trees, trees, trees!

One thing that's possibly more fun and nerve-racking than ghost hunting is house hunting. We've been looking at listings online for months (actually, years, but only seriously for months) and Sunday was the day we finally got to see things in person.

On Thursday of last week a new house came on the market in our target location and I decided to drive by to check it out. I was antsy because we had several more days to wait before the official hunt. I'd been able to rule out several houses by driving by them, so that saved us time later.

As I came up the winding street I had a feeling. It was an older neighborhood with lots of trees and had a homey atmosphere. The description of the house on the listing made my heart flutter. It said it had 35 acres of open space behind it. A perfect place for little boys to wander. Also, it was walking distance from a small neighborhood lake. I saw the "For Sale" sign in the yard and pulled over to take a look. It appeared to be very well maintained and had a basketball hoop over the garage. I could picture the boys shooting hoops already. I pulled up more to peek around the corner and caught a glimpse of the space behind it. Trees as far as I could see! I started to freak out and called my husband.

"I'm sitting in front of our house and we need to see it asap!" I just knew it was going to sell before we got a chance at it. He called our realtor to find out if we could possibly see it before our scheduled Sunday trip. Our realtor called back and said the owners were not going to show it to anyone until Sunday. Perfect!

So I suffered through Friday and Saturday, the minutes ticking by and dragging on. I kept telling myself that if it was meant to be, it would happen and I just had to calm down. But it was hard. Besides, we hadn't even seen the inside yet. It could have been completely wrong for us.

Sunday finally came and we made the rounds with the realtor. After seeing about eight houses we determined that that house was indeed the one for us. Our realtor congratulated us for the fastest offer after the fewest showings. We just knew what we wanted so we didn't have to mull anything over.

Our offer was submitted on Sunday afternoon and we waited all day yesterday for word. Would they accept our offer? Would they have multiple offers to choose from? Would they counter? We could hardly think of anything else all day. Every time the phone rang my heart skipped a beat.

Finally last night around eight we got word that they had countered. It was a fair deal and we agreed to the terms. We also heard that another family was going to try and get in a last minute offer if they could. Our realtor emailed the contract, we signed everything in record time and faxed it off. With it being official now, they shouldn't be able to take any more offers.

But we're still waiting, holding our breaths, to hear more confirmation that it's really, truly ours. Obviously, at this point in the game there are tons of things that could go wrong. But if it's meant to be, it will happen. And then we'll have the yard we have been dreaming of for years. A perfect place for childhood memories just waiting to be made.

answered prayer

Sometimes the answer to a prayer comes in time. Sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. Sometimes the answer is a gracious Yes, but then sometimes, for reasons unknown, the answer is No. Whether I like it or not.

Sometimes prayers are answered in subtle ways. And then there are the times that always shock me for some reason, the times when a prayer is answered immediately and so clearly that I have no doubt in my mind it was from above.

For the last few weeks I've been wearing myself out. I've been cleaning, organizing, packing and yes, praying, the get ready for the sale of our house. I've had the carpets shampooed, I have scrubbed the bathrooms 'til they shine, I've wiped down the baseboards and windows. Heck, I've even dusted our lightbulbs, people. I've made multiple trips to various nurseries and spent a lot of money on plants and flowers to brighten up our yard so that the 'target buyer' will walk in and be so amazed at the cleanliness and beauty that is our house, they will make a full price offer on the spot.

I am exhausted.

So, after all this work, all this effort, guess who bought our house? A cash buyer from out-of-state who has never even laid eyes on the place. Hahaha! Once again I can hear God laughing at all my plans and schemes because once again, His were even better! He sent us a buyer who is qualified, motivated, flexible and reasonable! We can move out whenever we find a new place because he's not on a deadline to move in. We could not have imagined a more perfect situation.

So to anyone out there who sent prayers our way, thank you. They have been answered.

home sweet home

This week is the week we've been talking about for years. The week when we'll bite the bullet, take the plunge and in a grand effort to get out of the 'burbs once and for all, list our house! Over the last few weeks I've been purging our closets, touching up paint and even refinishing the banister. This place was pristine when we moved in due to the former owners being child-free, and our family has taken its toll. Believe me.

With all the preparations, all the hoping for a great buyer right out of the gates, yesterday was the first time I felt a pang of sentiment about this place and realized I had never paid proper homage to it, as I did with our first house. So here it is...

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When my husband accepted the new job that would take us out-of-state, I had very mixed emotions. Our children were really just babies, at 5, 3 and 1, and we had been making plans to live very close to my parents and two of my best friends in the world. So when the plans changed, I was not exactly thrilled.

We were already living in temporary housing since we had sold our home and were in the process of building another, so that gave us some flexibility, thank goodness. I started doing realtor.com searches in Colorado to get a feel for the housing market. I almost fell over! The houses were three times as much as in Texas and for less space. We had been in a 100 year-old house on half an acre and it looked like we were going to end up in a cookie-cutter house with no yard. Once again, I was not thrilled.

To make things even more dramatic, we had just one weekend to find a place. I became obsessive, making lists of MLS#'s I wanted to see once we arrived. I felt like hyperventilating every time one of my listings disappeared before our trip. Thank goodness we had a great realtor who took charge.

My husband flew up a day earlier than I because of the kid situation. I called him all day asking if he had found us a place. He sounded disoriented and said he'd seen so many places he couldn't even remember any of them. That made me even crazier. I had no control in the situation at all. I flew up a day later and recall seeing a rainbow from the plane window as we were landing at the Denver airport. I took it as a sign.

