Update on House Stuff

We close on Thursday afternoon! I can't believe it has already been a month since we first walked through the house and in just three short days, we will be home owners again. The bank did accept our request to lower the price of the home by $4000 to cover the cost of replacing the HVAC which was an answered prayer. They didn't even counter it! Makes me wish we asked for $5000 but I'm thankful we got what we did. We started out there hoping we would meet in the middle somewhere so the fact they took it, no questions asked, I shouldn't complain :-)

My parents are flying in on Wednesday and I'm excited for them to be here for the closing. Not only because we don't have to find a sitter now for Sarai but my dad is one handyman and he already has agreed to help us get some of the little things done around the new place while he is here. Thanks dad!

Even though we are closing this week, we don't plan on being fully moved in till September 20th. We are going to take this next week to deep clean the place/do some odd jobs that need to be taken care of, the following week we will be on vacation (Hallelujah!) and then the third week we will begin the official moving process.

Thanks to everyone for all your prayers! God has blessed us with a beautiful home and I'm excited to get our family settled finally here in Chicago. I ask now that you pray for God to use our home to bless others as we reach out to show His love to the Warren Township area. Love you all!

6 Things You Might Not Know About Me

Sarah, my cousin through Mike, tagged me for a game. So here are six things you probably don't know about me.

1. One of my secret pleasures in life is painting my toenails. I love going to the store, picking out a new color and trying it out on my toes. Having my toes look pretty makes me feel special. I recently bought a new shade called Sunrise, Sunset. It is a great iridescent orange!

2. I have become a kid's consigment sale addict! I started going a year and half ago on an invitation from my friend Caron who had a daughter a few months older than Sarai and the rest is history. All the ones we went to were put on by local churches. I'm sad to say that people here in Chicago don't do consignment sales like those in Charlotte. I've actually joked about flying back to NC this fall to hit all the good ones! The trade off is that people are way more into garage sales here so I guess I will have to start learning to love them instead :-)

3. I'm an ice cream snob. Blue Bell ice cream (not to be confused with Blue Bunny) won my heart 18 years ago when my family moved to Texas and there is no other cream like it! Unfortunately they do not sell Blue Bell here in Illinois yet but I'm hoping to see it soon. About three years after we moved to Charlotte, it came to NC so I'm hoping it follows me here as well. If you want any advice on good flavors to try, just ask!

4. I'm a little bit nuts about watching the price of gas...which is funny now that we live in Illinois and it is a bit more expensive here compared to NC. In high school, my friends from youth group would give me a hard time when we went on trips and I was always looking to see what the price was wherever we happened to be. So Jamie, what's the price of gas in Uganda these days :-)

5. I LOVE to snuggle and I'm so excited that Sarai is to the age where she likes to snuggle. So now our morning routine includes me and Sarai, a cup of coffee for me and a glass of milk for her, Sarai's big Winnie the Pooh fleece blanket and My Friends Tigger and Pooh on Disney. Some of my favorite memories are snuggling on the couch with my mom watching Little House on the Prairie.

6. And lastly, I really didn't want to move to Chicago...actually, God and I had several heated discussions about it. But God continued to gently prod me and change my heart and now I can't imagine being anywhere else. Yes, I miss all my friends in Charlotte and the beautiful Smokey Mountains but God is revealing everyday so many new things to me. Through his creation, new friendships and a desire to see the people of Warren Township love Him with all their heart. Thanks for being patient with me Lord :-)

Hope you learned something new about me! I have "tagged" three friends Tonya, Lori and Anne.

Rules of Engagement:
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog (copy and paste 1-6).
3) Write 6 random things about yourself (see below).
4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Let's Party!

