Plans

OK, I know we don't officially have the house yet, but it's never too soon to start making plans for what we want to do with it, right?

When the kids first found out we were planning on trying to buy a house, they got excited. J said "I want to have our own house...that way we'll never have to move again!" As adaptable as they are, I know that the moving is hard on them sometimes. I just gave him a big hug and explained to him that even if we bought a house, it won't mean that we won't ever have to move again. But I told him that one thing it DID mean is that he and his sister could pick how to decorate their own rooms. They could pick the wall colors and everything. A piped up and said she wanted her room to be pink (big surprise there) and wanted Princess Aurora on her walls. J said he wanted Nascar painted on his walls.

So then I had to explain to them that painting Princess Aurora and Nascar on their walls wasn't as easy as it sounded. I know their daddy could do it, but it would take quite a bit of time. So I told them to choose a wall color and we would find cool wall borders that had what they wanted. So this morning the kids and I sat down here with my laptop looking for wall borders. We found this for my Princess child, and this for the little man (scroll down; it's the Dale Earnhardt Jr. one). A's sticking with her pink wall color (which will work nicely with the border she chose...look at the top and bottom edges), and J chose yellow. He surprised me with that...I figured he'd choose blue or something, but I think it's a great choice. Yellow (as long as it's a good shade) will work with so many different things. Anyway, we'll probably paint their rooms pretty much immediately after closing so we have that done before we move the furniture in. Just easier that way.

We went to Lowe's today to start looking for a refrigerator. Our contract includes a refrigerator allowance, so we're trying to decide where will be the best place to get one that fits our needs (and wants...lol) and be within the range of the allowance. We worked out a pretty nice allowance, so we should be able to get something nice.

We got to take my mom and her boyfriend over to show them the house today. I'm so excited about our first home purchase, and I love being able to share it with my mom. It just seems kind of appropriate that we buy our first home here so close to where I grew up. I don't know...it's just a sentimental thing. But P took a tape measure with him to measure the rooms of the house and get an idea of the measurements of the back yard (we're trying to plan for a privacy fence...not an immediate thing, but we do want to put one up). And I had my camera today and took lots of photos of the inside. The kids picked out their rooms today, too. J asked me at one point, "did you buy it yet?" Kids are so cute. We had to explain to him that it's not quite that easy with a house, but promised him that we're working on it.

I talked with our Real Estate Agent today. I just love her. I think it was meant to be that we met her last weekend. I couldn't have chosen a better fit if I tried. Her husband is military, too, and they were stationed in Italy before they moved here. She and I have really enjoyed talking to each other about the culture shock that goes along with moving to NC from Europe. We also enjoy reminiscing about Europe. I'm definitely gonna have to have her over for some vino in the new house! Anyway, I'm just trying to make sure that I do everything I can to make the closing process go as smoothly as possible. I found out what I need to do about the insurance since we're not going to go with that offered by the mortgage company (that was my biggest concern). Other than that, I guess there's not much for us to do at this point. We will have the walk-through, but she said they usually do that around a week before the closing date.

I know I keep saying this, but I just keep getting more excited each and every day. I'll probaby be blogging quite a bit about the new house for a while, at least for the next month, but I'll try not to blog exclusively about that. It's just a huge part of our lives right now.