Our First House!

Yes, it's true! We bought our first house and are so excited and in awe it's really ours. The process happened so fast for us and was such a blessing! Long story short, we put an offer in on this house without seeing it. I know, kind of crazy! We had walked through 12 houses that week and knew from the photos we didn't want to lose out on this one. If you want to read the WHOLE (it's long) wild story - read on. :) 

Our living room has high ceilings & lots of light. It has some cute cut-outs - I'll have fun figuring out how to decorate those spaces. And yes, we're still organizing the extra stuff! ;) 

Let's start from the beginning! In mid-January, we came to the realization that we were ready to buy a house rather than renew our lease. We met with out realtor (who was recommended by a co-worker) on a Sunday in January (a few days before my birthday). We toured 7 homes the next day (we both had the day off work for MLK day). Some were ok, but many needed quite a bit of work and I was quite honestly a bit bummed by the end of the day, not seeing anything near the niceness I hoped for in our home. It seemed we'd need to spend a lot of money on something I didn't LOVE that would still need work. The verse that kept coming to mind throughout the week was “The Lord knows the desires of my heart”. I kept thinking, "He knows what I want, and hopefully we can find it."  Over the next few days, we would get daily emails with new homes on the market and we saw homes post and get off the market so fast (sometimes the same day!). Many beautiful homes I'd find on other websites were usually already under contract. It was intense, and I didn't want to miss out on something great. I watched the MLS site and other websites before work, during lunch, and in the evenings. We didn't have much time until our lease would be up, so we were hoping to find something quickly.

Our master bedroom has vaulted ceilings and a double sided fireplace (shared with the living room). #allthehearteyes

Our realtor wasn't available for tours Wednesday after work, and I was getting nervous since I really liked one of the new houses that just came on the market Tuesday. We toured 5 more houses Thursday night – we loved one, really loved the neighborhood, immediately wanted to offer on it as we drove to the next house. Our realtor called the listing agent and found out they were taking offers through Sunday, so we had time to get an offer together.  We both woke up Friday morning both having second thoughts about the cost being above what we wanted to spend, and different aspects of the house that made us nervous (like knowing it flooded last year when we had a month of rain). We got all of our financing stuff to our loan officer Friday since we were praying about making an offer on that house. 

Bright kitchen - it has vaulted ceilings which I love! 

Friday night, we were searching in the MLS database and found one I didn’t believe the cost was listed correctly. It was so beautiful inside, way nicer than anything we had seen before, and was a great price. I truly thought they had an error in the list price because of how much nicer it was than many we saw in this price range. We were so interested and emailed our realtor (who was on vacation for the weekend) to get her advice on how to see what house over the weekend while she was out of town. Mid-day Saturday, we hadn’t heard back from her, so we decided to drive by the house and drove around neighborhood. 

So much natural light! 

It was really nice, looked great and we liked the neighborhood. On our last loop through the neighborhood, a family was outside with a realtor looking at the house. That brought us to the reality that other people are looking at this house too. We pulled over at the end of the street and called the selling realtor, and left a message asking if she’d be in the area to show the house that weekend by chance, or if there was a way we could see the house with our realtor on vacation.

She called back while we were running errands, and left a message for us (somehow we didn't hear her call!) at 3:30pm that she wasn’t in the area, and final offers were due at 5:00pm that afternoon. “Sorry”, she said, it doesn't sound like you'll be able to see it. Our hearts sank. We were so excited about this house. We sat in the car and discussed if we'd be ok losing out on this one since we couldn't see it. We prayed, and called and left a message for our realtor to see if she’d get our message, and explained we loved the house from the photos online, liked the neighborhood, and and told her that offers were due at 5pm, if she got our message by then. We totally understood she was on vacation and even ended our message saying, "If you're not available, we understand and can just get the next one".

