Andrew's Weekly Photo Shoot - Week 9

Andrew's full of "almost's" lately. He can almost hold his head up, he's almost in 3 month clothes already and he's almost cracking a smile here! I know, however, that all of these "almost's" will be "long ago's" soon so we're not rushing anything in the Varner household.

Speaking of "long ago's," I distinctly remember Week 9 with Abilene. She was in the greatest mood and I had like 14 pictures I couldn't choose from because they were so fun. The word "joy" has been what's come to mind as my mom has prayed for Abilene and it's so very true. "Peace" has been the word for Andrew.

In other news: God is amazingly good.

I never did tell you about how we got the house we're closing on. The house is a parsonage owned by a church. It was out of our price range by a good amount of money but we looked at it anyway and, for whatever reason, Brad felt prompted to make an offer on the house. We offered almost as much money as we could with the hopes that the church wouldn't be completely offended by the absurdity of our offer. Low and behold, they countered at a price significantly lower than what they had originally asked but still just out of our price range. We came back with the maximum amount that we could afford and, to our surprise and joy, they accepted! We couldn't believe it!

There were a couple things we were specifically praying for while we were looking for a house:

• Close proximity to the high school
• Places for kids to park (parking spaces are a commodity here in the winter)
• A big enough space to have Campaigners (Young Life's term for "bible study")
• And at least 3 bedrooms, 4 would be better

Okay, so get this:

• The house is within walking distance from the high school
• We're right across from the Civic Center (where the hockey rink is) which means we have plenty of parking for plenty of people
• PLUS! That parking will be plowed for us in the winter so we'll never have to worry about plowing extra!
• The living room has more than enough space for Campaigners
• AND there is a detached, two car garage that has a 500ish square foot open room above it
• The house used to have 4 bedrooms. The walls were taken down in one of the rooms to make an open office/study but we could easily put walls back up to make 4 bedrooms if we so desire

AND, just because God is so gracious:

• The upstairs bathroom has two (TWO!) sinks in it - a commodity Brad and I never thought we'd have
• The master bedroom has a walk-in closet - a commodity I never thought we'd have
• There's a mudroom which will be SO helpful with our soon-to-be-aquired little people snow boots, jackets, gloves, mittens, hats and so on
• A two-car garage that will be such a blessing when I'm trying to get kids in and out during the winter (no brushing copious amounts of snow off my car with two kiddos in tow)
• I can drive right up to a side door that leads into the mudroom and kitchen (again, huge blessing with two kiddos in tow)
• And we're two houses down from some fantastic friends

Finally, when we didn't think it could get any better: The rates for our loan dropped yesterday afternoon and we were able to get the contract to the bank to lock in that rate. Where were the rates this morning? Right back up to where they were yesterday morning.

Would someone mind helping me pick my jaw up off the floor? Because I think I left it somewhere down there.

God is so good.


Click here if you want to see all 52 of Abilene's Weekly Photos.

Disclaimer: While I would like to think that I was creative enough to come up with this idea on my own, I did not. All credit is due to Shelly over at Young House Love who came up with this idea as a way to chronicle the first year of her daughter, Clara's, life. She has a fantastic tutorial on how she did it here: Clara's Weekly Photo Project.