This past Saturday afternoon we had six of Sarai's friends over plus their families to celebrate her 2nd birthday. And we had a great time! We went with a Winnie the Pooh theme since he is currently her favorite character and I gave my best shot at decorating a cookie cake with Pooh. One of our friends from church just happens to be a beautiful cake decorator so she gave me a few pointers and some extra supplies. I think it turned out pretty good. Sarai knew who it was and that was all that mattered to me! Thanks for your help Nicole Pickle! Another friend who just happens to go by the name Nicole as well borrowed a Little Tikes bounce house from a neighbor and it was a great hit with the kids! Sarai actually cried when we had to take it down because we felt a few random raindrops. Mind you, it had been up for almost 3 hours at that point and they had been playing in it almost non-stop. Thanks Nicole Brown! Last year we had our guests bring gifts for the local crisis pregnancy center in lieu of gifts for Sarai. This year we asked them to bring gifts for the nursery/toddler area for the new church campus. Everyone brought great stuff and I'm excited to see the kids playing with the toys later on in November at our launch.

We could not have asked for a more beautiful day or better friends to celebrate with. It was so much fun to watch Sarai "get" the whole party thing and understand we were celebrating her life. It has been such an amazing 2 years between her birth and God moving us into church planting. Who knows what the next 2 years will hold?!

Our New House!!!

So here it is!!!! Our new house....hopefully. We are currently under contract and are scheduled to close on August 28th. But anyone who has purchased a home before knows that anything can happen between now and then. But I have no doubts that God had this house picked out for us before we ever arrived in Chicago. It is a great house at a great price and more space than we expected to be able to afford here. One hiccup we have run into is that the furnace HAS TO be replaced (22+ years old and has major cracks) and the AC unit should probably be replaced at the same time (22+ years old also). Because it is a forclosure, we cannot request a repair credit because we are buying it "as is" but we can ask for money off the sale price of the home. So we are currently waiting to hear back from the bank on our request and I'm praying really hard.

But more about the house! It is a three bed/2 bath house. Most of the older homes here are 1.5 baths so I was thrilled to find 2 full baths. And they are huge bathrooms which is also unusual. There isn't a separate master bath but that's okay. Wasn't a must. It is actually a quad level home so when you walk in the front door into the main living area, you are actually on the third level. The living room, kitchen and dining room are on this level. From the main level, you can go up a short flight of stairs to where the three bedrooms and first full bath are or down a short flight of stairs to the family room and second full bath. Both sets of stairs are open to the main level. From the family room there is door which leads down to the unfinished basement and laundry room. We hope to eventually finish the basement to create a fourth bedroom and office area. In the foyer, kitchen and dining room there is ceramic tile, the living room is laminate wood, the bedrooms are hardwood and the family room has a nice berber carpet. It is on a corner lot so we are sacrificing a bit on backyard but it has a good size sideyard which is fine. The neighborhood is beautiful with large mature trees and sidewalks. The house is just down the street from the neighborhood lake and park and around the corner from a forest perserve. It also has an attached 2 car garage that was added onto the house so it doesn't actually have access directly into the house but the door from the garage is four steps from the front door. Oh, and did I mention we are in love with it! We have had family in several times the past few weeks and everytime we walk through the house again, I get a little more attached.

So enjoy the pics and hopefully I will have an update soon saying its ours to actually move into :-)

Front of the house

Sideyard

View down the street from the driveway

Another view of the front of the house. Notice the picture/bay window where I plan to display our Christmas tree this December and the garage comes with a basketball hoop already attached! Mike was excited :-)

Front door/foyer area from the living room

Looking at the kitchen from the dining area. The cabinets need some love. Anyone have a great idea? I was thinking distressed red!

The huge pantry!

Looking at the dining room from the kitchen

Looking at the living room from the dining room

View of living room from the foyer. The french doors lead into the dining room.

Staircases going up and staircases going down...exciting huh!

Full bath on the same level with the three bedrooms.

Lower family room area

Office nook off of family room

Happy Birthday to Sarai!

I can hardly believe you are 2! Where has the time gone? But know that I love you so much and you bring more joy to my life than I could ever have imagined.

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY SARAI!