Wednesday, January 27, 2010

movin on.

So it's been exactly 5 years since I decided to venture into home ownership. Leigh and I looked and looked, went through horrible house after even more horrible house. Until we discovered a two-story brick that I fell in love with. Leigh on the other hand was having a hard time seeing it's potential, it may have been the late 70's floral wallpaper in EVERY room that was blinding her :) But anyway we quickly made this house our own, and today if someone would walk in, I'mm pretty sure they'd all say, "yeah this feels just like Leigh and Andy."

So where is this going...

We'll the "purpose" of this house was never to be here forever, in fact we always kinda said we'd stay for 5 or 6 years. And so the last couple months Leigh and I have been chatting more seriously about moving on. And then all of sudden two weeks ago we decided to pull the trigger and list our house with a Realtor. Admittedly the decision to actually go through with it was made over lunch, and the next day it was listed. There's a lot reasons why we think this is the right decision and pretty much all of the reasons involve the g-man. School district, a backyard,(or yard for that matter) not living in the ghetto, having grey's room on the main floor, among many other things. So the time was "right" according to us.

Speaking of timing...

How many times in your life have things not gone according to your timing? Pretty much always right? That's hard for everyone, trying to understand God's timing as events occur in your life. It always seems like God's timing is never on track with ours. It's like his timing is on a delay or something.

Well, except for this...

So we listed our house on Friday, January 15... We got a call the next day saying a couple wanted to see it on Sunday. Cool, we thought. They go through the house on Sunday, that night we hear they want to go thru it again on Monday. At this point we're like "Wow, they seem really interested, could we actually sell this now?" So Monday evening we are told that the couple has narrowed it down to 2 homes (one of them is ours) and want to make an offer on Tuesday evening. I always wonder about stuff like that...is there really another home, it always seems like there's always "another" house. I don't know, anyway, we kinda just go about our day tuesday not really thinking about it too much, as to not get our hopes up, but then we get a call that night and we get word that we in deed get an offer!!!! But wait, how much did they lowball us on it? I mean for sure we'll have to counter offer with something higher. BUT WAIT, WHAT? A FULL PRICE OFFER!!!! Seriously? say what? Who does this? Is this real? DID we just sell our house in 4 days, before they even dug the hole to put the for sale sign up?

We did.

Wow, talk about God's timing being quicker than ours. We thought we were just gonna test the water, yeah know, probably get some attention for the house around Spring. Never did we think we'd have our house sold and have a closing date set for February 19!!! yep that'ss right, we gotta be out come the end of February. Sure there' s things that could still come up and we might not sell it, but so far things are going well. The inspection went great earlier this week, next is the appraiser. So clearly we are really excited about this home selling experience (and guess who else is? our realtor...easiest commission she'll ever make :) haha!

so the search begins...we gotta find a house!!!

oh yeah and Greyson's almost one!


Love to all,

Andy, Leigh, Grey

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

new banner

I just had to update the banner image with a new photo of Greyson hinting at how old he will be VERY SOON!!!
Hard to believe it's almost been a year.
Okay just had to post the banner image... stay tuned for a very great blog post to follow!!
:)

Andy

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

All tuckered out.

Some days I'm able to shoot home from work and have lunch with leigh and Grey. We'll today was one of those days, and when I came in the door it was unusually quiet. Most of the time Grey is in his hi-chair yelping and pounding cheerios by the fist full, but today was different. I walked in the living room and there near the wall was Grey asleep on the floor. Apparently Leigh had set him down to play and then proceeded to do something in the other room and when she came back he was out cold, asleep on the floor!

Obviously we had to take pictures.





love Andy, Leigh, & Grey

Sunday, January 10, 2010

SOO BIG!!!

Here's Grey showin off a few "dance moves" and telling us just how big he is!

funny guy. :)

Monday, January 4, 2010

twenty ten

2009 came and went, faster than I could even imagine. Years never flew by this fast before did they? If only time went this fast when I was in middle school. The new year always makes me think/re-evalute how things have gone in my life and where I see some changes being made. I wouldn't call them resolutions, because then they'd never happen, Resolutions have a funny way of being great for about 5-7 days and then fade the minute life gets busy. So, I don't call them that anymore. I've grown a lot this year and am hoping this continues into twenty ten, but the key to this growth was that some major life changing stuff took place that shifted my outlook on just about everything in my life. The real question is how do I keep that focus and drive when things start to get "comfortable" in life? No, I don't want life to karate chop me in the gut this year, but often those are the times we rise to the occasion and take life by the horns. So here's to an amazing 2010! Don't blink, it'll be gone that fast and Grey will be enrolled at college. :)

Another Great thing about the New Year is looking back at what happen last year. The Gibbs family had some big moments last year and Greyson told us he wanted to highlight them month by month as he remembered. So Here he is...


