this house. our home.

I had planned to write a post reviewing my February goals (HA HA HA --- you’ll see how THOSE went soon) and set some for this month. But then something happened at breakfast that totally changed the course of my thoughts for this morning. The baby is an early riser and as of late, so is Evalyn. Up until she was potty trained she was always a 7am or later riser. Since training, we’re lucky if she sleeps until 6:15. I fought it for a long time. I hated it. I got frustrated. But now? I’m learning to accept it. And then add the baby to the mix, she’s always up early anyway. Again, lucky if we get to 6 am with her. With Eva as a baby I could do the whole “make her stay in her crib until 7am as long as she was happy” thing with no qualms and eventually, she always slept past 7. It wasn’t such a hard game with her, though, because when she was a baby, waking up “early” meant 6:45.  Leaving the baby in her crib to “learn” to sleep later isn’t as easy this time around because if I do, she wakes her sister up and then I’m just left with two pre-6am risers.  I used to feed the baby at 4am and crawl back in bed relishing the idea of sleeping another 2.5-3 hours. Now when I climb back in bed I pray I get another hour. Anyway, this is getting away from me – this post isn’t even meant to talk about when we wake up – I just say this to say that I am learning to embrace the early mornings. As much as I can.

The reason I mention the change in our mornings is to say that one benefit is that our mornings are less stressful these days. Getting up at 6 gives us more time before Daddy races out the door at 7:25 than when we used to roll out of bed at 7 or later. What this means is that after we spend a few minutes all huddled together in Mommy and Daddy’s bed,we make our way to the kitchen for breakfast.

This morning it worked out that all four of us were sitting up to the table together to eat. As soon as I sat down with my coffee and oatmeal, Eva said, “So, Mommy, how was your day?”

And in that moment I realized how beautiful it is that she sees our dining room table as a place for conversation, communication and family. That this is the place we gather. This is the place we connect. Where we touch base. Where we share details of our lives and learn more about each other and join together as one unit at the end (or in this case, the beginning) of the crazy, hectic days of our lives.

When she said this, I looked around my dining room table and realized what is most important… that my girls see our table, our dining room, our home as a safe place for them to land.

It’s been almost a year since we started on our journey with this home. March 20, 2012 was the day we first saw this house and put an offer in. Over the next days and weeks as the details got sorted out and multiple hurdles were overcome, God quickly showed us that this was, undoubtedly, meant to be home. Logically, when we look at how it all went down, we never “should” have gotten this place. There were too many things that happened to work against us. But we were blessed. It was a God thing.

It’s been 9 months since we took possession and started renovations. Seven months since we moved our little family of four to the country to start something new.

If I’m being honest, we are no where near where I expected we’d be after over half a year of living here. No where close. My expectations were too high. My plans and goals were unreachable.

This is what my dining room looks like, at this very moment.

 

Our table is old and ugly and falling apart. It is surrounded by random, mismatched chairs. There are old towels strewn about, trying to protect our home somewhat from the damages of baby led weaning, there are no doors on the closet, with coats and hats and shoes thrown about, no window coverings, no china cabinet. Random toys are stacked on, around and under the table. There’s a dollar store bunny chair cover over the chair where’s Eva booster, that she no longer even uses, is. Eventually, our table and chairs and china cabinet will be refinished and repaired and the rest of the room will come together. And until today, I kept feeling like it’s just not happening fast enough.

But then a few simple words from my always wise two and a half year old reminded me that this doesn’t matter. When we sat down together and she looked at me and asked how my day was, I realized she doesn’t care.

When we spend time together in this home, do my children notice that our table and chairs set is incomplete? Do they notice that there are no closet doors in our rooms? Or that the baseboards are missing? Or that the decor is lacking? Or that our front door is old as the hills? No.

They notice none of that.

What these sweet babies notice is that our mornings start with the four of us (often five when the dog joins us) curled up in Mommy and Daddy’s bed, giggling and giving good morning hugs and kisses. What they notice is that we have the privilege of enjoying coffee and breakfast together. What they notice is that we are together. Our family is together. Healthy, happy and completely, entirely in love with each other.

