Our House!

So, I'm just sitting here in my little Ukrainian house, the kids are asleep, and Jed is off to watch soccer at a friend's house (He doesn't waste time with the man dates! Hehe) Life is good. We are blessed and happy.

 

Wanna see our house? YES! I'm pretty proud of us because we actually accomplished quite a bit today, despite the fact that the kids woke up at 4am. Oh, you say that just gave us more hours to work, so of course we should have gotten a lot done? Well, I say it was evil and instead caused us all to take a three hour nap at noon. We couldn't help ourselves! Jet lag is a beast.

 

So, the house is still a work in progress, but I'll let you have a peek at our new digs. We feel quite comfy here and are so super thankful. Here goes nothin!

This is our street, headed toward our house- the white building on the right.

Here's the front of our building. I think there are like 4 houses (flats) that are all a part of this building...not quite sure though. We enter around the back.

This is the path to walk around to our pad. 🙂

These steps lead to us! That balcony right above is our balcony. Everyone come on over!

Welcome! Here's what you see when you walk on in. (Minus the huge grins on our faces, so happy to have you! Also beware of tiny, leg-grabbing people ready to jump out and grab you...they're vicious I tell ya)

Oh, you like the purple kitchen, do you? Well, we girls like it too. The boys aren't so sure.

Too bad we don't have a microwave manual...not that we could read that either...hmmm

Here's the place where all the goodness happens. When you come over we'll eat loads of deliciousness at this big 'ol table! That's assuming I figure out grocery shopping and can buy the right ingredients for the deliciousness. Seth wants me to tell you he has his eyes closed. FYI 🙂

Here's the view from the dining room table of Jed leaving me to go on a man date. 😉

So, to the right of the front door is the kitchen, and this is what's to the left. There's the bathroom, and the living room.

Here's our AWESOME bathroom! This is the biggest bathroom we've ever had. For some reason I find it very cute and bright. Is that weird that I love my bathroom so much?

Our little washing machine is in the bathroom. When Addy saw it she said It's just my size! Yep, that's about right. Ha! We don't have a dryer so this girl's gonna have to learn the art of hanging clothes to dry. Sweeeeet.

Here's another time when a manual would be helpful...

This is the room that we'll use as a living room. I think we'll move out one of the beds to make more space, throw some cushions on the others, and call 'em couches.

The view from the other side of the room, complete with Jed looking creepy. He makes me laugh. I just love him!

Still with me? Now let's head upstairs so you can see the guest room. Hint hint...

This is the biggest room, so it will be for the kids. We can't fit 4 beds in it, so we need to buy some bunk beds. Until then, just the girls will sleep in here.

That white door leads to a shower.

THIS, now THIS is the guest room! Isn't it fantastic? 😉 The boys will sleep in here until we get the bunk beds.

Here's our cute little upstairs bathroom. So itty bitty!

Here's our enclosed balcony. Pretty sweet eh? Right now we're storing empty suitcases here. Yeah, when we brought 12 SUITCASES we didn't really think through what we would do with them after we were done traveling here. Anyone need a spare suitcase? Emma- notice my sweet hanging skills???

Our view during the day...

And now for the armpit of the house…

Our bedroom!!! Yep, we still got some work to do...

Isn't the house SO GREAT??? It's a miracle. It's so clean, plenty big, under our budget, a three minute walk to MTU, and furnished. We are so happy!
When we knew we were going to live in this house we were excited, but I had one worry. I was worried for my kids. There are no parks nearby, and I was so concerned about how we would find friends. Do we just walk around until we hear kids and then head that direction? It was a worry for me, but we really felt like this house was God's gift to us, so we knew He had/has our kids covered.
So, yesterday morning we woke up, looked out our balcony window to check out our view, and you'll never guess what we saw.

A PLAYGROUND!!!

Would you believe they installed a playground right behind our house our first morning here?? INCREDIBLE. We were laughing, and I'm pretty sure I cried. Now THAT is God's gift to my kids, but also a gift to this mommy's heart. Where there is a playground, there will be children. It just goes to show us that God has gone before us and taken care of every single detail.
One of our friend's felt like God showed her that this move to Ukraine would be like Christmas Day for our kids. Like they don't know what they are getting, but that God has great gifts here for them. Well, gift #1 was delivered on our first morning and I am in awe.
It just keeps getting better and better. Saying yes to God is so much fun!!!!!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

20 comments

  1. Crystal · November 15, 2013

    Save a spot in the guest room for me next summer! I’m coming!

