Playing Grown-Up

Brad and I are homeowners!! Can you believe how grown-up we're being?? I mean, really, are we old enough to be this kind of responsible?? It's so bazaar! And we love it! Love it, love it, love it! I'm actually surprised by how much we love it. We lived in a house before, so I didn't feel like this would be much different. But, oh, there is just something about that house actually being yours!!

Please, let me tell you all about it. It's still in Nashville. Is two stories, with a front porch that has spindles (one of my criteria), a back patio, and a garage (we've never had a garage!). The bottom floor consists of a living room, dining room, half bath, and kitchen, along with a few closets.

The bedrooms are located upstairs, all four of them! Our master bedroom is towards the front of the house with an attached full bathroom. We have a guest room, along with a guest bathroom, and an office (that I'm trying to go ahead and call the nursery, but Brad isn't too keen about it), and we've turned the 4th bedroom into a TV Room, which provides us with an additional room for socializing - just what we need.

Chester is gradually getting more accustomed to the new house. I'm not sure he really enjoys the double levels, since he can't "be everywhere at once" anymore. He's started to be too lazy to continually follow us up and down the stairs, or run up and down them when Brad and I are on opposite floors, so he just lays on the landing right in the middle. I guess he thinks that's a good compromise. We just think he's funny.

We closed last Thursday, and officially moved in on Saturday. Brad's parents came down for the weekend to help us out, and we also had a great group of guys from church assist in the move. We were loaded, hauled, and unloaded in less than two hours. That's some serious help! Here are a few quick pictures of where we are right now in the process of settling in, less than a week into it. You can look at more pictures in my photo album. I've been periodically updating it with our progress by adding new pictures on to the end of the album.

We found a lot of great deals on Craigslist, and purchased a new refrigerator, microwave, light fixtures for the entire bottom floor, living room tables, and even a fireplace screen and tool kit. Brad has been hard at work installing everything. It's already really starting to look like home. We're buying new living room furniture once our tax refund comes in. Thank you first-time homebuyer's credit!

With this much space, I do believe that Brad and I can be here for quite a while to come. How fun to think that this is the house that we'll start a family in!! Like, I'll be feeding my baby in his/her high chair in this very dining room! That's so surreal. I can't believe we're actually here. I'm totally on cloud nine.

But, I haven't even told you the best part, yet! This house is located right across the street from our very best friends! Holla!!! Seriously, when you look out from our front porch, you're looking directly at Charles and Emily's house. We could seriously communicate with tin can telephones. And furthermore, some more of our great friends, Kris and Emily, live right next door to them! We've created our own little triangle of friendship. I'll never not be able to bake a cake because I don't have enough eggs, again. (Yeah, right. Like that's what has kept me from baking in the past.) I'm so excited to have our little community. We're so going to raise all of our children together! Granted, theirs will be older than ours, seeing as how both Emilys are currently pregnant with their firsts. (Yea!) But that just means their kids will watch our kids!

Oh, we are so happy to be in this house. It's such an incredible blessing. It is definitely God who graced us with this home. There's no other way that it could have come to be. So many factors (too many to go into here) had to align for us to get this house, and God made sure that it happened. Sometimes, I'm just in awe of how much He loves us. We definitely don't deserve it. But that doesn't mean that we won't enjoy it!

I look forward to painting and hanging things on the walls and really making our house ours, since it really is ours, this time. Get ready for some decorating blog posts in the future! And keep checking back with the photo album as I continue to add updated pictures.

Seriously, we own a house? What?? That is crazy!!