It's A Done Deal: Closing Day

We're home baby girl!!!

Holy macaroni!!! All I can say is I'm glad Riley did all of the dirty work with making this closing happen today because I may have lost my mind in the process had I been in charge. Today was the day that we began the next chapter of this crazy thing called LIFE. Nearly one year has passed since our lives were turned upside down and we've been working slowly but surely toward turning it right side up again. And here we are....finally leveling off and so close to being in the comfort of our OWN HOME. We've never been so excited to have a mortgage payment as we are now!!! I don't know how the bank, realtor, abstract company and Riley pulled if on in two days but they did! It turns out that the bank did not start the underwriting process on our loan until Monday. Yes, yesterday. I'm convinced that they wouldn't have started on it had Riley not called to check on the status. He spent most of Monday gathering documents and paperwork and so on and so forth to send to the bank. Last night we found out that the seller was out of state and hadn't signed the deed which is something we had to have in order to close today. We were also waiting on the appraiser to send in his paperwork from the appraisal which was done ten days ago. The holiday kind of put a kink in things. Hallie and I kept ourselves distracted all day trying not to think about whether or not this was actually going to happen today. Lots of errands and Christmas shopping. After taking a stop by my work office we decided to surprise dada with some breakfast at his office. The moment the elevator doors opened Hallie had figured out where we were and she excitedly whispered "dada."

Miss Priss

Shoving her face with donut holes

We spent the afternoon at Nanny and Papa's house while Hallie napped and I did some more work on my super secret project. We had a very entertaining lunch once Papa got home. Hallie showed off her Nanny day routine where she runs to her chair and straps herself in for lunch and clasps her hands together to prepare to pray.....basically she was starving and wanted us to hurry! We get the drift girl. ;) By afternoon the bank had approved everything for closing but we were waiting on the seller to confirm that they had mailed the deed paperwork which had been emailed to them. Around 4:00 in the afternoon we finally got word that everything was a go....so off we went!!! Hallie was in a great mood and for very good reason. She was ready to sign her life away.....

"Just tell me where to sign. It doesn't have to be legible does it?"

The process took only twenty minutes and we couldn't have been more pleased with the work of our realtor and the title company. Wahoo!! They are all rockstars!! We walked to the car with permanent smiles fixed on our faces. Even Hallie caught the excitement bug and was squealing on our way to the new house. Ok, it may have had something to do with her video playing in the backseat but I pretended that it was about seeing her new room. Leave it to emotional mama to burst into tears as we pulled into the drive. I'd done this numerous times before in the past month but this was different. This was OUR HOUSE NOW!!! I hopped out of the car and we gave Riley a big ol welcome home hug. :) Hallie didn't hide her glee one bit once we got out of the car......

"And this is where I'll put my pony..."

The key!!

Hallie didn't seem to be intimidated by all of the space when I let her down to roam. She wandered freely and let out several squeals while she ran from room to room.

"So this is where we will put my playgym, right?"

"On second thought, this might be a better place for my crib. Cartoons anytime I want"

To say we are happy would be a gross understatement. I couldn't stop taking pictures!!

It still hasn't sunk in that this is our house. I even went back tonight after Riley returned from getting started on ripping up the carpet. The more I wandered the more I fell in love. The more I could picture us in this home for years to come. The more I smiled.

We have a LOT of work ahead of us....but first things first we are trying to get organized. Our main goal is to take our time and make it just the way we want. Problem is neither of us are good at taking our time....hence Riley getting all of the carpet ripped out in 90 short minutes tonight. On the list of to do's for the next couple weeks are getting new carpet that Hal and I picked out about a month ago, painting all of the trim, doors and closets, picking out paint colors for all of the rooms and forcing ourselves to get to painting (the tall ceilings terrify me just thinking about tackling them). Stripping off wall paper (yes, wall paper in the bathroom. EEEK), picking out new hardware, light switch covers, door knobs and mirrors for the bathrooms. The list goes on but that is all I can wrap my mind around right now. No doubt I will be giving a play-by-play as we make our way into our home. Our goal is to be sleeping under the roof by Christmas. More specifically, December 22nd is our arbitrary "deadline." Our "for real deadline" is December 31st to avoid having to pay another month's rent. No thank you. I have a feeling that we will probably by in the house in a couple of weeks at the speed that Riley moves when it comes to man projects. He's already in heaven....and so am I. ;)