Valentine's Day

Last year at this time, Sebastian was in South Carolina training to be the general manager of Huddle House. That was a long month that neither of us have fond memories of, & it was tough being apart for so long after just getting married four months before!

Last Valentine's Day, I was able to go down & visit for the weekend, which turned into the entire week because I got so sick! I couldn't get out of bed without throwing up, much less ride six hours in a car to get home. So I was thankful to spend that time with him, but we both wish I had been well enough for us to actually DO something while I was there!

This Valentine's Day, we were HOME! Together. In our house. We didn't do anything extravagant - he had to work Tuesday night, so we just had the morning together. But let me tell you - this was my favorite Valentine's Day out of the seven we've spent together!

I woke up to a clean, empty sink. I left to pick up Reagan & came home to Sebastian making a really yummy brunch. He was getting ready for work when two dozen roses were delivered, & right before he left, he told me we were getting a puppy. The best day!

I'm so thankful for the husband the Lord has blessed me with. So in love with my Forever Valentine. <3

Oh, Happy Day

We have exciting news!! Every time I say that, atleast one person assumes we're pregnant, so I'll start off by saying that ISN'T it. YET! :)

Sebastian has been working for Huddle House since August of 2015. He started when they opened their first store here in Virginia Beach & he's one of the few employees they've had from the beginning! Last March, they opened their Chesapeake location & they made him general manager, which was an exciting promotion!

Huddle House has served us well. Since he got that job, we have gotten married, bought a truck, bought a house, & did other things that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. It hasn't always been easy for him there, but we are truly thankful for the time he has spent & the lessons he's learned while working there.

At the beginning of January, some changes were made & Sebastian decided it was time to look for another job. He only applied to two places before choosing to stick with Huddle House & continue giving his all. In this season of life we are in, he was content & knew the Lord was in control.

Last week, seemingly out of the blue, he got an email from Olive Garden (one of the two places he'd applied) asking for an interview. He went in on Wednesday & then again Thursday for a second interview where they offered him a job!

Full time, full benefits (& a TON of extra, random benefits!) & only four miles from our house! And let's be real, I'm equally excited about the discounts he/we get at all of the restaurants that are a part of Darden. ;)

He will be starting there on Wednesday while continuing to work until his two week notice is complete on February 24th.

Huddle House has truly been a blessing to us, even when it's been hard to see. The owner has been such an encouragement to Sebastian & we are so thankful for him! But we are so excited for this change & are welcoming it with open arms!

I'm thankful to the Lord for always taking care of His children. He's never let us down, & it's so comforting to know that He never will. :)

Laundry, Clothes Lines, & a Chalkboard Wall

This past month has been so so busy! I'm excited to finally be slowing down & settling in.

We slept in our house for the first time on January 2nd, one month after we closed. We have absolutely LOVED being there & calling our little place 'home'. We did a lot of work painting & moving things & making our house livable, so once we were in there, we were really slow getting to the unpacking & putting away of things! 

It actually wasn't until last week that we started unloading our back bedroom, emptying boxes, moving more furniture over, & getting into the 'settling' stage. It's sometimes overwhelming to have so much stuff & to have no idea where it's all going to fit! Crazy how much you accumulate in so little time. 

When we moved, we packed all of our clothes/towels/bedding in garbage bags for easy transit. Today while the kids napped, I fiiinally took all of that out, organized it, & put it away - it was like Christmas morning, having not had most of my wardrobe since September! But goodness gracious.   So. Much. Folding. 

We have a washing machine in our kitchen & a dryer in our little utility closet outside. We need to change out a piece on our dryer for it to work, so after we've washed our clothes, we've been hanging them around the house to dry. Well, in our frugal ways (HA! I wish I were frugal.) we decided to try a clothes line outside. We don't have the right poles to set it up correctly, but we jerry rigged it for now & I LOVE it!! There's something strangely relaxing about hanging clothes on the line. Our neighbors probably think we're crazy, but I'm totally okay with that. ;)

Our kitchen is coming along, but has a ways to go! We've painted out cabinets & started to fill them, but need to get new hardware before we can put the doors back on. We still have lots of boxes to unpack!

Also, the best news (hehe ;)) - the office is cleared out enough that the kids can color on our chalkboard wall! We've had a couple of chalk parties because coloring on a wall is so stinkin' exciting. ;)

This little clothes line setup is pretty ghetto, but it gets the job done. ;) 

I have a bathing suit hanging, which I'm sure looks extra strange to the neighbors since it's February. ;) 

 That's it for my super random, rambling, house update!

Progress!

