Waking up... in OUR home!!!

Those are our home ownership documents. WOOOOOO HOOOOO!!!!! 

Surreal. That must be what this feeling is. I couldn't sleep last night thinking about all I wanted to accomplish now that the home is really mine. I cannot tell you how incredibly awesome this process has been. I've spent hours glued to the computer working on numbers, figures, writing letters of explanations to underwriting teams, you name it - I've had to deal with it these past couple months. All that work, all those prayers, everything is worth it. I feel the giddy need to paint a wall, tile a back splash, something!

Instead, I decided to marvel at my beautiful reasons for buying a home. 

These crazy girls. How did I blink and they got to be so big? At 6 & 8, they are going to conquer the world. By choice, they have snuggled together to share blankets (instead of clearing all those toys off their bed!). They each have plans to remodel the house. So far I've heard they want more windows, painted walls, and a horse. We'll see about all that. 

This little man is rarely still. This is a rare glimpse into him actually in one spot for more than 2 seconds! I am so thrilled to have the blessing of buying a home with room for him to roam a bit. To have dirt to dig in, animals to love, but mostly just space to be a boy. More than anyone, Declan craves the outdoors. He likes to build things, work with his hands and get dirty. 

This crazy bed hog crawled in our bed about 4 am. Why is there marker on her face? Who knows. But she is really really cute to wake up next to. I marvel at the fact that Lani will likely not know any other home in her childhood (at least as far as I am concerned!!) than this home. We moved into this home when she was just 2 months old. This is home. 

YESTERDAY, May 29th, 2014 - We became HOME OWNERS!!! 

But before we were officially owners, we decided this was our home. The moment we went under contract to purchase this dirt, we lit a fire under us! 

One of the blessings of buying an older home is the big trees! We have two huge walnut trees and one large pine tree. However, as a rental, these trees were neglected. The south side walnut tree was touching the house completely. It needed some TLC. So what does that mean? Of course it meant my darling husband needed a chainsaw, a ladder and this gorgeous little boy with loppers to help! It was very shocking at first to trim the tree back so much but it really was needed. I've been researching a few options for adding another shade tree to the front of the house to block the west afternoon and evening sun. We're spoiled with this walnut tree shading the morning and early afternoon sun, it's so big and beautiful. Being home owners means now having long term vision. Planting trees and expecting shade in years..... not tomorrow. Oh so exciting!

While this might not look like anything to the ordinary person, to us this looks like hope. We put down SERIOUS roots in the last month! You can see the mulch paths we're putting in the garden space, our new drip lines, our water supply lines, ahhh!!! What runs along this entire line is a row of raspberries. In a few years, this should be a beautiful bounty. 

Temporary gardening is brutal. It means that you get one grow season to make the soil great AND put it all back the next season when you are a renter. Anything you do you must be willing to un-do. Well, guess what? The ever-optimist inside of me refused to believe this home wasn't ours. This year we began our mulch paths. This is no tiny task. This is our beginning. While it doesn't look like much, we have big plans. Yes, when this was taken, our garden patch was over run with weeds. This is in part because I am pregnant and slower and in part because we have plants that weren't in the ground at all when this was taken. Each line in between the mulch rows has a new drip line. Still so much to do and a lot will NOT be undertaken this year as my September focus will be a new little one, not canning for the whole month :)

Our strawberry patch is happy!!

This is a rough map/sketch of our goals for our property. We firmly believe that nothing should stay that isn't considered useful or beautiful. Many of the things we are planning today will show in several years. We've been blessed by a few wonderful friends with house warming gifts of blackberries and raspberries. We're beginning our master plan NOW. Why wait? 

Can I just shout from the roof tops how grateful I am? There is no way this home would be ours without the hard work Damon has put in for years to build our dream business, my uncle Mike who believed in us completely, my many friends who listened to me worry & fret, prayed with me, our families who celebrated each step along the way with us, our Realtor Kelly Humphry, every single client A la Carte has and our lenders at Summit Funding Inc who were willing to build a case with us for our underwriting process. Without each and every person along the way, we wouldn't have made it. Most of all, I'm so honored to have known through this how marvelous the hand of God is. Each time we felt worried or discouraged, we were comforted and confirmed this was where we were meant to be. Indescribable.