The next morning, the realtor came to get us and start the hunt. My husband was absolutely right. We saw dozens of houses and they were basically all the same. Nothing really jumped out at us. I had been praying that we would "know it" when we found the right place and so far my prayer was not being answered.

By the end of the day we were exhausted but had managed to narrow it to one or two that would work for us. Like I said, they were basically all the same so it wasn't a matter of finding the "perfect" one. We made an offer on one that had a good feel to us and was close to a school, even though it really was not big enough. Our realtor said he'd contact us in the morning as soon as he heard something. The same morning we had to fly back to Texas.

We went to dinner to celebrate and then back to the hotel. I did not sleep very well that night. I think my gut was trying to tell me we were rushing things.

The next morning the realtor called and said that the people would take our offer but they needed a 60 day closing. We only had 30. They threw out some weird options like having us buy the house but rent it to them for a month and things like that. We said never mind. From our past experience, the 'right thing' was never that complicated. That's when our realtor said, well, guess what? There was one new listing just that morning that sounded like what we wanted.

He picked us up and first took us by a couple of the places we'd seen the day before that were "okay" with us. They looked a little better to us the second day since the pressure was on. We said we'd probably put an offer on one if the new listing didn't pan out.

Then he took us to the new listing. We were the very first ones to see it. They didn't even have a sign in the yard yet. And the price was less that any of the others we'd seen. We walked in and after a quick look around, we "knew" that this was the house for us. It had exactly what we needed and was within walking distance of the elementary school! As we looked out the windows upstairs my husband sighed, "Look...we can see the mountains from here," but my mind was somewhere else, "Look, we can see the grocery store from here!" We each had our priorities and as someone who'd been commuting 20 miles to a grocery store for four years, I knew what mine were.

We signed yet another offer, left it on the realtor's hands, and headed to the airport. We were doubtful that the owners would take our offer since we were the first ones to even see the place. As soon as the plane touched down in Texas we turned on our phones to check for messages. There was none.

We rounded up the boys from my parents' house and headed back to our temporary apartment. Halfway there the phone rang. "Are you sitting down?" our realtor asked. "Yes!" I said. "They accepted your offer and have already signed off on it!" We screamed in the car and explained to the boys that we were on our way top start a new life in Colorado. They just blinked at us.

After all my lists and lists and anxiety, we ended up with a house that had not even gone on the market until hours before we had to leave the state! I think God must have gotten a kick out of that. A good reminder that I'm never in charge so I might as well just relax.

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I tell this story to explain that although it turns out we are not suited to living in the suburbs, we have been very blessed to live in this home for the last three years. Although there were no new babies brought home here, no first steps taken or first words spoken here, this place is were we started our new life. A life in a beautiful place where we've been fortunate enough to meet some really great friends and create a lot of happy memories.

Hopefully it will sell quickly and the next people will also love it and be more 'burb oriented. Then, we're off to find our third home together. A home with a big tree for a treehouse, a big yard for playing games and basically some fresh air and space. The home where we will finish raising our boys. I can't wait!

super cooper

You just never know what you're going to get with Cooper. Sometimes he'll do anything for a laugh. The other morning Clayton came downstairs for breakfast and casually asked, "So Cooper, do you still have that popcorn kernel in your nose?" Cooper started giggling and said, yes, he did indeed still have the popcorn kernel in his nose. He'd apparently put it there the night before for the sole purpose of entertaining his brothers. I started to panic but then thought, 'Surely, he's just kidding. He couldn't have slept all night with popcorn in his nose!' I tilted his giant head back and peered into each nostril. Lo and behold, there was a kernel in there. I started to picture the trip to the doctor and the tweezers they would have to use to extract it, when suddenly I remembered reading something about that exact predicament just a few weeks earlier. With my husband's assistance, we covered his mouth, his empty nostril, and told him to blow out hard. Poof! Out it came. We discarded the offending object and ranted and raved for a while about how dangerous it could have been. To him, it was totally worth it to gain some respect from his big brothers

He's not always fun and games, though. Sometimes he takes the moral high ground. The other day when I picked him up from pre-school one of his fellow classmates waved good-bye to him but he just ignored her. I said, "Hey, she's waving to you. Why don't you wave back?" He furrowed his brow and said that she had said some very "tacky" things to him in class that day and he was mad at her. He said it was so tacky he had to cover his ears to keep from hearing it during snacktime. I had to wonder what on earth a three year-old little girl could say that was so offensive to my son's not-so-delicate sensibilities. But he would not tell me. It was just too bad. I kept prodding him and finally told me, after warning me once again how bad it was. He said that she said.....'Grandma's underpants.' I could not help myself and burst out laughing. He was not amused.

We're also surprised by him in other ways. The other night we went for a walk down the trails that wind through our neighborhood. On the way back, Cooper was tired so he rode on his Dad's shoulders. My other two boys challenged me to a race and I beat them again and again. They don't quite know how to pace themselves yet. After watching all this, Cooper asked to get down and race with us. On your marks, get set, go! We set off down the trails together. It wasn't long before the older two sprinted themselves out and had to stop and rest. But Cooper kept running. And running. I was right behind him and he was not running slowly. He was actually going about the pace I usually run at. It was so funny seeing his little arms pumping and his little feet slapping the ground. He had really good form. I said, "If you need to take a break, it's okay!" But he said no, he was fine. He wasn't even out of breath! I could not believe how far he went. We went up hills and down hills until finally, he stopped at a bench that was the designated finish line. He'd run at least a quarter of a mile easily.

"Mom, are there running shoes?" he asked, pointing to his feet.

"They are now!" I said.

Who knows what's in store for Cooper. I can't wait to see.