~God sent us some "angels" and their last name was "Shirk"~

This morning we met with the owner of that house that we are looking at and saw the house again. We gave him copies of the papers that he had requested. He is supposed to look over our papers and let us know if he wants to rent to us or not! We were HOPING and praying that he wouldn't ask how many kids we have (for remember I said that here they don't like to rent to people with more than 2 kids.) But, he DID ask that question. Phillip told him that he was a very blessed man and that we have 5 children. He showed him a picture of our family, which let him know that our 3 oldest kids are grown and won't be destroying his walls, carpet, etc. We are just praying and waiting on GOD. We'll let you know as soon as we know something. God is working, I'm sure!
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~Sometime in October or November our good friend Don S. called and told Phillip that he and his family could come in December to help us on our home. It sounded tooooo good to be true. Getting to spend time with our dear friends plus getting quality help on our home?! Wow! =) (Thank the Lord we found a crew that drywalled our house on Christmas eve and Chritmas day.) So we kept in contact with the Shirks and sure enough...it worked out that they could come up to Cinci on Monday, December 27th. And did they EVER HELP? Here is part of the Thank you I wrote to them from our family...which will give you a TINY idea of allllllll they did to help us!

Dearest Donald, Melinda, Bryanna, Warren, Daniel, and Bethany,

We cannot believe that y'all took a weeks vacation to come to Ohio to work, cook, PULL STAPLES, run a taxi, tape off and paint, PULL STAPLES, sweep, MOP, find a couch and help pay for it, BUY groceries, PULL STAPLES, hook up plumbing, hold babies, change diapers, haul lots of loads of things, help empty Mrs. Phyllis' house, pull up carpet foam, haul out trash, HOOK UP TOILETS AND SINKS, buying pizza for the Hausmans and us, putting away clothes in our closet, CLEANing up everything to a "T" AND SURPRISING US...so that we had a clean and nice home to show to my family on Dec. 31st. (And did I mention PULLING STAPLES? =) THANK YOU seems to fall WAYYYYYYY short when it comes to expressing how GRATEFUL we are to y'all for helping us with our house. We would have NEVER been able to enjoy our home for 19 days before we left for Colombia without y'all! Y'ALL MADE OUR DREAMS COME TRUE!!!

Thank you TOOOOOOOONNNNNNNSSSSS! May God RICHLY bless y 'all for allllllll y'all did! We loved the fun time with your family too. You are a special family and we are glad that we can call y'all our FRIENDS!!

(Remember....Friends don't let Friends buy fixer-upper houses! HA!!!!!=)

(and did I mention PULLING STAPLES? =)

Love,

Phillip, Heather, Kimberly, Sarah, Noah, Elijah, and Mary

~We all camped out together in Mrs. Phyllis' house at nights and then as soon as we would get up we would make trips hauling things to our own home (45 mins away in Cinci) and then work together all day on our home. Here are the younger kids sleeping in the living room at Mrs. Phyllis' house.~
~Bryanna and Kimberly slept downstairs.~
~Daniel working in our home...I believe he was vacumming up the dust so Donald and Phillip could paint.~
~Bryanna and Kimberly sweeping the extra dust off the dry wall so Phillip and Donald could paint. Bryana is standing in my kitchen and Kimberly is in my dinning room. When we bought the house, their was a TACKY hallway bathroom in the kitchen right where Bryanna is standing. Phillip took that out and made another half bath in a hallway that goes from the kitchen to our front door. There was also a wall dividing the kitchen and dinning room. Phillip opened that up to make the kitchen seem more open.~
~Melinda was amazing. She worked like CRAZY and helped in every way imaginable.~
~Elijah trying to "paint".~
~Donald and Phillip getting ready paint the primer. Donald was a LIFE-SAVER! He did everything from plumbing to painting, to buying pizza, etc. Before the Shirks came, Phillip thought that we wouldn't get to paint at all. But since Donald knew how to run a sprayer, we were able to at least put the primer coat on, so that all the walls were uniform and white. =)~
~They started in my kitchen. Notice Donald's "shoe bags" to protect his shoes from getting painted. =)~

~Notice the "beautiful yellow door" that represents the color that my entire kitchen was when we got the house. =)~
~One evening our dear Pastor and wife brought YUMMY food to us. Here we are eating by one lone lamp in the girl's room.~

~One day the Shirks bought pizza for the Hausmans and us. However, since Phillip and Donald were painting in our house, the Hausmans let us eat in their home.~


~The girls enjoying their pizza on the stairs.~
~The boys pulling staples from the dinning room floor. They pulled up TONS of staples, and there are LOTS more to pull up. The people that laid that carpet didn't want that carpet to go ANYWHERE! HA! ~
~Eating lunch in our living room.~
~Elijah liked Warren's idea and sat on the ladder with his pizza too.~
~Bryanna (and Mary), and Kimberly eating in the dinning room.~
~Noah learning some about plumbing from Bro. Donald.~
~Elijah riding his horsey in our dinning room.~
~Gramp and Gram stopped by for a quick peak at our progress and a squeeze from little Mary.~
~One wonderful thing that Melinda did was to help us find this BEAUTIFUL couch off of Craig's list. I had been praying for months that God would guide us to the couch He wanted us to have...and I was THRILLED when He and the Shirks helped us to get this one. This is super wide and LONG couch. Phillip is being silly demonstrating how wide it is. (He took the pillows off the back of the couch, so that he could sit all the way back to exaggerate how wide it is. =)
Phillip is 6' and 1/2" and usually can't lay comfortably on most couches. But...When he lays down on our new couch to take a nap...he doesn't touch either end. =) God gave us a great price on this couch...and we are happy! YEA!~
~I thought this was so cute of Warren helping keep little Mary content while he read his book.~
My entire family got together on Friday, Dec. 31st -Jan. 2nd. The plan was that we would keep the girl cousins at our house and Laura and Daryl would keep the boy cousins. That was good for that gave us a GOAL to work hard on our home so that things were as presentable as could be by the time they came. We were to meet my family at a restaurant Friday night for supper. When we left to go to the restaurant to meet all of my family, I was leaving our home with LOTS of bags and clothes of ours to put away that had just come from Mrs. Phyllis' house!!! ( I was DYING to stay and put things away, but there was no bar to hang our clothes in our closet and I needed to be on time to meet our family for supper. ) I was soooo SAD for I knew that my family would want to come in and see our home...and there was bags and clothes everywhere. The Shirks stayed for Donald to finish some plumbing for us...and then they were going to leave and head to Tenn. that night. When we came home from the restaurant we were GREETED with a huge surprise! The Shirks had worked sooo hard and put bags in closets, hung a bar in our closet and hung up clothes, swept, mopped, had music playing, the sink and toilet were installed, etc. I was soooo HAPPY that I could've cried! It was soooo fun to walk in and show our home to our family and the bags and clothes were neatly packed away. There are not words to express HOW MUCH we appreciate the Shirks helping us.
(Soon I will post pics of our open house!)