Our House is For Sale

We are officially beginning to try and sell our house ourselves. Yesterday I finished taking pictures and making a flyer. Today we put the sign in the yard. Now, the wait; here are some pictures of our nice, clean house.
















I'll keep you posted on any action.

Land Update

Last night James' dad and siblings met and discussed and accepted our offer!! We are so thankful for God answering our prayers in this way. It has all gone so smoothly so far, more than we expected. The land is scheduled to be surveyed and we'll get whatever it is we marked off (about 10 acres). After it is surveyed we'll get paperwork done and pay for it and it will be a done deal. We'll be land owners.

The house here is coming along. I plan to paint some today, while the kids are away at the Hayes', doing school. I should be done with most of the things I planned to do by tomorrow night and we'll put the "for sale" sign in the yard on Sunday. Then the waiting begins.

We're meeting on Monday with the drafter to finalize our house plans. Fun times!!

Lots to Pray For...

Now that the holidays are over, we have turned our attention and energies towards the process of moving into a new home. There's lots that needs to happen and for these things we are trusting God to provide.

1. First we have put an offer on the family land we hope to build on. It is for about 10 acres. Three and a half acres are cleared and that is where we plan to build. The rest is woods that goes into a ravine and some of it is a steep hill going down to the river.

I outlined the land in the picture above. In the future we hope to purchase more of the cleared land when the funds are available. We are waiting to hear if our offer is accepted counter-offered. The land is going to be appraised and surveyed (or maybe it was already this week??).

2. We are working on the final draft of our house plans. We are prayerful that God will bring all these details together. We have sought the advice of several people and have made changes. Now we pray we'll be able to afford it. It is a BIG house (about 3000 sqaure feet), but then again we are a big family. We hope to have the plans complete and ready to go out for bids in February.

The roof line probably won't be this high, as we've made some changes, but this is what we are working off of right now.

3. Selling our home. I have been very busy at home, getting it ready to show; painting, cleaning, and fixing it up. I hope to have it ready by the end of this coming week. We are enjoying less clutter and it is a lot easier to keep clean. We need to try and keep it that way when we move. Less stuff is better. Pray for us, that God will send a buyer along for our house and we can sell it ourselves. If we can't find a buyer ourselves, we hope to list it in March with a realtor.

4. We are also trusting God to provide housing for us while our house is being built. This week we got the crazy idea to rent or buy a travel trailer to live in on our land during this time. Last night we were talking about having two, one for us and the younger kids, and one for the older kids. Anyone have a camper that is sitting around collecting dust? We've spent some time this week looking at travel trailers and thinking about the possiblity of living in one. It would be easier to clean, that's for sure. I do like the idea of packing and not unpacking again until we're in our new house. It is amazing how much stuff we have, and how much of that stuff we can live happily without. There are definately some things we'd miss, but it would only be for about six months at the most. It is a challenge that really intrigues us, we'll see if this is what we end up doing.

So those are the things that are all unknown to us, but God knows. We can have peace in knowing that He is in control of it all. I pray we'll choose joy through it all, no matter what happens. I'll keep you posted on the progress of these things.

New Year's Day Hike

On New Year's Day, we decided to go on a hike through Rock Bridges State Park (about an hour and a half away). We had a great time, and I got to try out my new backpack.

Josiah got to use his new "pack pack" (as Rachel calls it). And no, we aren't Yankee's fans, but the hat fits him well.

Rachel walked for most of it, but wanted to be carried near the end of the hike.

See the ice? The boys had fun playing with ice. A highlight of the hike for me was leading Rachel, and then Josiah, across a creek (over 2 feet deep) on a tree than had fallen across it. They did great, side-stepping all the way across. I was so proud of them. It was quite the adventure!

A Few Snapshots...

The other day Jesse decided to pick out a movie...

Whoopsy!!

Last week our neighbors brought us this lovely creation they made...

Then our boys had at it...

Campout last night...

Last night we camped in the living room. This is Jesse's present we got him for Christmas.

It might take a couple years for him to learn how to build it, but he's got lots of brothers to help him out.

For more pictures and video, see dropshots. There is a cute video of Rachel feeding her new baby. Boy are girls sure different than boys!

Christmas

We have been enjoying our preparations and celebrations of Christmas. It is lots of fun this time of year with a house full of children. They are counting down the days and tomorrow is Christmas Eve! I think I'm just as excited as they are.

Last night we had our first annual Christmas program. I put some of the video on dropshots, and I'll put more up later. We had a great time and enjoyed having James' parents and our neighbors there to watch.

Our plans are to stay home all day on Christmas and James' parents will come around dinner time (their last stop). I'm sure the kids will be anxiously awaiting their arrival.

We've been doing regular school only three days a week in December. It has been nice. We had school two days this week and plan to do two days next. Hopefully it won't be too difficult to motivate them once they have other distractions like new toys. I'll post more after Christmas.

Our School Snack

Yesterday we made cut out cookies for our snack. They each got an equal amount of dough. It didn't look like much, but one of the kids was able to make nine cookies out of that dough. I loaded up some new pictures and video to dropshots. I took them on my new camera. It seems to work pretty well.