Answered prayers

It's been a great week!

Sawyer has a 3rd tooth.

I found out the job I am taking is going to be a little more flexible than I first thought...I will be working 5 days per week but, most weeks, I will be able to leave early two days per week.  This may not seem like much but to me, it is HUGE!  Looks like I will find time to buy groceries and diapers!  This news was a true blessing....I'm guessing God was reading my thoughts and knew that the hours were the only thing holding me back from being excited about this new job....finally, I am exicted!

I'm also excited because they agreed to delay my start date.....

....they delayed my start date so that I would be able to travel to SC to pack and move out of our home....

.....because we SOLD our house!

After months and months and months of uncertainty, countless prayers, sleepless nights, nibbled down finger nails, tension and questioning if we had made the correct decision, we finally got an offer on the house.  Even better, after the first offer, came a second offer!  Six months of nothing and then suddenly two offers.  We didn't get exactly what we were hoping but we did get enough to allow us to purchase a house here and start to move forward with this new chapter of our life in NC.

After so much worry and stress, the offer came and we accepted....and, it was almost anti-climatic.  It came right in the middle of a busy Saturday - after baseball, in the midst of family visiting, while trying to pack the boys overnight bags and just before a much needed date night - we barely even had a second to process what had happened before moving on the next part of our day.  We wanted to scream it from the rooftops...finally, our prayers had been answered....but, we didn't really get a chance!  I think Chad and I are truly the only two people who can understand what this experience has felt like....and, we are the only two people who know what it feels like to have our house under contract.  Smiles and tears in the same moment.

We had to sell our house to begin to move forward and establish a life here in NC....but, selling our house means that we have to move forward and that we can no longer go back and forth as we wish.  The emotions that I will feel as our belongings are packed up and carried out of that home will be difficult.  I think it will feel somewhat similar to grief....the past seven months have been such a blur.  My husband learned of a job opening in NC, we discussed it very briefly, I went into labor, I had a baby...and major surgery....we came home...home to a place where both of our parents were staying with us...Chad was offered the job, he accepted when our baby was just 6 days old and while stitches in my abdomen meant my sobbing only made it hurt that much worse....and, sobbing, oh how I cried....and within weeks, the life that we had been living and the life that we welcomed a new baby into was suddenly non-existent.  Chad was gone.  Then, Payton was gone.  Suddenly, I was left to throw all of our necessities into our car, pick Owen up from preschool, and drive away.....my emotional roller coaster left me emotionless....simply put, I was a hot mess but the tears did not fall.  The wait has been long and difficult...I was certain it would sell in a few weeks and then before Christmas and then back in February....the longer the waited, the worse it was to process....so, I just quit processing any of it.  After seven months of not dealing with what is actually happening in my life, I am going to be forced to deal with it...and, all the emotions of the past seven months are most likely going to come pouring out.  Don't pack the kleenex's.....I'll be needing those!

My baby's crib will be packed away. The one my Dad built for our children...the one that Sawyer has only slept in a few times.

Payton's trophies and medals that are so important to him will be packed away.  Owen's piggy bank.  Their books.

All of our furniture, wedding china, and countless collectables (yes, I know I have too many!) will be handled and wrapped and packed.

All of our family photos - my most prized possessions - will be left in the care of someone who has no clue what those photos say.

I just have to hope that they do a good job and that when we see our things again, they are all intact and in good shape....our last move left many things crumpled and broken.  It's hard to trust a moving company again.

Really, it's just tough....to hope so much for something, like the right buyers for our house, yet hurt so badly knowing the finality of it all.  In less than a month, our yellow house will no longer be our yellow house.  The house where we lived so fully....where we brought home three baby boys, where we made friends that will never be replaced, where we made memories that will live with us forever, where our marriage grew by leaps and bounds, where we laughed and cried and played and loved....this house, will no longer be "our" house.  It will be the official end of that chapter.

As I can see the final pages of that chapter playing out, I am sad...so very sad...but, seeing that end in sight is also the only way that I can begin to see our new chapter starting.

Thanks for all of your support and prayers over the past seven months....God's timing may not have been what we expected but, his plan is always greater than our own.  Please keep us in your prayers over the next few weeks as the most difficult weeks are ahead.