6 Month Stats and Other News

So I wrote this post last Friday....but apparently forgot to publish it....   WHOOPS

Layla went to the Dr to have her 6 month checkup yesterday.  My little lady weighed in at 16 lbs even.  She is 25 1/4 inches long.  Oh and by the way....she also has her first tooth!  I felt really terrible for not noticing this until the Dr pointed it out, but then I realized that it literally JUST came in (like the night before).  She's working on a second one as we speak.  Looks like I won't be sticking my finger in her mouth anymore.......

In other news, I get to spend half of my day picking out cabinets, countertops, flooring, and siding colors for our new house today.  After an extremely long week at work, I'm really looking forward to this.  I'll have a post later on what we chose.  For now, here's a pic or two of how things are progressing.

Casa De Shumpert: The Kitchen

I have this feeling that this blog is about to expand its horizons and take on some new aspects of our lives (mainly the building of our new home).  I hope this doesn't chase anyone away.  If you know us, we love house reno's and DIY projects so this is nothing new to you.

Last Friday Ryan and I met up with our builder to go over all of our finishing options for the new house that we're building.  Now I'm a fairly indecisive person, so it took a lot of thought before Friday to decide what look we were going for with the new house.  I'll spend some later posts going over what we decided on for the other rooms in the house, but today I want to focus on the kitchen. 

I like my kitchen in our current house, BUT its got a lot of tans and browns in it.  I'm not really a tan and brown kind of girl.  I love blacks and whites and greys.  I really love a modern kitchen.   You know, one that looks like this:

 I'm obsessed with dark cabinets with light colored granite and stainless steel.  Its so clean!  So this was what I was shooting for.  I didn't originally think I could get it because there wasn't any granites with whites and greys to choose from in our original selection.  But after a lot of thought, we decided to splurge a bit on the kitchen and upgrade our granite to a white and grey speckled thicker granite piece.  We ended up with this:

Sorry about the lighting.... my iphone was all I had and the lighting in that place was TERRIBLE.  Regardless, I'm ecstatic about the way the two go together. 

While we were there we were also informed that we get a tile backsplash with our home for free.  Hooray.  There was only three basic tile choices, so we went with the one with the grey tones to it.  We paid a little extra to get them to turn the tiles on a 45 degree angle.  It will look a bit like this:

The cabinet hardware options were pretty archaic (and cost extra!) so we opted to buy our own and install them later.  A modern kitchen needs modern looking hardware so we'll probably end up installing one of these two:

Last but not least, we took the plunge and opted to get all stainless steel appliances.  Our builder uses Frididaire, so these are the appliances we'll get:

So Yea I'm pretty happy about the way things are looking.  When the kitchen actually gets built, I'll post more pictures. 

So how do you like our choices?

House Update #2...or is it #3?

A lot has happened on the house front in the past 3 weeks.  Here a brief rundown of what we've been up to:

• We finished ALL of the unfinished projects in our house!  Yes you heard that correctly.... We even put shoe molding down over all of the tile and wood floors we installed (this has been 3 years in the making).  I'm so proud of Ryan for finishing all of this stuff.  Our house looks NOTHING like the house we originally bought.  Every wall, floor and cabinet has been changed throughout the whole house.  Heck we even added a room...
• The house is officially on the market.  We've got an open house this Sunday, so please feel free to stop by.  I personally wont be there but our awesome agent Chris will be.  I'm pretty sure he's going to have free pizza too....
• We AREN'T buying the house I originally showed you.  That house was already built, and the seller decided that they didn't want to put a contingency on it.  I personally didn't feel comfortable putting a contract on a house without a contingency of our house selling.  After all, we aren't made of money and it wouldn't be smart to end up with two house payments, even if our current house was rented out. 


• We ARE going to build a house in the same neighborhood as the first house I showed.  We love that location and we really like the pool feel of the neighborhood.  The house we are building is a tad bit smaller than the other one, but honestly, I think it fits our needs a little better.  Plus, we get to build on a MUCH nicer, bigger and flatter lot.  This also means that I we get to choose all the finishes and colors.  If this is going to be our "Forever" home, then I guess I should make sure it's everything I want it to be. I'll post pics of the new home when we start building.    Oh yea..... did I mention that we're getting a Double Porch?  (dream come true.....)

So what do you think?  Love it or Hate it?

My Life as a Crazy Person.

