First Home Tour

(Photo Credit: Cici Riley)

It's been a pretty incredible journey the last few months. We had a beautiful baby girl in January (!!) and then two days after her arrival we put our house on the market. It feels like, just when we had finished decorating, renovating and completing almost every item we could possibly think of on our to-do list for our last home pictured above, we went ahead and put it on the market. We hadn't even lived in our brand new kitchen that I talk about here and here for more than a year! Why you ask?! Well, there are so many reasons... To start all over again in a new home and make our lives crazy with a toddler, newborn and two dogs in tow? Sure!! That's one of them (I'm joking). But the real reason is because in the past few years, our lives have completely changed and so have our needs. While our last home would have been perfect for raising two children, we were ready for the next step in our lives. [At least - we thought we were. I'm not going to lie, getting our home ready for sale ("decluttering," i.e., packing up the entire contents gathered in the basement (how does one collect so much 'stuff'?) and any un-needed items in all of our bedrooms) while 37 weeks pregnant and while balancing a family tragedy and the events involved with that was probably the single most reason I went into labor 2.5 weeks early. But we have conquered a LOT in the past few months. We have successfully staged our home at least 20 weekends/weekdays while having a toddler un-do all of it and all while taking care of a newborn simultaneously (which for me, means a completely spotless house, not a single item out of place (aka 2.5 hours of cleaning in the morning every weekend)), we have successfully loaded up two children under two and two dogs and left our home almost every weekend while our house was on the market AND went grocery shopping and ran our needed errands non-the-less, we have successfully packed up our home of 6.5 years and moved out of it.. and moved in to a rental home.. and settled and unpacked in our rental home babies and all! Are you out of breath reading this yet?! But, yes we still are ready for the next step. Which, for us includes building our new home and picking out and organizing all of the details for it while also doing all of the above. End rant]. While, we may have been through a lot lately, it actually doesn't seem to be anything out of the normal for us. We have gotten used to our lives being so busy and crazy and we know how to balance this by setting aside time for our family and ourselves, which is the most important thing. And we appreciate everyone who has helped us get here and through this and, most importantly, those that understand how hard it can actually be do this all at once!

I cannot believe we move in to our new home in a few short weeks. I imagine it will take us the rest of the summer, or actually much longer, to complete the many projects still needed when we get there and to get settled. But we are so excited to be in our new space and to have our new house to make our home. I plan to re-use as many as the items as I can from our last home, but we do have what feels like an endless list of items we still need to purchase when we get there. Has anyone else felt like this moving into a new build or new home? I would write a list for you all, but it's so overwhelming I had better not! I plan to share some of the projects along the way and fill you all in! I hope you follow along. Thanks to all of my supporters and followers! Stay tuned.