We found a house!!

It's all about connections! Sheila, the best of the best of the best realtors had a fellow co-worker who she had reached out to, whose office is in the area of the cities we were looking.  When Sheila sent over what we were looking for she got an email back, "Good luck." :) We were looking in a "hot" area:

10 Best Minneapolis Suburbs to live in

10 Best Minneapolis Suburbs for Young Couples

We didn't need luck, we had God and our Faith and we stuck to that.  It was starting to get to a "losing hope" time-frame as the days ticked by.  Then Sheila got a call from said coworker. "Do you still have clients looking for the perfect house over here?  I have a really great one!"  It wasn't even on the market yet.  This said realtor had listed a similar house in the same neighborhood that had multiple offers.

Sidenote: Cardinals

Sheila has a thing for Cardinals, the birds.  They are said to be a sign from Heaven that someone loved and lost is near and close.  Cardinals always find a way to appear when Sheila is deciding if a house is the perfect house for certain clients.  My dad and Sheila were close (they were cousins), two peas in a pod.  Similar personalities.  Afterall, he a Johnnie and she a Bennie. There were a few houses that Reid and I liked, but they weren't perfect and Sheila said "if there was a cardinal I'd feel a whole lot better."

So, long story a little shorter.  Sheila called me to tell me about this awesome house that was going to be on the market and we were going to be able to see if before it was listed.  She gave me all the stats and I let her know when we'd be available to take a look.  When Reid got home from work I was filling him in on the details.  I was talking to him through the kitchen window.  I was feeding Emma and he was grilling.  While chatting about this potential house to make our home he noticed this:

2 Cardinals on the bird feeder.

He sent the picture to Sheila, she responded with an OMG! :)

4 Days later we went at looked at the house.  We pulled up, got out of the car and a Cardinal was going nuts, making it's call.  You see, we know the cardinal call quite well.  Reid does it around our house all the time for the girls.  (We're cardinals at heart, Alexandria Cardinals) Sheila didn't fully accept that they were cardinals because she couldn't see them.  We went in the house and immediately fell in love.  It is perfect! We love how much charm and character it has. Unique and not so cookie-cutterish. After walking around and around on the inside, we went outside to check out the neighborhood.  More charm and perfection.  The cardinals, still making their call.  As we were walking to the front of the house a bright red cardinal flew right in front of us.  Sheila lost it.  "Okay, Joe, sign received I will get them this house!"

A few days later our offer was accepted, Father's Day, to be exact :)  We close the same day as our current house.  Once again, God had it all taken care of, better than we could have ever imagined.

Here are a few pictures, I promise to post more once it's officially a done deal :)

Our kitchen

 What will be our family room.  This picture is taken from the kitchen.  There's room for a regular kitchen table in the kitchen, and there's room in the front living room to have a formal dining room table. So, we'll make this room our cozy family room!

 It's all the little things that I'm beyond excited for.  Like this mudroom!!  Every mother's dream!  It's not an easy task getting in and out of our current house with one in a bucket seat, numerous times the big sisters have almost been knocked down the stairs.  So very excited for a mud room and an attached garage.

 Awesome basement bar, 5th bedroom and 4th bathroom.  We're going from one toilet to 4! Yes yes, I need to clean more, but you guys, more than one bathroom? It's the little things :)

 There's a lot of customization in the house to add to the charming character feel.  Built ins in the Master Bedroom, more in the master closet.  We won't have to split our clothes up on different floors of our house, like we currently do.  It's the little things.

On Father's Day we went out to celebrate in what will be our new home town, Victoria.  On our way out there Sally asked if she'd still go to Good Shepherd.  More of God's Grace?  She was super excited to find out she will be going to a new school that goes through 8th grade, that Libby will be going to school with her 2 mornings a week and they'll be going together for 9 years and Emma for 4! Also, we met one of the neighbors and he said the bus picks up right outside of our house.

We have a corner lot, each end of the street is a cul-de-sac.  2 doors down is the park for our development!! The girls are so excited. Who am I kidding? We're all excited!

Many many prayers of thanks and prayers for continued grace that the move will go as smoothly as possible.  We just passed our final city inspection so our current house is all set and ready to be sold!

It's nice that about 1/3 of our stuff is already in storage, since we did that when we staged our house to sell.  We're doing a lot of the "behind the scenes" stuff (Reid's rocking it!) and we'll be ready to get started on packing when we get home from Walker.

Earlier this week Salvation Army came to pick up our couches!

Bringing the couches up the night before so they would be ready to go.  The girls thought it was so funny to have it in our living room

 Successful pick up and Free!!

They had a beautiful funeral service on Monday for my Grandma. The big girls got to each bring a rose home.

 Monday night soccer.  2 of Sally's biggest fans.  Emma's dressed in her jammies, it was a little chilly Monday night

 Still seeing random turkeys on my morning runs!  A crazy dog scared the bajesus out of me the other morning.  Since then I've had to change my route:(

 The pool attendance was a little less during week days, compared to last Sunday when we went :)

 Little Smurf, she had no idea it was all over her face too

 Butterfly!

 Sally's chalk drawing

 My mom and sister know how to pick them.  Looking for a good read? Check this one out! A MN author too!

 Sidewalk Chalkin'

 Nobody puts baby in a corner...;)

Happy Friday Ya'll! 3 weeks until we mooooooooooooove!