Home

Whew!  Moving sure is hard work!  Especially with little kids!  However, the dust is settling and while we still have some work to do to make this place look nice, the boxes are unpacked and life has calmed down a bit.  Well, other than us all getting sick over the weekend.  Yuck.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about the word "home."  I have always tried to make my house a home, even before I had an actual house.  However, I think that deep down I didn't really believe that I could give my home everything I wanted it to have until I had a comfortable house. (Instead of a small apartment).  From this moving experience, I've learned that that isn't true.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE our new house and hope to never ever not live in a house ever again, but I have really come to appreciate that what makes a home is so much more than the walls and the space.

For example, I was absolutely certain that I would have NO problem leaving our apartment.  However, as I walked out the door for the last time I was surprised to feel kind of emotional and sad.  When we walked in the door of that apartment for the first time almost two years ago, I was carrying my newborn Matthew and was so excited about- funny enough- all the space.  ;-)  (It was more than our previous apartment).  In that apartment, I could show you exactly where Matthew crawled for the first time and where he took his first steps.  I could show you where Matthew, Michael, and I spent countless hours playing on the floor and where I danced around the apartment with Matthew when I found out that our family of 3 was going to become a family of 4.  I could also show you my preferred spot in the living room where I spent countless sleepless hours of the night with both Matthew and Kate as tiny babies, feeding them and trying oh so hard to get them back to sleep.  It definitely wasn't all roses and butterflies in that apartment, (I will never forget the endless noise at all hours of the day and night from the apartment above us!) but it was our home because it was full of love and memories. I was sad to leave.

I heard that it usually takes several months for a new place to feel like home.  However, I am very pleasantly surprised that this place already totally feels like home.  And I can't wait for all the new memories we're going to make here.  So grateful to have a beautiful new house and that I get to share it with my family that makes it a home.

Now I am totally looking forward to Fall, so that I can walk outside without wanting to kill myself and be reminded that hey, I DO have some pride in my home city.  (I forget all that pride from May to September).  And!  We have someone's big second birthday coming up next week!  Excited for that too.  ;-)

Pictures of life since the move:

boxes make great toys

 don't ask