Officially Homeowners Again!!!!

So we finally made the big move!

Wow! You really know how to pack a truck babe ;) And you get extra points for not damaging anything, way to go!

You just don't even know how hard it was to get that pretty car up there.

Me and the girls crammed like sardines in the Tahoe. And don't you love Jason's boxers there, protecting my leather seats from Jakes kennel. haha! We're so creative.

I promise Ryann can breath back there, lol.

This picture speaks for itself.

And here are the girls playing with Ann Wyatt after we closed. So happy!

The last 3 days have been a whirlwind. Packed the truck all day Sunday and still some more Monday morning. We were able to get out of good ol' Lutz by about 2:00pm. Traveling actually went quite well. We made great timing and praise God we made it safely. Traveling with a 26 ft. Uhaul, a trailor with a car on it, a dog, along with me and 2 toddlers in my packed SUV is dangerous! God definitely protected us. ;) The girls were so well behaved, (which I was worried about having them by myself on an 8 hour trip). I can't even tell you how nerve racking it was to watch Jason drive that monsterous Uhaul and trailor. I know he felt every bump in the road. He did an awesome job driving that beast though. I'm so proud of him. Pretty sure he could be any kind of driver he wants. Race car driver, semi truck driver, truck and trailor driver, he's pretty much a professional driver in my book. Me on the other hand, not so much, but I couldn't see anything out my back window with the boxes stacked so high. So I'm just re-emphasizing how thankful I am that God brought us here safely. We had an easy breezy closing this morning, wrapped up at about 11:00. Jason, his cousin and uncle helped unload the truck. Another major blessing! And then Jason and Scott got to cleaning and even managed to put our living room together. (Pictures soon to come;) Things are going pretty well. It's hard to put into words how I feel about it all. Obviously I'm ecstatic! I'm also really tired, lol. Still tons to do. This week isn't slowing down. We have to get all our utilities squared away, buy a fridge, master bedroom suite, dresser for the girls, GROCERYS, and on and on. I'm really grateful for it all though, and I'm not complaining one bit. Just praising Jesus! Can't wait to start visiting churches. First stop, Westridge!

I thought it was funny that I only had 1 blog in my "healthy lifestyle" label section. hehe. I do like to consider myself healthy though. And I promise, that once we move, and I can get on a schedule, hopefully back in my running routine AND I can start cooking for the fam in my B-E-A-utiful kitchen, I will have much much more to blog about and label for this section...... but until then...... here's numero 2 for Healthy Lifestyle. Sorry if you're disappointed. ;)

Packing

I know I'm not the only one who gets annoyed by the tiny-ness of baby and toddler clothes. Sure they're cute but they are just so SMALL. And it seems like it takes forever to do laundry with all those tiny articles of clothing. When we moved from our last home into my parents we didn't box any clothes. We just left them on hangers and transported them to the next closet. Well this time we have to box them and I started doing that today. And today I really appreciated those tiny little clothes. I was able to fit both Micaila and Ryann's ENTIRE wardrobe (with the exception of what I left out for them to wear from now till Tuesday) into one box. Shoes are another story, thank you Linda. =)

Kudos to my sweet *M-I-L* Linda for the free boxes she got us from the school board. yay!

If you are close with me you'll know what an extreme procrastinator I am. It's not that I LIKE procrastinating. I actually hate it. One reason I dislike it is because often it makes me late which I can't stand. And since I'm so anxiety stricken at points the whole feeling under pressure doesn't look good on me. But I can't help it for some reason. I just can't seem to do things a little bit at a time. It's all or nothing for me. And that goes for like every area of my life. And when it came to packing I just couldn't put things away here and there. So now I find myself jumping in to the deep packing waters and putting it alllll away. Not really loving it either, but oh well.

CLEARLY I am NOT a professional packer.... there is no method here just madness! lol. I bet my mom cant wait for this room to be empty. Notice the sweet missing flooring in the back..... previous blog "moving update" explains....

It's funny, I've filled several boxes of clothes and shoes and toys and our little bedroom is still a total mess! What the heck??? I thought this stuff was gonna start disappearing..... boy is that frustrating.

New Closing Date!

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday! We are set to close on Tuesday at 10:00am. Woohoo! We'll pack the truck up on Sunday, take our time and drive up Monday and then on that glorious Tuesday morning we will be closing on our new home. Praise God! We are so unbelievably blessed. That's all I can think about right now..... for so many reason outside of closing on our home. Take a moment and lets count our blessings =)

Here are a few of mine.

PRAY PRAY PRAY

http://thematthewsstory.com/

Please lift this family and little baby boy up in your prayers.

Moving update

Sooooo I had not had a chance to blog about the fact that our closing date was pushed back due to a small oversight on the bank end. (I know big shocker) Apparently they had thought the seller had closed back in February but he actually had closed on July 15. Obviously banks have rules and requirements that you must meet as a home owner and one our lender has is that you aren't to "flip" a house within a 90 day period. We were to close on October 15. Right on the 90 day marker. But the funny thing is for us to move forward the bank requested we get a 2nd appraisal to ensure the houses value was not less than what we were buying it for. Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me considering those seem like 2 separate issues but not a whole lot you can do about it and the bank was paying for the appraisal so that's what we have been waiting for. And not to our surprise at all the house again appraised 30k over what we are buying it for. So we are hoping that we close by the end of the week.

