In Which My Little Girl is Not So Little

   

The next major change in our lives happened just this morning.

My baby left my arms and took a big step in her life. She is now a big Kindergartner.

WAHHHHH!!!!

I have seriously been having nightmares about this particular day. 

I know this is a good thing. I know I should be happy.

But I can't help but feel a little sadness. I know this is only the first of many steps she will take in life but I think it is quite possibly the hardest. 

For the last 5 and 1/2 years she has been mine. I have been there for her every move and now for 8 hours of the day I don't even get to see her. 

I am trusting a complete stranger to care for her and look over her. 

It does make it easier knowing she is so happy and excited about school. She was so ready this morning to get going. 

After a lot of going back and forth, Hubby and I decided to let her ride the bus. I really wanted to be there to walk her into school and take her to her classroom but Hubby was completely against it. Especially after the Kindergarten orientation when we were showing Aubrey the bus and the bus driver stressed how important it would be for her to ride the bus that first day so she could learn the ropes and the driver would know who she was. 

So, this morning I woke her up at 6:30 and she got ready and ate breakfast. I woke up Emma and Daddy and while Brandon kept sleeping, the rest of us walked outside. 

She looked so cute and ready for this big step.

I meant to take tons and tons of photos but Kindergartners are very impatient!

And then she was gone. Didn't even look back, no wave no kiss. She hopped right up there and didn't hesitate.

I thought for sure I was going to do the ugly cry but thankfully there was another Mother at the bus stop who gave a couple words of comfort and I was able to hold in my sobs. 

For the rest of the day I couldn't stop wondering what she was doing. How was her bus ride?

Who was there for her to get her to her classroom?

Was she being shy or making friends?

Could she get her container of peaches open at lunch or did she have to ask for help?

Brandon came to me and said " I miss Aubrey ".

It was so cute but later in the day he also said " I wish Aubrey would stay at Kindergarten", HAHA!

I do think he really did miss her.

2:40 rolled around and we finally left to pick her up. I couldn't wait to find out how her day went. 

She came walking up with a big smile and told us she had a great day and we even were able to get a few details out of her. 

She had made lots of friends and got to play outside 2 times. 

She told me she did feel sad at lunch but she did not have tears and then it went away and she felt better... AWWWW! 

She also charged breakfast onto her school account even thought she had already had breakfast. We had a little chat about that one. 

Overall she loved it and can't wait to go back tomorrow. I'm very happy, I can't imagine what I would do if she came to me saying she didn't like it or didn't want to go back. 

Even though it's hard, I'm so happy for her. She is growing and learning and she just makes me so proud!!

Home Sweet Home

So, before my summer break I had left off with us finally getting word that the bank had approved our short sale purchase. We were ecstatic! 

Until...

We learned that there were so many other factors that could still keep us from our perfect home. We still had the inspection, appraisal and we were blindsided from another random problem that popped up.

We were so happy to come see our house again when we were having the inspection done. It was raining out but we didn't care, we were home. We took a couple of hours to walk around with the inspector and look over the home. Everything seemed to go great and we thought all was well. The inspector had mentioned one minor issue with our finished basement that we should fix. We thought, okay, great no big deal.

Until he put it in his report. Our Realtor said that since it was in the report we would have to fix it before buying the home. Okay, we thought still no big deal.

Except it was.

Apparently the basement in the home had been finished by the owners who had never bothered to have the county approve and inspect it. There was one minor thingy ( and I say thingy because I cannot remember for the life of me what it was called) that needed to be added to the switch box. A very small issue. But since the inspector had mentioned it in his report, we would not only need to fix it but the county would have to come in and inspect all the electrical wires in the basement. Our agent called the county and they said they would have to come and knock down all of our basement walls to look at the wiring...

WHAT!!!! We were devastated. We thought there was no way we were going to buy the house especially since the owner was not willing to help at all financially with the problem.

It was over.

Until... Our agent called us back the next day and said never mind, it was not going to be an issue at all.

We could not believe the roller coaster ride we were on and it wasn't over yet!

As we inched closer and closer to closing on the house, all seemed well. We had the appraisal done and  had no problems. The underwriters at our bank approved our loan in 1 day.

About 1 week before we were supposed to close, we were out picking out paint colors when we just happened to call our title and closing agent ( who is also Jerry's cousin).

He filled us in on one final problem we were facing.


The bank that had approved the original short sale sold out or merged with another bank. We were told that it may mean we would have to start the whole process over again.

We had already spent close to 6 months waiting on this home. And to be told it may take another 6 months made us want to cry and give up.

Jerry's cousin David did his best to keep our spirits high and that it was possible that he could get the closing done by talking to the bank and telling them the situation.

We worried and worried and worried for about 2 weeks all we did was worry.

We would think we were closing, only to find out we weren't.

This happened a couple of times. Emotionally we were done. It was nearing the end of July and we needed to be out of our townhouse rental by August 1st. We were preparing to put everything we owned in storage and live in a hotel. It, was, bad.

Finally we reached the last 2 days that Hubby would be off for the month and decided we were moving. We weren't sure if it would be into our home or into a hotel. We received a call from David who said

YOU ARE CLOSING TOMORROW!

We were happy, but with hesitation. We trusted him fully but we had been through so much we just didn't know what to expect.

Thank the Lord that the next day we got a call early in the morning from him and told us to drive up to his office to sign the closing documents!

YEEESSSS!!!!

Our prayers were answered and we finally closed on our home.

God is good. For 6 months, our prayers were concentrated on this home. We prayed and prayed and prayed.

So here we are a month later and we are so happy. We have unpacked and settled in. We are so thankful, so very extremely thankful. There was so many possiblities of us not getting this house but every time we were able to pull through. I know it was God who did it for us, every single time.

So, expect to see a lot more home improvement posts and DIY. I'm so excited to make this home 'ours'.

Come back tomorrow and see the next MAJOR change for our family. I'm hoping I can write the post without crying!

I'm BAAAAAAACKKK!!!

My summer hiatus is officially over!

I have so much to talk about and catch up on, big things have been happening in the Testa family... BIG!!!!

Umm... did I say BIG!!!?? I mean HUGE!!!

But first, I'm just so glad to have Internet. I survived 1 full month with no connection to the outside world. Okay, well I did have T.V. and a source of transportation but when I say no connection to the outside world y'all know I'm talkin' about 

FACEBOOK!

Yes, it was not easy and there were times where I felt my fingers typing in my sleep. But I'm here, I made it!!! 

All joking aside, it was actually very refreshing to take a break from the online world. 

So, I'm back and ready to update on life starting with our housing situation!!!

Check back on Monday to see what the heck is going on!