From Beneath the Boxes…

This is Tiffany Nevil reporting to you from underneath massive piles of packing paper and boxes. He he he he he he he, hi! Look, we’re alive! We moved into the new house without a hitch and things are going great! There have been a few “surprises” here and there with the house, but nothing terrible. We were buried under boxes and packing paper, but I made great progress yesterday. I got both the boys’ rooms unpacked. The kitchen is unpacked enough that we can function. But there are still 10 boxes…big ones, left to unpack.I have no idea how it’s all going to fit….

Right now, I’m actually at my Mom’s house (Thanks Mom!) doing laundry. The breaker box at the house is having an issue and the dryer won’t turn on as a result. But no one has clean pants and I’m pretty sure the general public is not ready for us to walk around with out pants. I don’t think we are interested either. So, I’m really glad my mom lives so close! Additionally, the cable guy can’t make it to the house until NEXT Wednesday. AH! I’m super glad my phone has internet access. Plus, there’s always the library (and my mom’s!)

We have had a lot of confirmation that moving home to St. Louis was the best decision for us. It’s been encouraging to see those things unfold. We are eager and excited for all that God has ahead of us. In the mean time, I hear the washer telling me it is done. Time to throw some laundry in and get the muchkin down for a nap. I might not be back until next week, so until then, keep up with our pics on facebook!

 

Hope, Deferred

Proverbs 13:12
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Boy, was Solemn ever right. On Wednesday, I had probably the best birthday ever! It was a beautiful and fun day. Jeremy took me shopping and out to lunch, my sweet Cooper was totally precious all day and made sure he bought me a gift that was just from him. We even got awesome news from our lender! Our mortgage went down several thousand dollars and a very large processing fee was waived due to some disability paperwork that went through at the VA for Jeremy. That means our monthly payment went down and our closing costs went down. WAHOO!

Until, yesterday.

Our lender called us to congratulate us on all that good stuff and then break the bad news to us: we can’t close on Friday. We have to wait until Tuesday. Whenever a change like this occurs and your loan is through the VA, you have to wait 3 more days before you can close. BOOOO to red tape!

In the grand scheme of things this is absolutely nothing. What’s a couple more days for an event as big as buying a house? It’s nill. It is a drop in the bucket. But we were SO. EXCITED.

It’s still ok. We are fine and life goes on. It could be way worse. We could’ve been denied! We could have been here and still not found a house. The house we found could’ve been blah instead of wonderful. I’m grateful, but bummed to wait. 

In an effort to perk myself up, I’m trying to think of a fun little project for myself. Make my own headboard? Create some fun things for the boys’ rooms? Hmmm!

 

We Got the House!

Our contract was accepted on the house! WAHOOOOOOOOOOO! We are so excited and just thrilled at all that is occurring. It still isn’t all over though. We close on March 25. Please keep praying that everything goes smoothly and works out for us and this house. We love this house and we are so grateful to God for bringing it into our lives. We can’t wait to build up our family and invest in our community at this new address. We are so thankful for all that God is doing. He is certainly with us!

I’m a bit lazy and don’t feel like putting a bunch of pictures up here when I just added all the pictures onto my shutterfly site, complete with captions so you know what you are looking at. Here is a picture of the front of the house:

Our Soon To Be New Home!

If you want more, you’ll have to click the link! We are hoping that we’ll be able to start moving in on March 30. But we’ll be at the mercy of the Army/Moving company’s schedule. We’ll have an open house in April some time once we’ve had a chance to settle in to the place. Thanks so much for all your prayers along our journey! They have made such a difference in our lives.

Please continue to pray for this process and that Jeremy would continue to make good headway on the job front. He has several irons in the fire, and we are praying right now that a new job will come up once we close on the house! (He would need to wait until then because of our loan for the house.) God has provided so much for us. We are richly blessed and so grateful to Him.

House Hunting Adventures Abound in St. Louis

Jeremy and I had the privilege of being pre-approved last week to buy a house! I was surprised that it happened as quick as it did. I had this idea in my head that it would take us a few weeks to get settled and gather everything that we needed to get the paperwork started. But nope! Just a couple of phone calls did the job!  I felt a rush of feelings when Jeremy told me the news. In typical Jeremy fashion, he delivered it as if it were bad. So when the news was great, I jumped up and down and screamed! We do still have a lot of paperwork to gather, but in the mean time, we also have a pre-approval letter in hand!

Now, we aren’t financially wealthy people.  We are a one-income family trying to work our way back into civillian life. Jeremy hasn’t finished college (YET!) and the last few years in the military we weren’t exactly rolling in the dough. (Try more like on WICK.) It’s a rough journey to go DOWN in income. When Jeremy joined the Army, we gave up more than $40,000.00 a year in income. (and that includes the income he AND I were contributing when I was working) Yeah…

God has made us wealthy in lots of other ways though and we are happy and blessed people. So anyway, we are looking for a house with a tiny price tag. But I would like it to be almost perfectly in line with my list of priorities. This means that most of the houses we are looking at are foreclosures or short sales. Seriously, we looked at 9 houses yesterday and not a single one of them was owned by a family. They were all owned by investors or banks. It makes me sad to walk through some of those houses. My heart breaks knowing that there is a story behind the life of a human being who is probably hurting as I walk through their home as a potential buyer.

We keep asking ourselves lots of questions about these houses and there are some tough ones in there. Like the idea of can we imagine having teenagers in this house? Would it work for them? Could we have one more child and still make this house work? Where will we put our “stuff” (i.e. junk!)? Is this a good location? What’s the crime in this area? Will this neighborhood bounce back from the housing recession?

It took us 4+ hours to drive and go through those 9 houses yesterday. We froze our toes and our bums off too. Most of the houses were “winterized” because all the utilities were turned off. We had tons of snow last week too, and an unoccupied house means no one is there to clean off the driveway. We were walking in 6+inches of snow then standing in houses with no heat or lights! It was good times. Actually, it was really fun. We found 2 houses (maybe 3) that we really like. But we don’t feel like any of them are “the one”. They don’t fit our questions very well. So we are looking at more houses. After we got home I sent our realtor 15 more houses I want to look at. WHEW!

I don’t think I realized how many houses were out there. And with our tiny price tag and my picky list, I think this might take some time. It’s hard not to rush it, but I don’t want to make a wrong decision about something as big as a house! Who knows if we’ll be able to move again in 5-7 years? Only the Lord knows!

If we come to your mind, please pray for God to lead us to the house that will work for our budget and for our family. We are excited and now just trying to find the time to go check out these houses!