An Exciting Weekend of Answered Prayers

We had such an exciting weekend that it still sinking in. I'll start with the most amazing and meaningful thing...Ricky and Natasha got baptized on Saturday night. It was nice that both our families came to share in the experience and meant alot to us all. I have a couple of videos of them that I will try and post in the next few days. Nothing compares to an experience when the Lord has touched and moved so much in someone's heart.

In other news our prayers have been answered in our quest for a new home. We had made 5 other offers over the course of the last 6 weeks and been getting pretty discouraged over the whole ordeal. On 3 of the houses, we offered well over $30K than asking price and even would have the highest offer in a case or two, but then someone would step in and pay cash for the house, which would be accepted over our higher offer. While it was discouraging at times we continued to trust in our faith and accept it as a sign it was not meant to be.

A few weeks ago I woke up in the night after having a dream and thought, what about that house on Kilarea?? We had seen it, but thought it was overpriced so moved on--yet still kept it saved in our favorites on our real estate search site...just to keep an eye on it. Well we had been talking about making them an offer for $15K less than asking price to see if they would bite...yet we didn't...we kept checking what was new on the market...along with all the other real estate vultures [you should see how people swarm to the new houses...it's crazy...three cars may be there at a time checking it all out] Well after putting a few other offers out that fell through, we decided to revisit this one. Just as God would have it, they dropped the price on the home last week. So we decided to make our offer and after some back and fourth counter offers actually got the home for $20K less which seemed more than fair for all parties [depending on how it actually appraises which will be in the next 10 days or so...].

Yesterday afternoon when we were to submit our counter offer, Ricky starting stressing over raising it. Our realtor did advise us that we were competing with a cash offer but if we raised our offer $5K then they may consider. I was in a happy/faithful mood and said "In the whole scheme of things when you are talking about so much money, it seems like such a small amount...Let's make the offer and leave it in God's hands. If it's not meant to be, then I am sure they will accept the cash...as it's way easier for them anyway...no appraisals, no waiting for our loan to close, etc."

It's funny...we found out about 9 last nite that they accepted the offer...but neither Ricky or I got super excited because we were so used to being disappointed that we stopped getting our hopes up, yet we were happy as it was an answer to prayer. I think it starting sinking in more later and it will be nice to just focus on getting packed and moved rather than packing for the unknown.

***OK, for the super cutest part of the story.... ****
Every night the past couple months I take Derick to bed, I tell him we need to pray for our new house. A typical prayer might go something like:

"Thank you Jesus for Mommy, Daddy, and Derick, and all my family.
Please help us find a house and please send me a baby brother sister together*. Amen."

So this morning I was telling Derick I had some good news for him. I asked him if he remembered that house he had found the choo choo train in the yard and played with it on the slide... he said "Yes I do remember." I told him that was going to be our new house and then he said... "And I am going to have a baby brother and sister together in that house and I am going to be so nice and share all my toys with them in that house." I smiled and said "I sure hope so...I hope God will send you a baby brother or sister soon."

[*Footnote on the above 'baby brother sister'... I think they maybe since Dora the Explorere has both a baby brother and sister who are twins , Derick thinks he will have one of each at the same time too ;-) ]

And in other good news since the last post, I am happy to report that Derick is fully potty trained, even at night... It has been so nice....at least one way I am happy to see him grow up!