Pretty second bath

Thankfully, she called us back about 10 minutes later and verified we wanted to offer on a house we hadn’t seen yet. We said, "Yep! Are we crazy?!". She had looked at the house online and saw it was great too and confirmed for us that we’d only be out the $100 “option fee” if we saw it within the first week and wanted to change our minds and back out. We were willing to bet $100 on this house. She got back to where she was staying, compared the price to "comps" in the neighborhood and wrote up the offer contract while we prayed about an amount to offer, and sent her info she needed for the contract.

This was taken before we moved in (with the sellers things still here) - I love this cute nook going into the master bedroom too. It has its own light on a dimmer! So much character in this house.

She emailed the non-signed contract to the selling realtor at 4:59pm, and had us electronically sign it from our cell phones (we were sitting in a parking lot at this point) and send it back to her. She had texted our lender (who she knew personally) to get a pre-approval letter for that house specifically, and he told her he happened to know the realtor personally too. So he texted her and put in a good word for us! WOW! She sent everything completed over by 5:15pm, then it was wait time.

Surprisingly, we really weren't nervous with how she helped us write the contract, we felt pretty good that night, knowing we made a solid offer we felt comfortable about. We gave it our best shot, and we'd just have to wait and see.  We watched "despicable me" that night. :)

Spacious double sink - yes!! I've always wanted two sinks in the master.  

 Then, we got the email we had been waiting for! I heard Nick's phone chime, checked my email, and yelled to him across the apartment, "did you read your email??!" He said "no! What does it say??!?" It said they wanted to work with us! Wooowwwww!!! We were in awe as I tried to figure out what that meant. So, did we get the house?!? Basically, yes!  They changed a few small things on the contract like the closing date, so we each just had to sign the revised contract. 

We set time after our realtor returned from vacation to see the house Sunday night. We loved it!! It was even better in person – there were a few really great things about the house the photos online didn't even do justice. There were high fives between all 3 of us that night. What a relief! We were thanking the Lord for how smoothly this all ended up working out. Praise God, this house is such a blessing! And it's so beautiful. More than I expected for our first house. He hears our prayers! The master suite is so big and beautiful, it has so much space for us to grow into, and is just perfect for us. 

Lots of light in the eat-in Kitchen

Later the next week, our realtor texted us after she learned there were 12 offers on that house. We couldn't believe it and felt even more grateful we got it! The Lord gave us peace about the amount to offer, and somehow perfectly, it was ours. This house was on the market for less than 36 hours! The sold sign in front of the house said, "Sold in 1 day". Craziness! We were the "winners", and we hadn’t even seen the inside. Haha! God is so good! We are so thankful for how He orchestrated this whole process. 

Our ginormous walk-in shower. 

We moved in a week and a half ago! Over the weekend, I raked and bagged leaves for the first time and Nick mowed - it's so much fun to have a place to care for, and a yard to make our own. Thanks to our family for all the excitement for us, prayers and housewarming gifts! We feel so thankful and blessed for you all and are excited to have more guests over to show it off as we get settled. Ranger is loving his new house and yard too! It's been fun watching him out back since he's never had a yard. 

First time mowing our first yard!

We don't have anything on the walls yet or all of the boxes unpacked, but we'll get there slowly but surely!:) 

Today's Pinspiration:

This lovely free print is from The Inspired Room (lots more in the middle of the page too!). 

Iowa in February

Some of my favorite Saturday mornings in February. My sweet cousin Kaylee made this Cyclones tie blanket for us for Christmas! I love it. Another one of my cousins, Jenny, actually made crocheted the yellow blanket Ranger is laying on in the background. I have such talented cousins with big hearts - love you girls! 

Ranger enjoying one of his favorite pastimes - sunbathing from the comfort of the indoors. 

This was a fun shopping day we enjoyed with my mom and dad (though mom was in a store during this pic). My dad recently had a biopsy on the back of his ear which turned out to be skin cancer - so he'll be wearing hats to help cover his skin more! It actually is a good reminder to be very careful of our skin exposure and be smart. I wasn't good at that in my younger years - but skin cancer is a real danger. 

