Christmas Is Coming...

Friday after Thanksgiving I actually woke up and did a little Christmas shopping... my first time ever I think shopping on Black Friday. I got GREAT deals (really for my mom & Gigi b/c I was spending their money on the kids)! After I got home TJ and I got out the Christmas decor and TJ put together the tree and did a little decorating outside... It all looks great! Here are some pictures...

Little Miss Sunshine (most of the time) and Mr. Mischief (all the time)

Karoline in the Christmas tree bag... she thought this was so fun!

TJ's all finished with the tree...

Now that we know our family is complete, I got our stockings monogrammed...

Thanksgiving: Just The Four Of Us

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and it was our first without family. Since we were just with our family during our across the country trip we decided to stay home and have a quiet Thanksgiving... as quiet as it gets with two small children.
We watched the parade (Karoline LOVED the Dora float), played outside (they love soccer) then took naps before dinner.
We did make a traditional Thanksgiving meal and made all our favorites. Dinner was great except Anderson (our quiet child) screamed through the whole dinner... he didn't want to eat any of the YUMMY food. He was happy once we brought out the tofu! Crazy!
This Thanksgiving was so special for me; our family has been through a lot this year. I am thankful for unanswered prayers and answered prayers! I am SO thankful for God's calling for our family and I am thankful for all the time we spent in California. I miss our friends there so much but I am very thankful for our future in Myrtle Beach. I am so thankful for our family, our parents are life savers! I am SO thankful for my husband and my children who are absolutely WONDERFUL! I am VERY thankful for our supporters of Wellspring who have helped us make this move and are supporting us by prayer and financially as we follow God's call! God has truly blessed us and I am SO thankful!





Going in for the tackle...

And he's down...


Yes, we did cook a traditional family Thanksgiving dinner and it was great! I love my oven!

Getting To Know The Neighborhood

If finally got warm enough for us to go out this week. Last week it was SO cold. Anyway, we took a walk to the club house and playground and Karoline rode her tricycle. She had a blast. It's flat here so she can ride it round the neighborhood... no California hills. Our neighborhood is called "The Farm" so there are many little barns with swings in them all over the neighborhood. It's so cute. Natalie, they remind me of you! We also have a lot of ponds and two pools so Karoline goes crazy when we come across one... she LOVES the water and cannot wait for the summer time.
I got to meet another neighbor today and she is SO nice. She is a sweet older lady that has 7 kids and tons of grandkids! Can you imagine 7 children? We are really enjoying our new neighborhood.







Some other random pictures...
Crazy Anderson...

Sweet Karoline...

Anderson sat in the basket and played with his toys for a while... it was so funny!

I LOVE his new pj's... he looks so precious!

House Pictures

Here are some pictures of our house... still a little mess but that's almost as good as it gets around here. I still have not hung some pictures that I want to and TJ needs to mount the TV but maybe this weekend...
Today we finished the garage and I am so excited because now my car has a new home too! We are FINISHED with unpacking! Now I just need to hang stuff in the guest room, our room, a few things down stairs, get our headboard done, paint the kitchen table black... my list is a little long... maybe I should not say we are close to finished!

The Living Room
Remember THE sofa! This sofa was the one we got in CA for the house we tried to buy there. It was a floor model sale at 40% off and my dream sectional and since we all thought we would not have a problem getting our loan we bought it... Problem: the loan we could not get and the sofa we could not return. We tried begging the store to take it back and we tried selling it on craigslist but nothing worked. I did atleast sell my other sofas so I did make a little money and thankfully we bought them we we had a paycheck it's paid off. The store, Harvest Home, was so understanding and held the sofa for us from July to the day before we moved in their warehouse. I do LOVE the sofa and kind of glad we got to keep it (even though getting our money back would have been more practical for us right now). I did learn quite a lesson about buying things ahead of time.




The Kitchen/ My Desk
I got my mom's kitchen table that was her families when she was a little girl for the breakfast nook (my dining room table was my grandfathers too). It's perfect and I plan on painting it black (of course!).



The Dining Room
Nothing new except SPACE and the rug. The rug & fork, knife, and spoon art were also bought (on MAJOR floor model sale) in June for the CA house and Pottery Barn won't let you return anything after 30 days so I was stuck with it too. Oh darn!


Anderson's Room
Nothing new... same paint color and everything but he gained a lot more space and his walk in closet is basically empty. It's AMAZYING how many more clothes girls have than boys even at young ages.





That's all for now...