  2. russjgordon · November 15, 2013

    Wow. Just wow. You guys will be such a blessing to that community and how amazing that the Father gave you such a special home!!!

    • kimnjed · November 15, 2013

      Thank you for sharing our joy. We are soooo blessed beyond measure. 🙂

  3. douglassbunch · November 15, 2013

    It’s so wonderfully Ukrainian! Rejoicing with you over our amazing, down-to-the-last-detail God. Love that playground! 🙂

  4. douglassbunch · November 15, 2013

    It’s so wonderfully Ukrainian! Rejoicing with you over our amazing, down-to-the-last-detail God. Love the playground! 🙂

    • kimnjed · November 15, 2013

      Thank you for rejoicing with us!! Now you just need to pop on over for a visit! 😉

  5. Alexis · November 15, 2013

    The house is amazing! We love it! The outside pics make me laugh, though. Very, very odd looking house on the outside. 🙂 But hey, I guess if you need any rubble, you just walk out your back door! 🙂 So thankful to Jesus for giving you guys such a perfect house! I want to come visit!

    • kimnjed · November 18, 2013

      COME COME COME!!! I know, our yard is a sight. It makes me feel less guilty about how long we had NO YARD at our house. Remember those days??? Hehehe

  6. Alexis · November 15, 2013

    PS – I’m surprised the fire marshal in my life who also looked at these pics didn’t say anything about the bed pushed up against the radiator in the guest/boys room. Guess he figures Zhitomer is a little out of his jurisdiction, so what does he care? 🙂 MISS YOU!!!!!!

  7. Keira · November 15, 2013

    Okay, this girl must need some chocolate or something. I got tearful looking at your house and THEN when I saw the playground and the fact that it was JUST installed…my eyes are raining! God is SO good. It just touches my heart that he cares about the details. And Kim, I can’t help but think about your time in Turkey, our time in Morocco, your long wait in the U.S and believe your heart is finally home again being overseas. I love you friend!

    • kimnjed · November 18, 2013

      Ah! I love you too!!! You said it just right. I do feel like I’ve come home, strange. But I’m glad you get it. Today we used a squatty and I thought of you and hairbrushes. 🙂

  8. Christen · November 15, 2013

    Uh — so I am definitely crying after reading the part about the playground. WHY IS GOD SO FREAKIN GOOOOOOOD?????
    ***ten million big bear hugs********

    • kimnjed · November 18, 2013

      Hahhahaha! I love you!!!! I’ll take the hugs thank you very much. 🙂

  9. Phyllis Hunsucker · November 16, 2013

    Amazing! I love how open everything looks on the lower floor. That’s always been my quibble with house design here: the closed off rooms. You can’t usually fit guests around the table in the kitchen, but if you put the table in another room, then you’re busy in the kitchen and cut off from the conversation…. It looks like you won’t have that.

    I wish I was close enough to help you with that washing machine. We recently moved to a place with a lovely old German one, and I had forgotten how confusing stuff like that can be.

    • kimnjed · November 18, 2013

      Yep, it’s pretty much perfect for us. I’m just a bit worried about how loud we are for the neighbors. I have no concept of how much they can hear…and we aren’t quiet! Hmmmm

  10. Vanessa · November 16, 2013

    So awesome! I love the playground part! God is so faithful.

  11. Melissa · November 19, 2013

    Kim…..love love love everything about your new digs!!! It really couldn’t be any better!!! It’s so cheery and clean. Thanks for posting so many pics. It’s so great to finally have a visual of where you’re at! Emma and I like the kitchen & bathroom too!! I must admit though, that in all my thoughts about what the house looked liked never did “purple kitchen” enter my brain. Hahaha! Loves to all of you!

    • kimnjed · November 20, 2013

      Hey my friend! Yay thanks for saying hi! Yeah, the kitchen color choice was quite surprising to us too. I guess they just wanted a “pop” of color. Hehe Miss you!

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