It's Official!

We signed the contract on our house today, so it is officially under contract. The closing date is set for April 30th (two days before our vacation to South Dakota). We are so thankful that God has moved this process along fairly quickly and easily for us. We are so blessed! Now we get to relax for a few weeks. Well, not exactly. We have another big move taking place a week from this Friday. James is moving his office down the street to a building that he will be leasing to own from the hospital. His rent will be going down too, which is another blessing! We are just amazed at how much He has blessed us! Thank you to all who have been praying for us in the sale of this house.

A Contract on the House

We got an offer on our house, but it was much too low (125,000). We counter offered and said we wouldn't go any lower than 134,000. I thought that would be the end of it, because they said they couldn't do that and they wanted to counter offer our offer. We said, "no" to that. Then this evening they came back and said they'd do $132,000 after we offered to give them $2000 for new carpet. Verbally we've agreed that they would buy the house for $132,000. We're supposed to sign contracts tomorrow. We'll see how it all shakes out. We would close at the end of April / beginning of May. That's plenty of time for us to pack up and move out. I'll post again when we get the contract signed.

Some Recent Pictures...

James' 37th birthday


Rachel in her new birthday dress from Maw-Maw



Jesse enjoying his chocolate cake from his 1st birthday party




The biggest birthday party in our family ever. We celebrated six of them.

Josiah's new lego set, Daddy helped him build it.

Rachel pushing Jesse in her baby stroller. Unfortunately that broke it, but she still uses the taped up version.

Jesse outside on a 70 degree day a couple weeks ago. He loved being outside!!

Our House is Clean... For the Moment

Our house is now listed in the MLS realtor listing. We got our first call and showing today. It was a young family who has been renting in Troy. They have 2 small kids. They've been looking at others too, so we'll see. I'm just glad it worked out that I was planning on cleaning the house today anyways. And with all that hard work we got to have a showing. (Actually, that gave me the motivation I needed half way through the day to finish cleaning).

Tomorrow is Rachel's birthday. James is taking the 3 oldest boys hiking in the state park. I'll be staying home with the others as we make a birthday cake and try to keep the house clean. Maybe we'll all take a nap. Sounds good to me right about now, I'm exhausted. I'm looking forward to getting past this first trimester, when the evening sickness and tiredness will go away (hopefully).

Selling Update

So the couple who looked at our house last week were not able to buy it. Unfortunately, the bank wants them to put more down than what they have. I feel bad for them in their situation. So now, we have our house listed with a transaction broker. The house is on the realtor sites, so we should get more interest now. Hopefully we'll get some interest over the next few days. Today I have the Hayes kids for school, so I won't be showing the house today. Maybe this weekend.

Our First Showing

Yesterday I showed the house for the first time. It went very well and they loved it! I'm hoping to hear from her today. I'm not sure if we'll get an offer yet, because they are still getting preapproval for their loan. We'll see. I am very encouraged. I figure if she loved it, they'll be others out there who will love it too. This is a young mom with two little girls and her husband is in the military overseas. He found our listing on craigslist. I sent him more pictures of the house and it sounds like he really wants to buy it (probably especially after talking to his wife). She is living with her mother-in-law who is moving in a few months, so she'll be ready to move in as soon as possible. It is crazy to think we could be out of here in a month. Then again, it could all fall through and we could still be living here in a year. Its all in God's hand and we wait upon Him and we put our hope in Him! I'll post again when I know more.

Number Seven is in the Oven

James really wanted me to test and it was positive (see last blog). We are excited. It is still early (7 weeks along), but we pray all goes well.

We are lowering the price on our house to $136,000, that is down $10,000. We haven't had anyone interested, so we are getting more competitive. We are running ads in the local paper next week and another paper in a county close by.

With another little one expected in September, we hope to be well on our way to a bigger home soon. God will provide!!