Whew - what a month!! It's been a crazy ride these past few weeks, but being settled in is on the horizon. :)

When we closed on our house (December 2nd), we were confident that we would be moved in by Christmas (aiming for a couple weeks before). Then, I dropped a big flippin' frying pan on my foot & almost broke it, got pink eye (which really wasn't a big deal), & then a killer sinus infection & bronchitis that knocked me down for a week, so there were a lot of days that passed that we didn't get to work on the house at all! Needless to say, we weren't in before Christmas, which was really okay & also not a big deal. :) 

Our NEW plan: be moved in by January 1st so we don't have to pay another month's storage bill. Sebastian had yesterday & today off of work & I have at least through tomorrow off, so it's the perfect week to make things happen! We wanted to get out of the storage unit first, then move our bed over later. 

We really hate asking for help. So many people have offered to help us & we SO appreciate that!! But when it comes down to it, we know there are a million other things people can be doing, & especially in this busy season, we just don't want to inconvenience anyone. 

We did a lot by ourselves, but it gets overwhelming & frustrating when you work so hard & don't see progress because there's just SO much to do. We finally called in our 'tribe' to help us finish painting last week & we were blown away by how quickly it got done.

Tonight, we wanted to start unloading the storage unit, but didn't want to ask for help since those friends had already come twice before. By 5:30, we realized we weren't going to make a big enough dent on our own, so we called them & they all came because they're fantastic human beings & we love them so much! 

Y'all. Four trucks. Nine people. Three hours. The storage unit is EMPTY! Our house is filled with all of our stuff!! AHHH! We wanted to be out by the 1st, but we thought it would for sure TAKE us until the 1st to unload it all. But AHHHHH! It's DONE!! And I can start going through stuff & placing stuff & aaaaahhhhh!!!

We are so so thankful for everyone who has helped get us this far. The Nowaks & Messicks are two families who are there for us at the drop of a hat, & we are incredibly grateful to be able to call them our family. My dad & brother, Jesse, have helped us countless times over the past month & we certainly wouldn't be at this point without them! My sweet mama has been the best encourager & supporter & there are lots of days that I'm just ready to throw in the towel, but she keeps us going. And my husband - y'all, he's just the absolute greatest. He works hard & loves me so, so well. I'm so thankful to be making this house a home with him!! 

If there is one thing we've learned throughout this home-buying process, it's that God's timing is 

p e r f e c t.  I wanted to be moved in by December 10th, then 17th, then just anytime before Christmas, but that wasn't the Lord's will for us & that's okay! I'm really excited for when the time comes & He's ready for us to be in our little home.  

Oh, this life. I feel so blessed to have it. 

PS - THE STORAGE UNIT IS EMPTY! 

Here is a quick iPhone look at our colors! Spare bedroom on the right, master in the middle, office on the left. Those blinds were suppose to be white, but they're totally gray. However, their ridiculously cheap price tag makes me LOVE the gray. ;)  

House Tour!

GAH! Still over here wondering if this is real life. :)

We're officially homeowners & we have paperwork, keys, & two outrageously large receipts from Lowe's to prove it! ;) I am still so overwhelmed with gratitude that this is OUR house. Seriously, if you had told me three months ago that we'd be doing anything other than living in my parents house & saving money, I would have laughed. But here we are - God is good & His timing is SO perfect.

So, we have (in my biased opinion) the cutest house on the planet & I can't WAIT to move in!! Unfortunately, it was a smoker's house before it was ours, so we're having to clean & paint just about
e v e r y t h i n g  before we can live there. In & of itself, that is a majorly overwhelming task. Painting the walls, ceilings, baseboards, trim, doors, closets, cabinets - so. much. stuff. We're also replacing all of the blinds, because they all have a gross, yellowish tint to them! New counter tops, new baseboard heaters, new cabinet hardware (& potentially new door knobs & hardware if my little DIY project doesn't work out, hehe), new front & back doors, & re-routing the washing machine to another location just about covers the 'upgrades' we're making. Other than these cosmetic (& smelly) things that date the house back to the 60's, it is a really great, well built & maintained house that didn't need any 'real' repairs.

Alright, I know you're all here for the tour, so I'll get to it! ;) I'm excited to show you what it looks like now & then again once we're finished making changes!

I didn't take a picture of the whole front yard/house, so this is the one that was on Zillow!

When you first walk in the door, this is what you see - nice, open living room with that little half wall/window into the kitchen. The second picture, I stood in the corner next to the kitchen & just took a photo opposite of the first! 

 LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the massive window!! So much natural light.

 This kitchen has a little eat-in area that I love. We aren't fans of the flooring in here, but it's not a top priority to change, either. If we have some money once everything else is taken care of, we will definitely swap these floors out for something a little more attractive! 