It hasn't been fun or easy STILL being here when we should be in our new home putting away dishes and setting up furniture. In fact, it's become extremely difficult within the last 3 weeks. I also have neglected to blog about the joys of being one big happy family in one tiny bedroom. My parents house is sort of...... well...... falling apart and particularly in the room we were sleeping in. Water managed to soak up through the slab warping the hard wood floors and creating a really great musty aroma. Jason had to rip up some of the flooring in there and they are still in the process of resolving the issue. So here we are, all cramped up in Micaila and Ryann's bedroom. Whelp, this certainly has been a great method of birth control! I mean seriously, not only are Jason and I around my parents all the time but we can't even hide out in our bedroom alone. lol. I'm not complaining I'm "just saying" =) I can't wait to have our privacy again. I think God just wanted me to move into this new home with an even greater sense of appreciation. What an awesome lesson! Definitely learned too. I can't wait!

As a result of not closing and not moving this past weekend God did do something really awesome. He orchestrated my being able to attend the Women of Faith Conference. Which I highly recommend. It was incredibly enjoyable, insightful, and worshipful. Full Full Full of good God stuff. I got to go with my mom and spend the whole weekend with her and Jesus. I will admit I was a little disctracted by my disappointment with not moving but it was still amazing and I feel like it's been even better for me to reflect on. I loved spending the time with my mom, I loved listening to and learning from the speakers. And of course I loved singing praises to my Heavenly Father or just listening and worshipping in silent adoration. I feel really blessed to have gotten to go and experience such a wonderful event.

And thats the update!

Our little girlfriend Faith

For those of you who read my "Pray for Faith" posting, I wanted to give you an update. She is a little miracle! First of all I did find out that the tumor is not a cancerous one, but obviously with it being on her brain they can not allow it to continue growing. Thus why they have been trying to remove it completely. I'm not sure if and when the next time they will perform surgery on her but I do know she is doing really well. The doctors had sent her home with a wheel chair and she pretty much said "Bump that! I'm walking..." and has found other uses for it. So I'd say her spirits are high and she is back to being a normal 7 year old again. Continue to keep her and her family in your prayers though that one day the tumor will be gone completely.

God is good, all the time.

parting gifts

I have been working on parting gifts for friends all day. I don't know why I think I could ever just throw a gift together quickly. It's totally not my style. I'm a complete perfectionist when it comes to making things and I have always been one to put a lot of thought into whatever gift I'm giving. I like to make it special for the individual and put my little Katie twist on it for them to remember me by. So as it would go, I have spent all day on 1 gift. 1. And it's now 1 in the morning and I can't believe I am still up and only have partially finished 1 gift. Wow! I have a lot to do for all these special friends of mine. It's a good thing our closing got pushed back to an unknown date hopefully in the near future. I am such a procrastinator..... did I mention I haven't begun to pack a THING that's at my parents house..... oh bother....

Feeling Sappy....time to reminisce

I guess with all these farewells it's made me really sappy and I was looking back at old pictures and HAD to post them. So here we go.....

My little doll baby.... she's getting so big
Her and bruiser when he was a baby =)

They are the best of friends and I love it

Caila-kins ;)

Erica... sheesh,.... there are no words =))

Feeshy =)

My one and only

hahahaha oh my....

theres my baby! ugh, I just love you...

So in-liiiiiike and it's great because we love each other too ;)

My beautiful and sweet and wonderful mommy (= Best friends despite our differences

my brother Chriiiiss

They are going to love growing up together

Our little monkey. One of my favorite pictures EVER.

Roll Tide Roll

Womens Half Marathon.... been a while since I had a good run

Where do I even begin with you?? My favorite girl =)

I miss when you were this small....

My birfday! yay!

Nothing like chickfila DP by a pool with one of your bestesses

aahhhhhh!!! Costume party's are the BEST!

Laughing..... always

It's not Goodbye, it's not goodbye, it's not goodbye....

We'll be packing up our moving truck and heading to our new home in Georgia in a few short days. Obviously there is a mixture of all kinds of emotions that actually all conflict with each other: happiness, sadness, relief, stress, but definitely total and utter EXCITEMENT. This last week and weekend was our "Farewell Weekend". I spent some wonderful moments with some of my most favorite people in the world. Friends and family that have supported me, encouraged me, loved me, laughed with me, prayed with me, and been a blessing to me by sharing their life and me being able to share mine. God has been so good to place these wonderful people in my life and I'm eternally grateful to have relationship with each and every one of them. Here are some pictures from my last days with our Florida family.

Howl O Scream with some of our best friends

I will miss you dearly =(

Giving me baby fever this one =) Beautiful Willow

Some of Jason's oldest and best friends. I love you guys!

The hubbies =)

Michael, Erica, Me and Alisha =)))

My sweet heart, so glad I get to bring you with me hehe

Mommies together

Oh Michael, I'll miss you so
Running mates for life

They will still be best friends even long distance!

Sweetest picture

Lucy Kate! You gave pig tails a new name, "Lucy's"

My dear dear friend.... we have something special don't we =)))

I'm definitely a daddy's girl, this is gonna be tough with out him.

My girls Sarah and Parker

such a sweet mommy and daughter

Kelli!!!!! Sheesh! I am so blessed with so many wonderful girlfriends

My amazing friend and mentor Susie. Love you!

Hi!

inside out oreo. Cailakins, Katie and Kaitlyn. I'll never forget the fun times we've had.

Devinnnnn!!!! Partner in criiiiimee. I will miss you soooooo!!!

Kerith =) We've had some good talks haven't we

The Carnahan family. Keep it growing! God bless you my sweet faith family.

And Jillybean, I couldn't have grown up with out you =)