Sure, we could focus far more of our time and energy on completing the unending list of projects, decorating, renovating … we could do that. We could consciously devote more time and energy to making this place home.

But I know now that it’s okay if we don’t, not all the time. It’s okay to just be sometimes. To forget the list of projects and have quiet mornings and quiet evenings together. To go for walks as a family, instead of always going, going, doing, doing. It’s okay to do this.

It’s okay because the biggest mistake we could make would be to get ourselves so focused on checking things off a list to make this place home that we miss the life we are living here, that we miss the memories we are making and that we miss these moments we’ll never ever get back. Because these moments?

These moments are what make this house our home.

January Goal Review – February Goals

So apparently I need to ease myself back into this whole public monthly goal setting thing. Because, well, I did not do so great this month. I blame Pretty Little Liars. I got hooked. So hooked. As in, I watched every single episode in less than three weeks. I’m now finally caught up so life can resume as normal. Also, you are all now free to post spoilers without ruining my life. (Immalookingat YOU!)

In my defense, however, for every goal on this list I did not complete, I did get some other things around the house done that I had not intended... I (finally) unpacked the remaining boxes from the basement, got out more every day decor and reorganized our bathroom cupboards. So that counts, right?! RIGHT!?

Put away and ORGANIZE Christmas – done and dusted. Everything was purged, reorganized and put away during the first week of January. I win.

Select photo book photos: I rocked this one as well. Along with picking all the photos, I got them uploaded to Shutterfly as well. That there is half the battle. I find the actual making of the book to be super quick and easy. So much so that I finished uploading my pics yesterday, started the book last night and am already up to Gwen’s birth.

Blog about our holidays, Gwen’s 6 month update and two house before/afters: Here’s where things got dicey. I didn’t blog about the holidays. I decided to forego it and just include my blurbs in the photo book. I did get Gwen’s 6monther done and posted one home reno post (our entryway). I failed at getting a second one posted. I was going to post about the $5 and 5 minute bathroom reorganization but, well, who wants to see pics of lady products and my toothbrush?

Organize and purge toys:  I can only say this was half accomplished. I did get rid of a lot. And I started organization. The girls got organizational stuff for Christmas. This is what I have set up so far …

Evan’s working on the playroom so that will be a big job this month.

Deliver donation pile to Goodwill: Fail. Triple fail fail. There are 2 garbage bags and one large box sitting on the pool table downstairs waiting to go. That darn pool table!

So … on to this month:

1. Reorganize pantry/food cupboards. Seeing as we’ve lived in our home less than 6 months, this really shouldn’t need to be done but seriously, I cannot believe how quickly these areas get overrun! Plus, now that I’m in my groove in my new home and I have a second little person who is eating and has food to be stored, I can better decide where things should go.

2. Clean Fridge. All I will say is yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

3. Finish 2012 Family Photobook. Really, as I said before, the biggest task is done. The pictures are selected, organized and uploaded. I started actually assembling the book last night and completed up until June 2012. This should definitely be attainable. What’s best is that my motivation is that I will get to eat Chipotle when it’s done and ordered and I go pick it up.

4. Set up playroom. Throughout January Ev has been hard at work. He’s replaced the floor and has been building permanent shelving and storage. If you follow me on IG you will have probably seen some of the progress. Soon he’ll be done his portion and it will be my turn to take the reins. Here is where the super crazy toy organization will happen. I also have some ideas for wall art, craft storage and a small office space.

5. Blog House Tour. The truth is, I’ve sucked at before/after photos. Mostly, because there are no afters yet. Everything is still a work in progress. So, I’m planning to showcasing our house in a Before and NOW series. Showing you what it was and how far it’s come – despite the remaining imperfections and lack of final products.

6. Decorate sofa table. In our apartment, I had a nice sofa table set up in the kitchen that housed my cookbooks, decorative platters and recipe box. Now, it’s in the living room and is sitting fairly empty. I have many ideas in my head. As always. So we shall see how it goes.

That sounds like enough for now. Stay tuned. And cross your fingers I don’t get sucked into any new shows.