 Cute little kitchen with plenty of window light. :) We are refinishing all of the cabinets & making them white (& the door, too) as well as getting new countertops - the ones we like are slate gray. 

 This is the funny spot they chose for the washing machine. The dryer is in a utility closet outside (but attached to the house - you'll see later!), so we are re-routing the washing machine to be out there, too.

 Our little eat-in area. The old & ugly baseboard heaters have already been replaced to sleek white ones - HALLELUJAH! 

 I love having a window above the sink. Since there is no dish washer, I'll enjoy doing dishes much more getting to look outside while I do it. ;) 

 This is the view out that window/the back door window! The utility closet is that little wall off to the right.

Looking back into the living room.

Back in the living room - looking down the hallway. There are SO many closets! Coat closet #1 is that first door on the left.

 Closet #2 is the closed door on the right & the linen closet is the closed door on the left. Bathroom is open door on far right & spare bedroom is straight ahead.

The bathroom is very peachy. ;) I'd love to change the tile, but that's at the very bottom of our to-do list.

Coming out of the bathroom - spare bedroom on the right, linen closet is the closed door straight ahead, master bedroom is next to that, & the office is on the left!

Spare bedroom.

Another closet! Hot water heater & more storage. 

Master Bedroom.

Office.

Coming out of the office. Water heater closet to the right, bathroom & closet #2 straight ahead, spare bedroom, linen closet, & master bedroom on the left. 

Looking down into the living room - bathroom on the left, closet #1 on the right. 

These backyard pictures are from Zillow, too, but I just love it! It's private enough to not need a privacy fence, & just so pretty. :) 

 The little closet on the left is the utility closet that will have the washer & dryer.

There is so, so much I love about this little house. I've met four of our neighbors & they're all incredibly kind, mostly retired families. The street we live on is in the back of the neighborhood, so there isn't much traffic - you're pretty much only back there if you live there! Sebastian, Jesse & I have been working our booties off to get stuff done, & while it's no where close to being movie-in-ready, we're making progress & I'm thankful.

Y'all  - WE HAVE A HOUSE!!!! 

Official Closing Date

We have a closing date! It kind of happened all of the sudden, & we're kind of SO EXCITED about it!!

THIS FRIDAY! December 2nd, we'll be homeowners. :)

Oh, what a process! Now that it's finally coming to a close, I'm able to look back with more gratitude than frustration. Y'all, let me tell you - we serve an amazing God. And if we hadn't gotten this loan & this house, we would still serve an amazing God! But I want to take a second to do some serious bragging on Him.

Sebastian & I found a cute little house on "accident" back in July when we were no where close to being ready to buy. We had already decided to stay at our apartment for another year, but we thought, "Man, from the listing, this house is the jackpot! If we can get it, lets do it!" So we called a realtor & then a mortgage company she referred us to to be pre-approved. Before we ever even saw the house, we were denied the loan & we worked really hard to do what we had to do to get approved.  Every time we thought there was an open door, BAM! Another problem that we'd try to finagle ourselves around. My parents kept telling us, "Don't make it happen! Trust the Lord - if it's suppose to be yours, it will be." When we finally went to look at the house, it was a total dump. Not good at all, & a clear sign from God that this wasn't the house for us!

That's when we decided to move into my parents house once our lease was up. We'd do some more saving & start looking for a house in January.

Well, then we found another house. It wasn't uncommon for me to browse through Zillow in my free time, although we weren't in the market to buy quite yet. On a Saturday afternoon in September, I found this cute little house & scheduled with our realtor to go see it the next day. It was adorable & everything we thought we wanted in a house. We brought our families to see it & then put an offer on it two days later. After the seller hadn't accepted/denied our offer after another two days, I decided to hop back on Zillow, just for fun.

I looked in the same neighborhood every time I got on, but the neighborhood in general was at least $20,000 above out budget. Although I've always wanted to live in this neighborhood (my family lived there for a couple of years before we bought our current house), I knew we couldn't afford it.

Well, the Lord answers prayer. When I got on Zillow that day, there was the cutest brick ranch that had just had a massive price reduction just the day before - putting it in our budget!! I called Sebastian (who was on the way to Richmond) & sent him pictures, then called our realtor & went to see it a few hours later with my Grandaddy. We LOVED it!

Sebastian trusts me an insane amount - he took my word for how good this house was & he decided to retract our offer on the first house. So the entire night he was in Richmond with friends, he was dealing with signatures & emails to get that first offer off the table.

The next day, Sebastian & I went back to the house so he could see it & we put an offer on it, which was accepted the next day. AH!

This is when it got crazy frustrating.

We were pre-qualified for a loan before we made the first offer, but once we had a ratified contract & started the approval process, we learned that we truly weren't qualified for a loan. We should have had to wait four more months, but is anything impossible with God?

