blessings upon blessings

We just have to share how GREAT our God is & how He is blessing us immensely!  We don't deserve it, but we are thankful & humbled.

Let's back up a little bit (two months to be exact)....

I was planning on returning back to work (I work 30 hours a week from home) after Ella's birth.  Jake & I had been praying about what God would have for our family.  We had decided that I should return to work, but we would reevaluate if it just was too much with my working from home & having both the girls too. My maternity leave was up after my sister's wedding. I went into work for a meeting & was told that they no longer had work for me.  The business had slowed down & I was being laid off.  This was a blessing!  We had prayed for clear direction from the Lord & being laid off was definitely clear direction.  So I became a full time stay-at-home-mom. My dream job!  I love it!

Now we are on one income.  Jake & I had both talked & decided that if at some point we had to sell our current home, we would.  We feel that it is so important that I am home with the girls while they are little.  It's only a short time until they will be in school & we want that time with them.

Now fast forward to last Saturday night - September 15, 2012

To clarify, we have not been looking for other housing.  Jake just likes to check Zillow periodically.  Well, Saturday night he found a foreclosure very close to us that was priced at almost 1/3 of the cost.  Sunday afternoon Jake told me that he found a house he wanted to buy.  I said okay!  Sunday night we went & snooped around the property (it is vacant).  On Monday, the house moved from being listed to a bidding site.  Also on Monday Jake worked on getting in touch with our realtor & our mortage guy - we used both of them to buy our current home.  We didn't have current email addresses for them so Jake got a hold of them Tuesday from their cell numbers.  We met our realtor Wednesday night (9/19) at the house.  It is a BIG fixer-upper, but we "loved" it.  It is listed as 3 bedrooms, 3 full baths, 2 half baths, sunken den, sunroom, rec room.  It is 2,400 sq. ft. which is a lot bigger than our current home. We talked & prayed a lot Wednesday night.  Jake continued to get finances nailed down with our mortgage guy.  We placed a bid on the house on Friday afternoon.  Friday evening the bidding site changed status to "accepting the Highest & Best Offers."  Bidding closed Saturday (9/22) at 3:31pm.  We talked about it & decided to up our bid $5,000.  We really didn't want to lose this house over a couple thousand dollars.  On Saturday we found out that we WON the bid!  So exciting.  God really gave us this house.  Jake found it & in one week God gave it to us.  It will substantially decrease our house payment & give us more space.

And here is floor plan I drew up of the house.  You'll have to click on it to enlarge the image. This is how the house sits now...we will be changing A LOT of this.  I had to guess on dimensions, but I think that this is fairly accurate.

There will be ONE item on each of our Christmas lists this year:  LOWES Gift Cards

Here are a few things we are praying about:

• Our current house will sell quickly & for the right price.
• All the inspections will go smoothly at the "new" house & that there will be no big issues (besides the ones we are already well aware of).
• We will be able to do the necessary remodeling (painting, flooring, gutting the kitchen, etc...) quickly & prior to moving in.

Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.

Psalm 68:19