Entryway Reno

Rumour has it that in order to have an effective before/after renovation post one must have before photos. I fail. I have no idea how it happened but either I forgot to take before photos or I somehow lost them when the laptop crashed. I am fairly certain I didn’t take any because I know I had all my files backed up. I guess when I took the initial before photos of the house when we took possession the entry way was the last thing on my radar and then when he started working away at it, I didn’t realize there weren’t any. Which stinks. Because it would be nice to show you just how far this space has come.

So will you just trust me on it? That the walls were crumbling and falling apart and that there was a large, open hole that went straight to the concrete floor of the basement? Um, yeah. No joke. Most people would have assumed it was meant to be a laundry chute but considering the house didn’t have any laundry hookups when we moved in (again, no joke) I’m not entirely sure what the purpose was. Except to pose an extreme danger to young children. When we moved in, the “hole” was quickly covered with a piece of plywood until Evan got the space finished.

This photo of our hallway is the only one I have that shows any amount of the before of the entry way. You can just barely see the door to the garage and the hole on the bottom right that was covered by a lovely turquoise curtain.

Anyhow, use your imagination. It was bad. Really bad.

This is the space that comes in from the garage. It’s our primary entrance and because there is no (functional) closet space in this area of the house, we needed to make it more useful for our needs. Eventually we’d like to have the garage at a state where we can put coats/shoes but even in the winter, this is no good because who wants to put freezing cold boots on when they go outside? We have a front door and front closet where we store most of the shoes/coats/hats/mitts but we like to avoid using this entrance, especially in the winter to avoid tracking dirt into the dining room.

This is how the space looks today. Evan replaced the floor, fixed the walls, put white paneling on the bottom half of the walls to even them out and painted the upper portion the same colour as the rest of the hallway and bathroom. He painted the existing door white. He added hooks for coats and transformed the elusive hole to the basement into a permanent shoe storage cubby. It’s perfect for keeping shoes out of the way – and accessible enough that we don’t end up leaving them tossed all over the floor when we come in.

  

On the opposite wall of the coat hooks is the door to the basement and this high (not very functional) closet. I need a ladder – not just a chair – a ladder to get to it. So for now, with a huge unfinished basement for storage, it sits empty. It doesn’t even seem to make sense to put seasonal things in there. Much easier to store them downstairs. Maybe someday I’ll find a use for it.

Because the door to the basement swings into the entry way, there wasn’t enough room to make the coat shelf big enough to have baskets for hats/mitts/scarves and so on. So for now, a few of them are tossed around but most of them are still either in the bench in the hallway or in the front closet. Scarves and kid gloves that are on a string can hang on the hooks. Not the most ideal situation, but I haven’t yet thought of something better.

I try to keep most of our outdoor apparel hanging in the closet in the dining room and reserve this space for our most used stuff so it doesn’t get to jam packed but already it seems that it is becoming the catch all area.

The space still needs a bit of work. The door is painted (and looks 100% better than it did before) but eventually I’d love to see it replaced. The photos in the frame of the key holder need to be updated. And I may need to find something for the wall above the shoe box or maybe some kind of sign above the door. I’m not sure about this yet. It is a small, busy, potentially clutter filled area so I may just want to leave that wall bare to cut down on the craziness of this area of the house. Any suggestions?

this month, i will (or at least, i will try to)…

Hi again. It’s me. I’m back. From a big long vacation*. In total, we were gone for 11 nights over the holidays. It was a break from reality and although it was filled with much sickness and little sleep and although we were all quite ready to be in the comforts of our own home, it was nice. Really nice. More on that later, of course.

We’ve entered a new year. 2013. And, for me,  a new year always comes with a sense of hope, motivation, planning and goals. Surprisingly, I’m not much of a resolutioner. I don’t like them. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because I feel like they are too broad. Too big. Too scary. I’m not one to say “I wan to be healthier this year” or “I want to be a better wife and mom” or “I want to learn a new skill”. I mean, all of those things are fabulous and great things to aim for – but they just don’t do it for me. I am, however, a very goal oriented person. I set goals. I write lists. I cross things off lists. I evaluate my accomplishments. I guess I just do it on a much smaller scale than the whole new year’s resolution thing brings to mind.