Our loan officer, who we often couldn't stand, worked really hard to get us approved. The Lord used him to get us a really great loan with no mortgage insurance, & on top of that, a brand new grant that will be SO helpful (which is why we couldn't close tomorrow like originally planned).

When he called us today to tell us that we were officially closing on our house on Friday, I had a hard time holding back the tears. For months, there's been a huge question mark - would we be approved? Will the loan fall through? Will the contract fall through? Will we lose this house in this perfect neighborhood? But time & time again, I had to tell myself, "Simmer down, Hannah. God is in control! If we don't get the house, there is a reason. If we do get the house, there is a reason. Don't worry about it."

Looking back, I can see that the Lord was in every move. We didn't get pre-approved the first time & we ended up with a much better loan going with a different mortgage company. Our offer wasn't excepted the first time, but God was holding this dream house just for us. We didn't get to close on November 30th, but we're closing two days later which comes with a whole new bundle of blessings.

Y'all, God is SO good! He is blessing us with a house that we in no way deserve. I'm a big ball of emotions & filled with so much gratitude.

Thank you, Lord.

For the Duncans

Today is a day to reflect on all of the blessings in our lives. When I try to lasso them in & write them down, I am overwhelmed with gratitude - there are too many blessings to count, but here are a few at the top of my list:

I'm thankful for my Savior. I'm thankful for the HOPE we have in Him. I'm thankful for the freedom to worship the Lord openly. I thankful that Jesus Christ took MY sin to the cross so that I could live forever with Him. We know that every blessing we have comes straight from the Lord, & for that, we are so grateful. In the good times & the bad, God has never left our side - He is constant & true. How blessed I am to have been given the gift of salvation & eternal life - a gift I in no way deserve.

I'm thankful for my husband! He works hard for our family & he loves me so well. He encourages me (unless we're cooking, then I think he just wants me to go away, hahah), he supports me, & he cares for me. This is our sixth Thanksgiving together - I can't wait to spend next Thanksgiving with him in our HOME!

I'm thankful for my family. I am 100% convinced that the Lord gave me the best parents on earth, & I know no one on this side of heaven is perfect, but they seem pretty darn perfect to me. My brothers are my favorite, my sisters are my best friends, & my nephews & niece are just the best little humans on the planet.

I'm thankful for my job, but more than that, I am so thankful for the family I work for. Before I was hired by Karin & Brian, I worked for a family who treated me very much like 'the help'. In their eyes, I never did anything right - I drove in the wrong lane, I folded the sheet wrong, I washed the cup wrong, I didn't back into the driveway far enough to the left - literally, my every move was not the right move. When I finally got out of that situation, I was beaten down & never wanted to nanny again. I have some legitimate PTSD from my time with them - it was really that bad!

When I met with Karin & Brian for the first time, they just seemed like really nice people. My first day working for them, I ended up going to a dentist appointment with Karin & Sam because Reagan was three months old & wouldn't take a bottle, & when I left that day, I remember feeling legitimately confused that someone you work for would talk to you like a real human being. Like, what!? For a long time, I was scared I was packing the diaper bad wrong or picking out a shirt for Sam that they wouldn't like. I was afraid my apple juice to water ratio wasn't right in his cup or letting him go outside without a hat was irresponsible. Y'all, I'm telling you - PTSD! Although it didn't change my fear of always doing things wrong, I learned quickly that Karin & Brian were nothing like the last family I worked for. All those things I just listed? They never mentioned any of it.

They don't know it, but God used their family to change my life. That might sound extreme, but it couldn't be more true. God used them to show me that I am enough. What I have to offer is enough. My best is enough.

When they hired me two & a half years ago, I never could have imagined the family that they would become to me. They are kind & SO gracious. They have continued to be a blessing to Sebastian & I through all stages of our life & marriage.

This Thanksgiving, I really have so much to be thankful for. Family, friends, buying a house (!!!), a running car, food at the table, & so much more. But I want to 'dedicate' this one to the Duncans.

So to you, Karin & Brian, Sam & Reagan:

Thanks for being you. Caring & loving people who mean the world to me. Brian, thank you for always lending a helping hand & being the first to give when something goes wrong (or right!). Karin, you're one of the most compassionate people I know. Thank you for our morning coffee talks (which are now morning parking lot talks :p) & your understanding heart. Sam, thanks for being the perfect sunshine & love, & always making a cruddy day good. Reagan, thank you for your ridiculously good hugs & sweet spirit.

I am eternally grateful for you all. And other than my church family, I have never met anyone who feels more like MY family than you all.

Happy Thanksgiving. :)