It’s finally time for me to share something kind of crazy that happened in October. It went a little like this…

Sometime in September: we spotted a house on Zillow in our top choice neighborhood with what seemed like our dream layout. We weren’t really in the market for a new house, so we admired it from afar but didn’t give it much thought.

One Saturday in October: Dave noticed the house was still on the market (unusual for Raleigh where houses tend to move quickly). He asked if we could go see it. I snapped at him for still looking at Zillow when I had grown perfectly content with the idea that we were were NOT moving this year and baby girl’s nursery was going to be in our guest room/joint office.

Sunday morning: I agreed to go “just look” at the house. Told all our friends at church that we were going for no reason.

Sunday afternoon: We saw it. And something stirred in my heart that maybe, this really could be our “forever” house. It just made sense somehow.

Monday: We met with our realtor to explore what selling/buying might potentially look like. We decided to go one tiny baby step at a time and prayed that God would open and close doors according to His will.

Tuesday: I photographed our house for this post (the photos are grainy because it was SO dark that morning, but this is why I couldn’t do it any other day!) and then got it listing-ready. I credit years of being part of photo shoots and having a little bit of styling experience with the fact that getting our house ready for photos within 24 hours was not too big of a deal! We also put an offer in on the dream house, half-expecting them to turn us down until our house was sold–a situation I wasn’t comfortable with (apparently, contingent offers are no longer a thing in NC).

Wednesday: Our offer was accepted. We put our house on the market that night.

Thursday: Four back-to-back showings.

Friday: We received an offer on our house, prayed about it, and accepted it.

Fast forward to last week, we are officially in our new house!! I truly cannot emphasize enough how much of a surprise this whole experience has been. Every step went almost comically smoothly and quickly, which we know from experience is not the norm with home buying.

Many, many tears have been shed over leaving our sweet first home–the place where we brought Charlie from the hospital and watched him grow every day since. The place where we became parents and every piece of our hearts transformed along with that. The place where we have danced and argued and made up and laughed our way through over three formative years of our marriage. The place where we put up our first real Christmas tree and started our pizza night tradition. The place where we celebrated and then mourned Felicity Emilia. The place where we have hosted so many family members and dear friends for some of our favorite occasions (this, this, and this come to mind). Truly, every day we have lived here, I have thanked God for the blessing of this house that became our home. We left the keys with a sweet young couple (wedding photographers! Can you believe that?) who I pray will come to feel the exact same way.

While we’ll be carrying so many traditions from our first house to our second, we’re also thrilled about the possibilities this new space and location open up. Baby girl will have her own room, for starters! There is talk of hosting my entire family for Christmas next year. I’m so eager to get unpacked and settled, and to start seeing what God has in store for us here.

Stay tuned for a “home tour on move-in day” post soon! I can’t wait to share this new adventure with y’all!