With all of this being said, I’ve decided – instead of writing about resolutions – to resurrect something I used to do here on this blog all the time. My monthly goals. I used to sit down at the beginning of each month and write out a list of things I hoped to accomplish that month and then at the end of the month I’d sit down again and evaluate how far I got. It helped keep me motivated and on track. And it was also eye opening and helped me learn how much I could push myself. How much was too much. How much was not enough. So, I think I’ll give it a go once again.

So, this month I will:

Put away and ORGANIZE Christmas: at this point about 80% of my Christmas decor is taken down. The tree came down on Christmas day before we left. Hello, I’m not crazy enough to leave for 11 days with a real live Christmas tree in my house. I’ll be cleaning up pine needles for fifty five months as it is. Since we got home yesterday morning, I’ve gradually gathered up most of the rest of the decor. The problem is, it’s all sprawled out across the pool table downstairs. The full, unfinished basement is both my best friend and my worst enemy. It’s awesome that I don’t have to be sitting on top of all the disorganization but it’s also dangerous. Don’t want to deal with this today? BASEMENT. Don’t want to sort through this pile of toys? BASEMENT. Don’t want to put my decorations away? BASEMENT. You get the idea. So, I will get my decorations not only taken down, but organized and put back into place on the shelves downstairs. Last year when I packed them up I was pregnant and nauseous and exhausted. I knew I would be in a new home the next time I saw them and did not do a stellar job organizing it all at that point. So, this time? I am going through it all and purging stuff I no longer want.

Select photo book photos: I recently finished Gwen’s birth book and so next on the agenda is a 2012 family book. I was hoping to get a good chunk of this done while we were away and I didn’t have housework looming over my head but that didn’t happen. My laptop bit the dust for good at the end of December and so all of my photos were stuck at home on my external HD rather than on my laptop. I was totally kicking myself for not having an online storage backup! So, this month I will at least get the photos selected and organized.

Blog about our holidays, Gwen’s 6 month update and two house before/afters: I know writing about our holidays could very easily get skipped over since the festivities from the days leading up to Christmas already seem a lifetime away but this here blog is a scrapbook of our life for my kids to see someday so I do want to go back and write about it. Even if it bores you all to death. Also, my Gwennie turned six months a few days ago (!!!!). Don’t think I forgot. I’ve just got to snap some pics and then her update will be ready to go. I’ve also got so many houses pictures to share. So, two posts devoted to house before/afters is on the list for this month.

Organize and purge toys:  I’ve already picked through and started a pile (downstairs, on the pool table, are we surprised?) of things to donate. My aim is for every toy in, one goes out. So, after the Christmas we just had? I guess that means approximately 895438599804358 toys are going out.

Deliver donation pile to Goodwill: There is another pile on the pool table (I’m telling you, it’s a bad situation) of random things that I’ve tossed down here and there to be donated. So, by the time I have the toys sorted through, I will have a good chunk of stuff to send to Goodwill. The goal here is to actually deliver it. Instead of just making a bigger pile. Sidenote: Remember how I made about 456 trips to Goodwill in the months leading up to our move? And donated something like 16 garbage bags and 11 boxes? HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THERE IS MORE STUFF TO GET RID OF?

I have a few more ideas of things I’d like to add to the list as goals, but let’s face it, we’re already one week in to the month and I’m not about to get too crazy here. I think that this is enough to deal with as it is and I don’t want to have to hang my head in complete shame at the end of the month when I come back to report.

What’s on your ‘to-do’ list this month?

*Does the word vacation even exist when you have small children in tow?

our year

Last January, I wrote this post highlighting some of my goals and hopes for 2012. And now, as 2012 is so quickly coming to a close I can’t help but think that wow – this has been our year.

I started off the year 14 weeks pregnant with Gwendolyn. Just the beginning, really.

In February, we started our house hunt, I had my first overnight away from Evalyn, and we survived the winter.

March was when the year really started to get crazy. Evan and I had food poisoning, landing me in the hospital overnight, Evalyn cut her eye teeth which made for two weeks from you-know-where, she turned 18 months, and we bought a house. All in the same week.