I was packing for our recent trip, and Ranger found a nice spot next to one of my outfits. That can't be comfortable, but he didn't seem to mind! 

We took a weekend trip to Iowa to celebrate Nick's Grandpa's 90th birthday a few weeks ago. We were in LaCrosse, Wisconsin for part of the trip and I really enjoyed how pretty it was! 

Plus, we got to see snow! 

Mountains! Who knew?! ;) I loved how pretty the views were. 

You can't say Iowa isn't pretty. I have hundreds (Nick would probably say thousands! haha. I take too many pictures!) of beauties like this around Iowa. 

That's all for now.  It's also funny seeing this snowy pic on a week we've had temps in the 80's recently! Oh yes, I did cut my own bangs after watching some youtube videos a few weeks ago - some days I like them and some days I don't - isn't that just how it goes?! :)  I'll have more fun updates coming soon y'all! Stay tuned. 

Today's Pinspiration:

(source)

Birthday Fun & Quality Time

January is always such a fun birthday month for us - my mom, dad and I all have January birthdays! It was fun to spend extra time together this month because of it. 

Back in November, I took a road trip to Tulsa with some dear ladies on my Essential Families essential oils team for a retreat. It was so good! One of the ladies is a talented photographer and we got back some photos we took while all dressed up 50's style. 

So fun! The photos turned out so cute. 

It was so fun to see these ladies and enjoy yoga, fancy meals, conversation, and learn more about wellness with them too during the retreat in November. These friends are such a blessing!  

We saw Brasi Bites on Shark Tank that are gluten free and I knew I had to try them. I was so excited to find them at our local Sprouts grocery store! They are very good, and I'm so thankful to be able to eat cheese again! 

This was my birthday dinner downtown a few weeks ago - my parents met us there and it was such a nice time! 

After dinner, we walked around downtown for a bit and enjoyed the sights. 

I love my guy! He does so much to make me feel special. I loved a fun night downtown!

Birthday gifts from Nick's family! They spoiled me:) My 1908 World Champs shirt is my new fave! Amber also gave me a selfie stick, used to take this photo;) she knows me so well! 

Our gifts from the Dillons (my birth mom's family) too! They are so thoughtful. The picture of all of us at Julie's funeral that says "family" on the frame is so dear to me. The Lord has blessed me with so many people I'm grateful to call my family. Coffee and coffee mugs too - they know us well! 

We also got a Red Lobster gift card from the Dillons and enjoyed it right away. I'm pretty sure I hadn't been to RL since maybe my sophomore year in college and I was so excited to enjoy it! I splurged to enjoy this deliciousness (yes, there's butter which I usually don't eat - but I made an exception this time:) Thankfully my stomach did fine!). I forgot how much work crab legs are, haha! But it was so so good, and the company was great. 

Enjoying my Scooters coffee on the go this week. So tasty! Thanks again, Alyssa, Michael & Scott!:) 

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We enjoyed a gift card to see The Revenant last night. It was good timing with our 10 year dating anniversary on Friday:) Wow - it was way more intense than I expected after just seeing the trailer, but was a very good movie. I like to see symbolism in movies and found certain things about this movie to be quite beautiful. It isn't necessarily an easy movie to sit through though! I had to take some deep breaths and do some shoulder rolls to keep my body form tensing up:). It was a fun date experience with Nick though! The theatre we went to had reclining seats with foot rests (like a la-z-boy) - the most comfy theatre experience ever! 

I hope your Sunday is a great one! 

Today's Pinspiration:

I came across this one and really like it. We've all experienced hardships that lead us to who we are today. 

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Christmas Love & Laughs - 2015

Happy new year, friends! Time to get photos up from the past few weeks! This Christmas season, we were able to get to Iowa the weekend before Christmas to see our families. We ended up splitting once we got there so Nick could spend time with his family, and I could see mine (our extended families usually do Christmas the same Saturday night each year - so we have to take turns or split like this time).

