The Model

November 9, 2013:

We arrive late in the evening and get settled into a Residence Inn suite in Webster, TX and wait for Mimi & Papa to arrive.  It is house hunting weekend.  It is go-time.  And by house-hunting, I mean we need to buy a house. Stat.  In one weekend.  We've been praying hard and begging everyone to pray specifically for us to land our next home in only one trip so that we can close as fast as humanly possible and our family can be reunited.  Ie., Amy spends as little time as possible on her own in Leander with the kids and we have a home for Christmas.

And BOOM.  God showed up.  He did it.  Just like that.

I met up with our realtor at 9:00 on Saturday morning.  At 11:15, I place a call to Jeremy to say, "Hey, I think I may have found it.  Can you come see it right now before someone else does?"  Jeremy had taken my parents and the kids to the NASA museum, so he left my parents there with Noah and came to check it out. And the rest is history.  

At the end of the year, builders are itching to unload whatever inventory they can before the new year rolls over.  Get it off the books. The day before we arrived, they dropped the price by $40,000, coming in well below budget.  The house came with great warranties and an incentive package of Best Buy goodies.  And they didn't need to beg us or anything.  This place has some beautiful upgrades.  And it fit us.  I'ts cozy.  I'm really not into big airy spaces.  It's more natural and rustic than modern in style.  And its not huge.  We'll take it.

Love this kitchen

View from kitchen, through dining area, into the living room.

The walls in Noah's room are paneled with wood. Such a neat feature.

And the paint matches perfectly with his existing bedroom stuff.  So cute.  I just have to do something about old Charlie...

Gray's pink ballerina room. :)  Notice the ballet barre and lovely ladies painted on the walls.

This office by the front door has become our playroom.

This house is considered one-and-a-half stories.  It has a media room and half bath upstairs that we are converting to a "mother-in-law suite" of sorts.  Then we'll be able to count it as an optional 4th bedroom.  This certainly looks nicer than our current set up. ;)

Living room. Love the beams and the stone fireplace.

 

Spare room off of the living room that we are using as a study.

Lovely back porch with wooden plank ceiling and outdoor fireplace.

This house was an instant hit with Noah. Probably largely due to the stairs, which seem to be a highly prized asset for him! He thinks he found the house for us. :)

Master bedroom views.

Master bath.  Yes, its a really big shower.  No, there's no bathtub.  Which is strange, so we'll have to fix that.

The entry hall has a little rotunda.

Front door.

Mini park with swings next door.

Posing for some pics while we waited for lunch on Sunday.

Yes, Noah looks like he is about to punch Mimi and Gray is all sunshine and rainbows. :)

Noah got to enjoy a day at the NASA museum with Mimi and Papa.

A hard day's work. ;)

I will have to post pictures again after everything is finished.  We are saying good-bye to as many earth tones as possible. ;)  So the house is not completely perfect and there have been so many snafoos along the way.  Things went wrong.  This was the hardest move OFMYLIFE (in so many ways) but we made it.  And the evidence of God's faithfulness is there.  I am confident that He landed us exactly according to His plans.  And I believe His plans for this place are way bigger than me or our little family.  I am so excited to see what He is going to do here because I feel the bigness of it, yet am nervous to dream.  I am restless.  Some days are really tough and I just want to go home.  Austin home.  I still feel like I live there.  And so I wait on Him to move, knowing that He is faithful to me, even when my treasonous heart doesn't want to believe.

Waiting on Him, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, with great anticipation.

November

The month of November was a blur!  The weekend of the 1st, we were thrilled to have Mamaw & Papaw visit us in Leander (they also came to Houston with us the weekend before) just to give us a night away.  So Jeremy and I had a lovely rest at the Westin at the Domain.

It was funny, there were several stores I would have liked to visit, but found myself way too tired.  We went to a couple of them, then headed out for an early dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.  One of our faves!  Then I believe Jeremy was asleep by 8:00 and me by 9:00.  :)  And the boys had a great time loving on Mamaw & Papaw.  Gray woke them up all night long!  ;)

The weekend of November 9, we went back to Houston to find a house.  I will have to get our pics from that adventure posted too.

On November 17, we dedicated our precious boys to the love and teaching of our sweet savior Jesus, at the Austin Stone Community Church.  I know, it was about time, right?  Somehow, events came and time passed and we never dedicated Noah.  Then Gray came along, and I knew our time to do this at the Stone was fleeting, so it was special to be able to dedicate them together at our beloved church in the presence of so many of His saints.

Noah's last day at Hill Country Christian School fell on the day of their Thanksgiving party.  It was fun to visit his sweet class and get good-bye pics.

Working hard on his turkey brownie.

My little pilgrim.

It's a turkey brownie, of course.

A Noah sandwich.

Sweet Mrs. Patti, who is the most joyful, exuberant lady I've met.

Noah and his partner in crime, Hunter

Mrs. Ingram, Pre-K 3-day  teacher

Such sweet, passionate people in that program, who are dearly missed!

The boys had their first brother bath together while Daddy was away starting the new job in Houston.  It was a hit with both of them!  And the assembly-line-scrub-a-boy was easier on Mommy.

*Update: My mother wanted to remind me that my parents were also with us 3 times in November and 2 times in October and December each.  They came for Thanksgiving but it was pretty quiet between me being sick and all of the move stuff, so I didn't post anything on that.*

Happy Halloween 2013!

Our punkin from the little church pumpkin patch in Cedar Park!

Mommy carved, Noah helped clean out the guts.

Was this our prophecy?  Noah insisted, rather randomly, on being an astronaut for Halloween this year, long before we realized we would be moving into NASA's backyard.

Our 18 pound baby spider.  Pretty cute.

Trick or treat block party with friends.

Love this one.  Especially Jude's eyes behind the mask.  Noah's "little" friends.

The most handsome astronaut that ever was.

Cutie brothers.