In April, I finished work and started maternity leave and we also started packing the apartment.

In May, we hit the zoo, did more packing and then on the last day of the month, we took possession of our house and things turned chaotic. This was also the month that the 2012 summer baby boom began, with the birth of Connor.

June was a long month. A long, hard month. Evan spent his days at work and his evenings at the new house, working hard to do renovations before we moved in. I was 100 months pregnant, living out of boxes and wrangling a toddler in the heat of the summer. There were times when four or five days passed without Evalyn seeing her Daddy and many nights when he got home long after I was tucked into bed for the night. Evalyn turned 21 months – an age that was significant to me because it was the age she would be when she became a big sister. My due date came. And my due date passed.

July rolled around and things changed in an instant. My water broke late at night on July 1, Canada day, and my sweet second born girl was placed in my arms early the next morning. July was spent with my mom here for a week after Gwen’s birth and Evan’s mom here for the better part of two weeks following that. And it’s a good thing, indeed, because the renovations were still going strong. Although the pressure eased up a bit after our decision to push our moving date back two weeks, there was still a ton of work to get done and so Evan was still spending most evenings and weekends at the house. Two more babies were added to our gang in the weeks following Gwen’s birth, when Briar and my sister had their littles.

When August hit, we knew the end was in sight as the moving date got closer and closer. The middle of the month rolled around and we said goodbye to our first home, the place our babies were born, to start a new chapter in our lives. August 12, 2012, on our sixth anniversary, we moved into our very first, owned by us, house. Just a week or so later, our next niece, sweet Jolie, arrived.

In September, the baby boom ended when Lochlan was born on labor day, exactly 9 weeks after Gwen – book ending the summer by being born on the last holiday Monday. Evan went away on a moose hunt for ten days so the girls and I did some visiting with family and friends, we celebrated Evalyn’s second birthday and she started preschool for the first time. All the while, we continued, slowly but surely to make this thing we call a house into the place we call a home.

In October, we hit up the pumpkin patch, celebrated Thanksgiving, painted and pumpkin and went trick or treating. It was a month of making traditions and enjoying our favourite season of the year.

On the first day of November, Evalyn decided it was time to start potty training so we ran down that road – and have been running down it ever since. We spent a lot of time at home that month, because of the training but managed to get in some fun, too, like going to meet Santa. Again, the renovations, work around the house, and settling in continued. Most importantly, in November, we finally got a dishwasher after four months without.

Now December is here and it’s been, perhaps, the quickest month yet. We had Gwen’s dedication, decorated for Christmas, did a lot of shopping and put a lot of time and work into some little projects around the house that helped us feel more settled.

The year has been crazy. It has included some of the longest days of my life. Yet, it has zoomed past at an unimaginable speed. We’ve been blessed beyond compare. We’ve added another beautiful child to our family. We have the perfect starter home – a fixer upper out in the sticks. We’ve learned, more than ever, just how strong our support system is. We’ve been humbled and astonished at the amount of hours our friends and family put in to help us pack, roof, paint, babysit, install flooring, unpack and so on…

In all, we give glory to our Father for our countless blessings, knowing that without him, none of this would be possible.

2012 was our year. Thanks be to God.

Peacin’ Out

Moving day is upon us. T-minus 7 days until all of this crazy will finally come to fruition. Next weekend, we will move into our home. Finally.

And then the real fun will start, right?

The apartment is a war zone. We’re living with the bare minimum. As in, we’re drinking from red solo cups and Evan has a mug. Yes, that’s right a mug. Evalyn is playing with the same four toys and reading the same 10 books over and over again. I’m wearing the same shorts every day (okay, so that may have nothing to do with moving, but you get the point).

Despite living with the minimum, it still feels like there is oh!so!much! to do. And that’s because, well, there is.

So, consider this my farewell. I may pop in once or twice. I can’t promise I’ll be reading blogs. I definitely can’t promise I’ll be commenting on blogs. I do have a (very, very special and important) post scheduled for later next week. But, for the most part, I’m peacin’ out.