Mom Leaves

My sweet mom that has done everything for me left on Sunday! Sad for us but I know after this crazy year we have had she is ready for a break from us and our crazy life... not a long break though because my parents come back for Christmas on the 23rd of December. We took her to the Charlston airport so we got to go to Seacoast for Church. Karoline never dreamed she was going to have to drive two hours to go to Sunday School! It was great but we were so sad to see Gammy go!!
We REALLY appriciate all the sacrifice and time BOTH our parents put into helping us move!! My dad got off kind of easy (he didn't have to drive across the country or put up with my two children in a car for 18 hours) but he still did a TON for us while we stayed with him at the hotel. Our parents made this move much better/ easier than it would have been without them thats for sure! So I say a MILLION thank you's to GiGi, PopPop, Gammy and Gandaddy!

The Story Of Our House

I don't know if I ever shared the story of how we got this house...

Do you remember reading our post about the house in California we tired to buy? If not read here and here. It was HORRIBLE and a nightmare! It went on for MONTHS and MONTHS (April to September)and ended with us not getting our loan. I cried so many times! I really just wanted to settle down, find a place of our own, and wanted to stay in El Sobrante if that is where the Lord wanted us.

The day we found out we just were not going to get a loan for the house in CA, Trey emailed TJ about us possible thinking more about coming to Myrtle Beach. We prayed for weeks and strongly felt like it was the Lord's will.

Trey wanted us to come in October and look for a place to live. Knowing our budget was going to be very small we focused on rental houses. Well, houses rent for more than we thought. We looked at renting to own too and the prices of the houses were way more than market value. I was discouraged. We planned on going house hunting one day during our visit just to see if we could find anything we could afford. We didn't even know if we could get a loan either since we could not get one in CA.

We first went to the sales office at The Farm and looked at the models but quickly figured out we could not afford to build and would have to wait but found a floor plan we LOVED! It was so perfect for our family. Our Realtor said their was a foreclosure that was the same floor plan.

We fell in LOVE! It was PERFECT. Most foreclosures are not in great condition but our house was in excellent condition. Even a LG stainless fridge and front loader washer and dryers. And the price... $65,000 less than what it was built for 1 1/2 years ago! We did number crunching and it was going to cost much less than renting the same house plan. We prayed about it that night and felt a peace about making an offer.

The next morning our Realtor said another offer was coming in on the house. It was quite the sought after property (great price and a lot of upgrades). It actually was under contract at full asking price but the buyer could not get financing... I know how he feels. Knowing there was another offer and this really was our only shot we didn't go too low but we did ask $10,000 less than asking price. We were supposed to find out in 3 or 4 days.

I had prayed many times that TJ and I would know where we were going to live by the time we came back to CA. Well, on the flight home (just one day since we put in the offer) we got the call that our offer was accepted and NO counter offer! We could not believe it. We thought for sure we would get a counter offer.

Next was getting a loan... we got a loan, with NO issues! Inspection went great and we closed on November 10th. That was our actual closing day on the contract... that's like having a baby on your actual due date!

The whole experience was amazing... I just felt like with each step God was saying that it was His will and He was going to work it out. We LOVE our new home. We could not have found a better deal, that's for sure. To GOD be the GLORY!

Home in South Carolina!

Our house...
We LOVE LOVE LOVE our new house! We have a TON of room! It's wonderful. It's a lot larger than our house in California, which we loved but outgrew after having two kids and family in town all the time. Finding this house was such a blessing! We do have an extra bedroom so come visit! Our neighborhood, The Farm, has two pools so Karoline is really excited about the summer. Every neighborhood here has multiple pools... I guess that is a big thing when you live near the beach. We are really excited about meeting our neighbors and getting to know many of the families here in The Farm. They are having a Christmas parade so we will be going to that... I think the kids will enjoy it! Anyway, here is a picture of the house...

There was LOTS to unpack. We are pretty much done unpacking all the inside boxes, now we just have to organize the garage and figure out what needs to go to the attic. I am NOT looking forward to this project. I like decorating, not organizing yucky garage stuff!

Karoline and Anderson are SO glad to be home with all their toys again... and their daddy!


So, Karoline's room is the first room that's totally done. Nothing new in the room and we even painted it the same color, Bear paint Southern Beauty. We did not put on her bed rails though and she has done great without them. I'm so glad b/c now we can use her big comforter. We are close to being finished with Anderson's room too. The downstairs is almost done too except we have to a little more painting and hang a few more pictures. We still have to hang everything in our room and the guest room and then they will be finished. It's been a LONG week but and thankfully my mom was here to help!



How do you like my purple kitchen!??? We did not leave it purple... we painted it red (I have an addiction to red kitchens!) but the primer was purple. TJ just LOVED it(not)!

Okay... off to relax. Tomorrow is going to be busy. We have to take mom to Charlston so she can fly home and we are going to a church there in the morning... it's like a 1 hr. and 45 minute drive so we have to get up early! The Goff family does not do well with having to leave the house early! Love to all!