Our New House!!

We put our house on the market on October 9th and had an offer on November 8th! Of course we dropped our asking price by 6% the week before we got the offer but who cares - we have a buyer! The couple who is buying our house looked at it at 10am on Saturday morning and we had an offer at 1:30! They are really excited about moving into our house and we are really excited about moving out!

So after we had the offer - we had 5 days to find a new house. We looked at 13 properties in two days. We really debated between about 4 different houses - all of which Andy liked, three of which I liked. We kept praying that God would show us exactly the house to buy and would make it crystal clear where we should end up. None of those four houses where crystal clear to us. So on Monday the 17th I got a call from my good friend Angie who works at MI homes. She said she had a house in Lewis Center (an area we were considering) where the house price dropped by $50,000 and there was a 4.875% interest rate special with MI if you closed by the end of the year on a spec home. A spec home means a house that is 99.98% complete and just sitting, waiting for an owner. So we get a brand new home with a HUGE discount, in a fabulous neighborhood, where we didn't have to pick out any of the finishes (which would have been a totally overwhelming task for me) and we get to move in within 30 days!

The house is way fancier than anything I would ever have chosen and totally gorgeous! Basic stats are: 4 bedroom, 2.5 baths, living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, den, 1st floor laundry, walk-out unfinished basement (with rough-in for another full bath). Cherry cabinets, granite counter tops, 9' first floor ceilings, hardwood floors in parts of the first floor, jacuzzi tub in master bath, good size closets, extended side-load garage - 2350 square feet in all - not counting the basement. Basically our old house fits in the second floor of the new house (which is smaller than the first floor!)

We haven't set the closing date in stone yet as we are waiting on our buyers to see if they can move up the date of the closing - but we are hopeful that we can close on both houses on Friday, December 19th. This gives us six weeks to be in the new house before the baby is due. We won't be doing any Christmas decorating this year but we should be pretty settled before the end of January - in all reality probably mostly unpacked by the end of December if we get the closing date we want.

We are just so grateful that God has made it perfectly clear that this was our time to move up to a bigger house and that he put all the details in place. That's not to say this hasn't been a mildly stressful process - but overall it hasn't been bad. Andy and I do love a good project :)

Two other cute pictures

We were looking at pictures on the camera the other day and Levi wanted me to take his picture. I told him to make a silly face... I, of course taught him how to make this face - I think it's so funny when he does it!

Carrie watched Levi on his actual birthday last week and he can home with this nifty hard hat! He wanted mommy and daddy to wear it but I explained that both mommy and daddy have their own hard hats! Some day we'll get a family picture with all the hardhats :)

Birthday!!!

Levi turned 2 last week! I can't believe that he's already two - and that in about two months number two will be here! We had a smaller family only party this year - which was really fun! Levi spent part of the day chasing his counsins around a house that we were all looking at (Andy and I were considering buying it - but that's the next post!). We had a laid back time back at our place with pizza, sauerkraut and kielbasa (normal birthday party food, right?), cake, ice cream and presents. He really enjoyed blowing out the candle on the cake. We did it twice for pictures and he wanted to do it again!

Levi got lots of books, trucks and possibly his favorite - a monkey (from Uncle Bruce!) his name is Chango (monkey in Spanish).

Here is a cute picture of Levi with Conner and Audrey.

Longaberger

We took a trip to the Longaberger basket factory in Dresdin, OH in the beginning of November with my friend Carrie and her mom and kids. I've seen (and own a few) of the baskets but had not been to the factory. It was really neat to see the people making each basket - by hand. They get paid per basket so they work really fast! Levi really enjoyed watching them make the baskets. He stood there for a good 5 minutes just watching!

The Longaberger factory area is a cute little town that they've created that's all Longaberger . They have a restaurant or two - a number of stores that all sell the same things and a cute little center of town area. This huge basket with apples is in the "center of town". Notice how little the kids are!

Another cute picture from the other week - Hannah and Levi snacking on his favorite - Apples!

Halloween

For Halloween this year Levi was a monkey (thanks Aunt Kristen!!). He really likes making the monkey noise and normally bounces up and down while he say "ooh, ooh!" When we were trick-or-treating he even walked up to a house and said "Me Monkey!!" to the lady at the door. This isn't the greatest picture, but you can see how cute the outfit is.
Our church hosts a "Trunk or Treat" each year where there are games, food and of course candy! Levi and his friend Aubrianna spent at least 20 minutes jumping in the back of my trunk while Andy and I talked to Aubrianna's parents. Perhaps is was all the sugar? They had a blast and for a few days after that Levi kept asking to play in the trunk! I told him we only jump in the trunk at church :)

Here is a picture of our pumpkin from this year. Can you guess who the face is supposed to be?