If you haven't noticed by now, Ryan and I don't particularly like to sit still for very long.  I'm not really sure if this is a good or a bad thing.  My mom commented to me a couple of days ago how crazy our life has been over the past 3 years and how much change has happened.  She wondered how on earth I deal with it all and don't lose it.  Honestly, I feel like we thrive with change and craziness.  For some reason, God created us as a couple to thrive when we are dealing with new and sometimes terrifying things.  Honestly, part of the reason I love the constant changes is because it keeps me close to my husband.  We have to be honest with each other and it gives us a common goal to push towards.  We've learned that we absolutely need to rely on God to make stuff happen if they are supposed to happen and we need for our relationship to be healthy so that we can say "yes" when God asks us to.  Sometimes I think that complacency and unwillingness to make huge changes to your life can hurt your marriage and your trust in the Lord.

So about that house.....

As of this moment, our move to a larger house seems imminent.  The details that we've needed to fall into place, have done just that.  We're half way through the bargaining portion of putting a contract on the house in my previous post.  The seller has agreed to putting in a fence (for Maddox), a fridge, and paying closing costs.  Now we just have to talk price.  Hopefully we should know something by tonight or early tomorrow.  

Our next big TO DO is to sell our house.  I LOVE my house.  We've put soooo much work into making it a home and fixing all the issues that it came with previously.  We NEED to sell our house in order for us to move, but honestly, we don't NEED to move.  I would be perfectly happy and content in my house if I were to stay here another 20 + years.  But if God is asking us to bring in multiple more children into our home, which I'm starting to get the feeling that He is, then we need a bigger house. 

While Ryan has been frantically coming up with ways that we could sell faster, etc, I've just been sitting back and relaxing.  I'm certainly doing some mad cleaning and painting, but I really feel at peace that God is going to make this happen if that's what he has planned for us.  Nothing I do or don't do is going to thwart that plan.  I'm saying "yes" to Him and for the first time in my life, I'm trusting that He's going to take care of it.  I feel so sure right now that I'm doing His will and it's given me a real calm about the whole situation, which is probably a first. 

Let's be honest for a minute:  I've been racking my brains for the past couple of months trying to figure out what my "calling" is from the Lord.  I KNEW it was something to do with orphans or kids who didn't have homes.  BUT.... I had no idea what exactly I was supposed to be doing to help them.  I'd think about all the orphans in Africa and my heart would shatter.  I'd think about the orphans right here in SC and my heart would break.  I wanted to be a missionary, an advocate for orphans overseas, an adoptive mother of every child I could get my hands on that looked like they needed some love.  But wait.....a FOSTER PARENT?????  God couldn't possibly want me to be one of those!  The kids don't even get to stay with you forever.... 

Then I read this:
"That's the only way you can make a mark on the world that's worth making. By scooping up every ounce of love you can find down to the deepest reaches of your soul, pulling it out and splattering it across the world. I know it won't stick everywhere we fling it, but I'm positive it will stick. Maybe it'll even be reflected back later when they can see how important love really is in life. That's the best we can hope for and even just the hope of that will be enough for me.  We're also not worried in the least about running out of love to give. There's lots more where this came from. Bring 'em on." 
http://thefosterdad.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_archive.html

Maybe THAT is it.  Maybe its not about keeping the kids at all.  Maybe its about giving as much love as you can to every single one you are able to, for as long as you are able to, and just praying that God will do the rest. 

Surprise!

I want to start by saying, No, I'm not pregnant.  Now is about the time for all of my friends to start having babies.  I've got one now through adoption and I don't really feel the urge to get pregnant, which according to EVERYONE I talk to, is what I'm supposed to "accidentally" do now that we've adopted.  I'll pass.  So now on to what the real surprise is.......

WE'RE MOVING! 

Ok, so I may be jumping the gun a little bit.....  Ryan and I are in the negotiating phase right now with a local builder and we hope to have a contract drawn up for a new house sometime in the next week or so.  That means our home will be going up on the market right around the first of the year. 

If all goes well,  this will be our new house:

This particular house has already been built as a Spec Home and is a whopping 3500 sq feet.  Now that it's finished, the builder needs to sell it asap.  So a lot of you are thinking "What in the world do they need a house that big for?".  Honestly, we don't.  This is where surprise #2 comes in.

We may possibly become foster parents and/or adopt an older child from DSS!

Ok this one is still up in the air.  We've got some research and some pretty intense praying to do about this one.  It's something that God has placed on my heart recently that we couldn't even consider doing in our home now.  Most foster kids come in pairs of 2 or more, and there is no way that we could fit 3+ kids in our house.  But in this new house......

Regardless, please keep us in your prayers.  We know that God will make this move happen if thats what he has for us.  We love our home now, so we certainly wouldn't be devastated if He asked us to stay for a while longer.  Please also pray that both Ryan and I keep the ultimate goal in perspective when/if we do buy this new house.  If he provides the rooms, then we will fill them.