Pictures coming...

I do have tons of pictures to go through and load, but since the videos are a little faster (don't have as many to look through and choose) I put a few of those up first.. :D  See Below..

Plowin'

We went up for a visit with family and to retrieve our last two pieces of furniture this past weekend..and while we were there, Papa gave Charlotte and Liam a ride on his potato plow! They had a ball.  I do think it is hilarious that she is wearing a pearl necklace while riding a plow..that's our big girl!

she rolled over...but not in this video;)

March 6th, 2012

Oreos...

haha! Liam's hair is so long!

we love Oreos...obviously  ;)

Hot Chok-lit..

our British son and his big sis...

Bathtime...

needless to say, they now prefer taking a bath in our bathroom over their tub..

Home Sweet Home

Well, after a very long and emotional *don't ever house-hunt while pregnant...* search for a home, God has provided the perfect house for our (now large) family. :D  It has features we didn't think we could get for the price range we'd set for ourselves..but the Lord exceeded our expectations and provided a home with nearly everything we could have asked for and more!  We love everything about it... the layout, the fenced-in backyard, the neighborhood,  the size of the rooms, the better-than-we-thought-we'd-get commute Josh has...the list goes on and on.  We've encountered so many setbacks in the closing process, mainly due to the seller having a tax lien issue that took soo long to be resolved...but we are finally able to say...it's HOME!!!  We closed on March 13th!!  Our original closing date was November 30th, so to say it has been a challenging wait is an understatement. This house is so perfect for us and will hopefully also serve as a fantastic investment...so we felt it was worth the wait, despite how painful that was! 

Our Timeline for this process...

Sept. 21st, 2011 - sold Shaw Hills house in Winston Salem!! Hunt begins for new home. (we didn't want to look any earlier and find something we loved but couldn't buy yet)...

October  - ups and downs of house hunting. Do Not attempt while pregnant ;/

**BB&T extends temporary corporate housing from Oct. 27th to January 27th.**

Nov. 2nd - go under contract on Cedar Croft house!!

November - all inspections completed, repairs completed.

Nov. 25th - Black Friday: we buy appliances for the house..to be delivered Dec. 3rd..oops (every so often throughout the process we have to call and reschedule delivery dates, Armstrong relocation moving dates, and re-up our storage unit)

Nov. 30th - 1st closing date...fell through

Dec. 2nd - 2nd, closing date...fell through

Dec. 5th - Emory is born!! :D  We think we might close later that week...we don't.

Mid-Dec. - We are informed for the first time about the tax lien.  :(  We are told "these things always clear up, it could happen any day..

December  - waiting daily to hear from IRS on lien discharge... maybe we will close by Christmas! ...we don't.  In the interim, we have a "buyer posession" set up so that we have 2 weeks to paint and do some quick changes/repairs we want to have done before we move in.

**throughout the process, we were told "it could happen any day...later today even, or tomorrow!"  This means every time Josh called for 3 months it is a feeling of: is this the call to celebrate good news?  It is too taxing on the brain and heart. After a while we just say: "maybe one day we'll close" and leave it at that.

January 2012 - maybe we will close by Charlotte's birthday.. Surely, we say, we will be in by then.. we don't close.

January - We say to the buyer: "if you are really being sincere and this lien is going to be cleared, you need to let us move in for $1 a month rent, our temporary housing is ending and we cannot move twice with our kids/new baby/etc."  ($1 because we felt if we paid a resonable rent amount, he would have no motivation to accelerate the closing process)...HUGE surprise, he agrees!!

January 19-20th - MOVING IN!! We also celebrated Charlotte's birthday the night that the moving company loaded up our stuff into their truck (storage unit to truck is day one, truck to house is day two).   So Happy! This brings to an end all of the frustrations with having a newborn, 2 and 4 year old in the apt...trying to get more than one small bag of groceries at a time (apt parking garage with all three kids, stroller, and a $200 load of groceries?? Impossible). Now we have a garage and it is Wonderful!! The kids have space outside they can run around in!! (can't take two little ones who run fast to the park when you are too pregnant to chase/catch up with them and/or have a stroller and a baby who can't go out in the cold! Just to describe a couple of weekly scenarios that have vastly improved overnight!! :D There are a milllion little things that changed for the better the day we moved in :D

January 21 - Family party for Charlotte at the house!! So exciting, but restrained joy because we still haven't closed..

January through March - Settling in to the house, enjoying it immensly, but still nervous until we actually close. Very weird living in a house that is "yours" but isn't "yours" on paper.. Learning a lot about our feelings of things being "ours" ...stewardship, earthly belongings, the "mine" problem, etc.

February 29 - We find out the lien on the house has cleared!! HURRAY, the news we've been waiting on!! We set to close March 7th.

March 6th - Josh calls to say we won't be closing the 7th. Further delays...

March 13th, 2012 - Closed on the house at 1:00 pm!!!! WOOO HOOO!!! So happy and relieved!!! Thank You, Lord!! :D  Looking forward to making many, many more happy memories here. Feeling so blessed (as always), and such relief. Thank You, Lord!!! I could say it all day long!! :D

Thanks for praying with us through this time~we felt a wide range of things from elation to devestation and everything in between...but it has been a major growing/stretching/learning experience that we will certainly draw from in the future!!  We know God has big things in store for us that will happen while we live here. We are excited to see what the future holds here!! :D