I’ll see you on the (living in my first home in the country) flipside, friends.

His. Mine. Ours.

There’s not much to say today other than … finally! Yesterday was a day we have spent years waiting for. There will be lots more to come as the months go by, so for now, this photo will sum it up.

Home sweet home.

Some Things on Monday

On the weekend, Evan and I got to take the evening and go on a splendid date together. It will, more than likely, be our last before Bambino #2 arrives, so I soaked it up to the fullest.

We did it up romantic style by going to the States and hitting up Lowe’s for paint for the new house and Target for nursing bras, newborn diapers and maxi pads. We also came home with a stack of paint chips a mile high. The definition of “date” sure has changed.

Evan was trying to hurry me along in Target (world’s worst mistake a husband can make) so I sent him and my pharmacy item list off to gather things while I tried on nursing bras and camisoles. I was just trying to do him a favour by killing two birds with one stone. Of course, when I tracked him down after I was finished in the fitting room, I was told that “Target didn’t have anything that was on my list and the only things he managed to find were a case of beer and four cases of pop. Besides, do you know how many types of pads there are?” Men.

At least we finished the night off by enjoying a delicious dinner on the patio at The Cheesecake Factory. Spending nearly two hours, uninterrupted, on a gorgeous night on the patio? Perfection.

The nicest part about the date was that Evalyn was at a sleepover at her Auntie’s (for the very first time) so we had absolutely no time pressure. It was really nice. Just to be. Us. For a few hours, no diapers, no singing Happy And You Know It, no sippy cups and no snack traps. Just me and my husband. Bliss.

~~

Another important thing happened this weekend – I realized that I’ve reached ‘that point’ in pregnancy. You know? The point where complete strangers look at you in public and their face reads “Oh. Oh, dear. You poor thing”. Clearly, I’m waddling.

It started on Friday night when I visited a fresh new snuggly at the L&D department in our local hospital. Pretty sure at least four nurses and one hundred other people in that hallway were looking at me like, “Hm, are you here or are you just here?”

Then at the mall, I watched a security guard keep his eyes close on me as I waddled walked past him looking for my husband. I’m not sure if he thought he was going to have to catch my baby or what.

But, honestly. Maybe it’s just my heightened self-consciousness. Probably not.

~~

I’ve already reached the point in pregnancy where clothes? Yea. They just don’t really work so well anymore. The tops I wore right until 40w5d with Evalyn barely stretch over my belly anymore. So, coming up with a decent outfit to go out in public in can be a challenge. Thankfully, my husband is helpful. And honest. Some women may not like the level of honesty I get from my husband, but me personally? I’d rather him tell me if something makes me look like a whale than let me go out in public and pretend I look fabulous.

So when I got dressed on Saturday night for our date and came out of the room to get his opinion, I was appreciative of the fact that he told me the outfit didn’t really work so well on the current configuration of my body. What I was not appreciative of, however? The fact that I wore the exact same outfit one week ago without him seeing it. Fail.

~~

Yesterday we celebrated the upcoming arrival of one of my BFF’s first babies at a lovely baby shower. We managed to wrangle together the four of us besties and our off spring for a photo op. Notice a trend?

And, no, the one second from left is not already lactating. It’s just baby drool. I can’t tell you how I’m excited that we’re all sharing this journey together. William is currently 5.5 months and with the other 3 on the way, we’ll all welcome our little ones within 9 months of each other. Awesome, right?

We’re hoping for 4 boys so we can start putting together an awesome hockey team.

(pre) Nesting Mode

Everyone knows what nesting is all about. You know, the stage in pregnancy where Mama overcomes the tired, the achy, and the blah and decides to get to work and get cracking on things that need to get done to prepare for baby’s arrival. With Evalyn, I nested hard core. I arranged and rearranged her room. And then did it again (times 300). I canned approximately 492898 jars of salsa, peaches, pears, and jam. I cleaned out closets. I froze enough meals to feed my family for the first seven years of my daughter’s life. I nested, like whoa.

But so far in this pregnancy that little ol’ nesting urge has yet to appear. What I have discovered, however, is that there is another instinct that is occurring. Maybe it’s a second pregnancy thing?