If some of you didn't catch all that, here's an interpretation of what he said

1. January
This was the month that Greyson was supposed to be born. January 29, that was the day we had in our head for months, tht was gonna be his birthday...Until a few days earlier when LEigh had the amnio in which we found out his lungs weren't quite ready. So we "lived it up" for two extra weeks!!!

2. February
Can't really think of anything this month. :) hehehe
February 12 the little Gibblet officially gets a name, Greyson Neal Gibbs, born at 7:48 AM weighed 7 lbs, 7 oz, he took hold of my heart instantly and hasn't let go!
Our proudest moment!!! Grey has surgery to close the opening in his back at around 4pm, by 8pm we get to see him again. Tough little guy.

3. March
It's determined that Grey indeed will need a shunt. Something we thought we could somehow avoid. March 5 was the day. To be honest it was much harder than his closure surgery. At this point he was home with us for over a week and we were getting to know him. It was heart-wrenching to hand our 3-week old baby over to the doctor to have brain surgery. tough day. But Grey came through brilliantly and has had no shunt issues to date. WE pray everyday this will continue.


4. April
Grey gets fitted for his first pair of AFO's. These were to specifically to help straighten the curve in his feet. Quite possible the tiniest, cutest things ever. Today, his physical therapists often comment on how straight his feet are now.

5. May
Grey has his dedication at church. A very important and meaningful day for Leigh and I. It was shared with our friends and family. Also, it was Leigh's first Mother Day! Grey and I did our best to make it special :)

6. June
My first Father's Day! Grey painted me a picture and we spent the day on the water. Grey goes swimming with his new lifejacket.

7. July
Greyson has to continually endure his parents impromptu photoshoots! At the park, in the pool, inside, outside, everywhere. He's a good sport.

8. August
Family vacation at Lake Mitchell. Greyson does it all, tubing, seadoing, surfing, fishing, everything we did, he did. He also starts to eat real baby food, and loved it!

9. September
Emotions hit us both as we recall that day in September when we found out about Greyson's Spina Bifida. We've come a LONG way since then, But more importantly so has Grey.


10. October
Grey turns into the cutest, most ferocious fire-breathing dragon ever!!

11. November
Thanksgiving Day! So many things to be thankful for.

12. December
This is what Christmas is all about!


what a year! Thanks for being a huge part of it!!!

love Andy, Leigh, & Greyson

Sunday, December 27, 2009

The Holiday Weekend

...and Exhale...ahhhhh.

Yes, we can finally breathe as we've come to the end of a very busy, but very amazing Christmas weekend. Yup, this one goes down as the best Christmas ever, hands down. So you might have guessed that there were plenty of pictures taken to document the G-man's first Christmas. And we didn't let you down. So here's some photos to sum things up. enjoy.
Christmas Eve we spent some time with Grey's Great Grandma Gibbs. This was her 96th Christmas...Greyson's first...crazy.

We then went over to my mom and dad's house where Grey received a wagon from Grandma and Grandpa...he loved it!!!

He pretty much stayed in the wagon most of the evening.

Aunty em and Uncle jimmy got him a drum...perfect thanks guys, thats not gonna cause a ruckus in the house!!! hahaha.

Grandma loved it just as much! :)

Christmas morning, bright and early...I guess Grey was extra excited and decided to get things started early.

Family Christmas at the Gibbs House

Did a tornado hit? nope, just the normal mayhem involved at the Neal house on Christmas morning.

The day after Christmas we went tubing with the family.

Grey fit perfectly in the tube :)

He loved it!

We sent grey down by himself...hehehe



It was truly an amazing Christmas and was soooo much fun to have Grey around for all the festivities. Hope everyone else had a wonderful time as well.

love,

Andy, Leigh, & Greyson

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas!!!

We wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and to show you one of Grey's new "tricks." It's funny to think about how much he once hated this snowman, and now this snowman is helping him to sit up!! Have a wonderful and safe Christmas!

The Gibbs'