We were on the 6am flight. Which meant we had gone to bed around 10:30 - 11:00, and were up at 2:15. Cheers. Haha! That also meant we were in Minneapolis at 8am, driving to Iowa ready to (take a nap, then...) see family and enjoy the weekend. 

We got to take a quick detour to see where we made memories in Ames in our dating days. It was so fun, and felt like forever since we lived there. Seeing college kids walking around campus made me want to shout, "ENJOY THESE DAYS", because they are such good days (or were in my case) and go way too fast. The days of living with my best friends, sharing clothes and jewelry, looking forward to seeing the cute guy I was dating;), those were the days! Every part of life has its season though, and many of those days, I know I just wanted to graduate, just wanted to get married, etc.. Now, I can see so clearly how special those college days were. 

Iowa State's campus is so beautiful! 

I got to see friends while in town too. And hold babies! Emerson and his rolls are the cutest! 

My new BFF. His brother Hudson was my boyfriend when he was about this age. ;) 

I've done life with these ladies for so long! One since 4th grade:) In our 6 years of marriage (and me moving away), I don't know what us girls have ALL been together once. I've seen many individually since then, but I was SO so thankful to gather them up and eat, drink and have a merry night. I didn't want it to end! Can married mamas still have sleepovers? I love these friends with my whole heart. So thankful the Lord made friendships this sweet. How cool is it that 7 kiddos belong to the mamas in this group?!

My dear Rachel. Oh how I wish I could spend more time together! Her creative spirit and honest heart are so good for my soul. The Lord has knit our hearts together something special. 

 Meg is the sweetest - we hadn't been able to get together in far too long and I loved our time catching up! She even brought me the sweetest cute Iowa-inspired frame I have in our living room. 

 Love you and miss you already, ladies!

Sweet Hannah had gifted us leather feather earrings she made that are so fun! I love sweet gifts from the heart that remind me of my dear ones when I wear them. The best. 

 Cousin time! This was at our family Christmas that weekend. I didn't get many pictures that night! But I hadn't been at this Christmas in a few years, and it was so good to be there together. I grew up with these cousins, aunts and uncles - we all lived in the Des Moines area and it felt like we were together every weekend. 

My dad and I enjoyed Caribou back at the Minneapolis airport as we headed home. Nick took the pic;) this was only my dad's second time flying in the past 20 or so years, we were so glad he could come with us! 

Wrapping gifts like a mad woman, making a mess, and getting ready for our TX Christmas with mom and dad. 

Wrapping gifts is maybe one of my love languages. I love making them look cute and creating pretty things. Growing up, I would wrap all of mom's gifts for her, and all of my step-dad's for his family. I love it! 

Fun with my parents and our dogs trying to get a nice Christmas photo together. 

Nick and my parents surprised me and took me to the lights display at the Texas Motor Speedway Christmas night. I thought we were driving around looking at lights on houses when we pulled in. So fun! 

(Des Moines friends, it's like Jolly Holiday Lights, where you drive through to look at the lights displays.)

Photo op at the Christmas Village at the speedway. :)

These were apparently my top 9 most liked photos on instagram in 2015. Giveaways, hair cuts, completing the whole30, dressing up, celebrating 6 years of marriage, and heartbreakingly, saying goodbye to my birth mother (for now). The silver lining about her passing has been getting to know her family better, and growing through heartbreak. I'll always wish I knew her more and had more time with her, but am thankful for what I did get with her, and to know her family. They are gems. 

 {Before we took down the tree on New Years Day}. 

As 2015 ended and 2016 began, I got out some packages to some friends who have joined me on this oils journey over the past year. I love being able to bless and encourage others! Hoping those receiving them feel the love as we being this new year together. 

Cheers to a new year, friends!

Today's Pinspiration:

I love how the new year allows us to re-evaulate progress on our goals, get a fresh plan together and get after it. Decisions we make each day can help us get there. One small step at a time is what I remind myself! 

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