our new house!
** Note - I realize that there was a lot of exclamations in this post - but I don't know how else to convey my joy! **

Day 5 million and 37..... or so it feels.... EXCAVATION has begun!!!! Our appraisal came through the USDA today well over what we were needing - so Joe could hold out no longer! There's apparently a few more hurdles dealing with the USDA yet - but we are on our way!!!

Appraisal is done!

I got a phone call this afternoon from the guy doing the appraisal! Apparently he was out today and took pictures of the lot (from the road, cause he was scared of Houp's dogs!) and had some questions about our plans. I spent about 5 or 10 minutes on the phone with him, going over the details like our hardwood floors, upgraded cabinets, no garage, etc. He was VERY chatty, and when he commented that it looks like it'll be a pretty big house, I said that we have four kids and are very anxious for the space; and he was quick to say that he's hurrying his part along and that he'll have the appraisal to the USDA by tomorrow! I could not be more excited! This is totally an answer to prayer - because the USDA lady told us that it would take around 3 weeks, and it took half that! Praise the Lord!!!

Colors!!!!

Home Depot/ Behr paint was doing a special rebate sale this weekend - and since we have TONS of paint to buy, we figured now would be a good time to do it! So here's what we chose for the downstairs - living room, kitchen and dining room:
And here's what we chose for the Master bedroom and the office:
And the nursery will be this on top half of the wall: and this on the bottom half of the wall: with a viney design running between the two colors.
And Lily and Joelle's room will be this:
And Anna's room will be a wild combination of solids, stripes and polka dots in these colors:

Didn't we just get OUT of school?????

It seems that I was still just "catching my breath" after Anna finishing her second grade schoolyear about a month ago. And then, here we were today, doing math problems and reading comprehension... and enjoying it! Last week, we had our enrollment interview with PA Virtual Charter School - which went very well, and both Anna and Lily left the meeting very excited. This morning, I had them both to the dr for their required physical and shots, and later this morning had my phone call from the Curriculum Assessment teacher. She sent my link to the girl's placement tests and they both decided that they wanted to do them today!
Lily struggled through some phonics assessment, which didn't surprise me since I haven't really pursued anything academically with her at all. But I was pleasantly surprised to find she buzzed right through the math assessment with flying colors! So, it looks like she is quite ready for kindergarten, though we have some basics to focus on to start.
And then we settled in to do Anna's much more involved testing. She got through the math test with so-so results, but when we looked over it, we decided it was more a matter of needing some refreshers and not that she didn't know what she was doing, so we're ok with where she was at there.
Then on to the Reading Placement tests.... Whoa. I mean I know that the child seems to have a Nancy Drew book permanently fused to her hand - but I didn't realize how well she really reads! After she went flying through the reading and comprehension tests that the teacher recommended, I had her do the next level up. She buzzed right through those as well! So, I jumped up the next level. About half-way through that test, we decided that she was officially in unfamiliar territory - though she was still getting most answers correct, she was struggling a bit more with the new words and definitions. I had her even reading all of it aloud (which I personally find is harder for me to read aloud and understand what I'm saying) and she knocked my socks off! Not only does she read fluently, but with inflection! I called Joey and put her on speakerphone so he could hear! I am very excited to see where they decide to place her reading level - because I am beyond proud of her!

The House of Mouse

I had posted a little while ago about the mouse smell. Well, over the weekend, the smell took on more of a dead stench, and sure enough, Sunday night we found a dead one behind the dresser in my bedroom. Yesterday while I was packing and cleaning the "cubby" in my room, I also discovered 2 dried up tiny baby mice, and also some lovely mold where apparently our ceiling leaked into the back of the cabinet - but I got everything cleaned up with Clorox and was feeling pretty good. But apparently, we aren't home free yet! I was up till nearly 4 am last night listening to the mice squeaking in the wall behind my dresser! They were having a regular old Rodent Rally or something - it was terrible! And we can't see them, and banging the wall doesn't seem to help. So, Joey's thinking maybe the dead one was a mommy and now her babies are left orphaned and hungry and calling for her. Am I sympathetic? NO! I want them dead. Is that wrong of me?

Patience....

Right now we are being tempted. We are feeling so confidant that there won't be any more hang-ups with the mortgage paperwork, that we are so tempted to jump the gun and put the order in on our house. Because if we ordered now, and then the appraisal takes 3 weeks, it'd only be another 2 weeks after that till we could move in. BUT, what are the consequences? Is that being underhanded? What if something falls through with the mortgage and then we are committed to pay for a big house with no money? Is God orchestrating this timeline for a reason? Is there a reason for us not being in the house to do our August wedding? As anxious (it seems like too small a word for what I'm really feeling) as I am to get into the house, I really want to walk this out in righteousness. This is truly testing me.
But all that being said - we did go out last night to the dealer and put our downpayment on the house, which they will hold till we give them the go-ahead to put in the purchase order. It was exctiting too to walk through the sample houses again and see glimpses of what our house will be like! We're really getting into the fun details too; like the guy said that we can actually get into the house while they're still working on the roof, and we can paint before they do the carpeting - which is super cool. So, sometime in the next week or so, I'm gonna take some paint swatches to the furniture place to match with our couches; and we're trying to narrow down the ideas the girls have for their rooms so we can pick those colors; and I'm picking our towels and shower curtain for our bathrooms (ooh, we'll have 2 toilets!); and we are gonna go pick up our kitchen faucet and our knobs and drawer handles. THIS part is fun! I'm gonna really try to keep a very detailed journal here of the steps of our house process to share with ya'll - so keep checking back, cause it looks like things will move very quickly! And, I think in the next couple days, I will also be posting some pictures of our current house, so we can truly have some great before and after comparisons and everyone can fully appreciate the bigness of what God is accomplishing for us!