Closing, Moving In, + a Few House Pictures

Hello, hello! It’s 5 a.m. on Monday morning, and though I know many of you already think I’m a fruit loop for getting up this early on my own each day, I am so happy to be back in “routine” right now. There’s something about the stillness of my dark living room, the warmth of a cup of coffee, and Sadie’s sound machine blaring in the background that I find comfort in.

For today’s post, I’d love to share with you a few pictures and a few stories from a wild (but truly wonderful) few days, if you’re interested. 🙂

I previously shared that last Monday the sale of our Kansas home was complete! We celebrated being free of a mortgage for 48 hours, but by the time Wednesday came around I had butterflies in my stomach ready to get the show on the road and close on our brand new Alabama house. We are HOME, and we are in HEAVEN!

Thoughout this moving process, I felt an extreme amount of “mom guilt” about my attention being so hyper-focused on getting everything done well for this move. I had no other choice at times but to hit “start over” on their Netflix movie and continue plowing through whatever task was at hand that day. This ETS (getting out of the Army) stuff was no joke.

Once we got to Alabama though, we tried to make sure we did something fun with the girls out of the house each day. In fact, I feel like every day since we got here has been a total treat for the kids. One day we went to check out the brand new library, and we walked in 10 minutes before a preschool story time that included a visit from the fire and police departments. Hadley loved it so much, and seeing her bop around with a new group of kids was really enjoyable.

Sadie has been super clingy lately and wants to be held 90% of the time when we’re out doing something, but she enjoyed watching from my arms and still got to take home a pink fire hat. 🙂

Wednesday was closing day! My mom works part-time, so she was insanely helpful by reworking her schedule a bit and watching the girls during closing as well as the following day when we received our truck.

We had the best realtor on the face of the planet and I cannot say enough good things about Chelsea McKinney. If you’re in the north Alabama area, I’d highly recommend getting in touch with her to discuss buying or selling a home. Also, you may have seen on my IG stories the other day where I discussed Chelsea’s other business as a house-flipper. Here is her FB page for her business called Hammer and Sales. You’ll die when you see her projects. She and her work partner are so talented that they actually filmed a pilot for HGTV!

So many of you have nudged me to share pictures of our home, so here are just a few I quickly snapped with my cell phone on Wednesday that highlight some of my favorite things about the house.

Here is our study, which shows off the thick, detailed moldings you’ll find around the home. Our builder, Stoneridge, is known for these beautiful moldings, which really differentiated this house from other new constructions.

Here’s our kitchen! I love everything about it, but you know what tops the list? The flipping pantry! We didn’t have one in Kansas, so having that little closet to neatly store our food is blowing my mind. 😉

I’d never cooked on a gas stove prior to a few days ago, but Jamie and I are both enjoying it so far!

Some of you that have been around a while may remember that when it’s pretty outside, we live in our backyard. If it’s above 60 degrees, you can almost always find us out back each afternoon. For this reason, a comfortable backyard was really important! We love this patio area and are hoping to use the side to the right of the door as a conversation area with furniture we already have and the side to the left for the grill and a six-top outdoor dining table (which I’m on the hunt for).

Chelsea helped me pick our shower tile, and I’m in love with the herringbone accents against the white marble-looking tile.

The paint colors throughout the house are pretty neutral except for our dining room, where we requested this pop of color. We saw it in the model and fell in love! Pictured is Jamie watching as our moving truck is pulling up Thursday morning. We slept at my parent’s house Wednesday night since the house was still empty, but Thursday morning we woke up early to head to the house and stay for good. 🙂

We had a beautiful day to unload with a great crew of five guys. As usual, Jamie hung outside with the clipboard crossing off numbers and I directed the show inside.

Having a bonus room for the girls was a non-negotiable when we were house hunting, so we originally crossed this house off the list since it didn’t have one. When we looked at it a second time though, we realized that there’s a huge bedroom at the end of their hallway that would likely function so well as a playroom/bonus room.

Sure enough, it’s perfect. In order to keep the girls entertained on Friday while we unpacked, we opened one box of toys per hour for them to play with. This is what the room looked like at the end of the day. It was better than Christmas for them. Literally, they were screaming with excitement every time I ripped open a new box. So cute!

And as you know, the Saturday Sit-Down has continued to rock and roll throughout all of the crazy, and I love it. 🙂 We didn’t get our internet and cable up and running until Saturday morning, so I slipped away on Friday to put together Lex’s feature. It was a rainy, cool day, so sitting in a coffee shop for 30 minutes with my computer and a caramel latte hit the spot.

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately, and one of my “true blues” is Dear Daughters. I can’t recommend it enough to women of all ages. I’ve taken so much away from each episode I’ve listened to.

The last five days have simply been joyful. I keep typing and erasing because I’m not sure exactly how to phrase what I’m feeling, but I think at my core I just feel peace. Our future has been blurry for years. We couldn’t see past next month, next year, or the next several years. We didn’t know how all of this was going to shake up.

But now we are here, and we are so immensely grateful.