This my friends, is the (pre)nesting stage. It is the stage in which you think about nesting. You write lists about the things you are going to do. You tell your husband about the things you are going to do. You plan exactly how you will do these things you are going to do.

And then? You sit on the couch and eat spinach dip.

Up until today, I’ve blamed the lack of nesting urges on the fact that I simply did not have time to nest. I was hoping that I was just pushing them away, knowing that grading and other work related junk had to come first.

And then yesterday? I finished grading my very last papers. (Insert hooray right about here). That meant work was done. It was time to move on. Evalyn was scheduled for daycare this morning since I anticipated that I’d still be working, so I figured I’d get going on all of the things that have been floating around in my head the past few weeks.

You see, although there’s not much to do to get ready for the baby him/herself, since we pretty much have everything waiting in the storage room, there is a lot to do in other areas.

Hello, crazy people who buy a house that needs may-jah renos right at the same time as having a baby.

We get the house May 31. Four weeks before baby is due. We are keeping our apartment until July 31. Four weeks after the baby is due.

Somewhere in there, I have to pack, organize and get things moved. And the husband has to replace the roof, paint the entire main floor and replace all the flooring in the house.

So, yeah. Nesting has got to happen.

My master plan is to have as much as possible packed and moved into the basement of the new house when we get possession on May 31. There is a lot we can survive without for a few weeks before the move is official. That way, I will reduce the amount of work my friends and family who will feel sorry for me I have to do after the baby comes.

But? I feel like it’s still a bit too early to really start.

So this morning? Instead of starting? I thought about starting.

I wrote lists. I made plans. I envisioned garbage bags of clothes to go to Goodwill and boxes of neatly packed and organized possessions to move to the house. I wrote a May list, a June list and a Post-Baby list highlighting all the crap that needs to be done in that time frame. And then I put the lists, all nice and neat with checkboxes beside each ‘to-do’, on the counter.

Where they will stare at me day in and day out. Taunting me to make progress.

But of course, I didn’t actually do any of the things on the list. I just thought about them. And thought about how I could get started when she went down for her nap this afternoon.

Which happened 30 minutes ago. And here I sit. On the couch, with my delicious leftover seafood alfredo, a huge glass of icy cold water, and my laptop open to Pinterest.

Welcome to (pre)nesting mode, my friends.

Updates

I’ve been sparse around here lately. Other than sharing the news about our house and a few little kidlet updates, I haven’t had much to write about. I guess you can say I’ve been living the moments instead of sitting down to blog about them. And by living the moments, I mean grading papers. Because honestly? What’s really kept me away from blogging is the ginormous stacks of papers taunting me. Work has been insane, yo. But speaking of that, first update: I’m almost done. I just picked up my last set of papers today and if all goes according to plan I should have them all done by Friday.

Then? Work is done. Done done done. And I’ll be able to focus on my tot, getting my house packed up, planning for renovations and birthing a child. And the best part? If all goes as planned, I won’t be returning to work for 15 months after s/he is born. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

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Next up, I promise I shall post some photos of the new joint soon. I’m starting to get really excited about what we’re going to do with each room. And with every ounce of excitement, comes another pound of anxiety.

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A few months ago I blogged about our horrific pool experience when I took Evalyn back to the pool after a 6 month hiatus? Remember that? Well, what I haven’t blogged about since is that immediately after that I decided to try to kick that fear to the curb and signed her up for swim lessons. We started 6 weeks ago. Today was the first day that she really, really enjoyed it. Sure, it’s gotten progressively better each week, but today was like magic. There was not a single tear. No “all done”s screamed for 30 minutes straight. No “sit down there”s while pointing to the benches on the side of the pool. Just splashing, kicking, following instructions and having fun. Today she even took four turns down the slide, and when she had a positive reaction all of the other parents, who have been witnessing the painfulness for the past month or so, cheered and hoorayed for her. It was sweet. And the best part? As we were pulling out of the parking lot, I heard her little voice from the backseat say, “Mommy? Mommy? Thank you. Thank you swimming”. Melt.My.Heart.

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Another little tidbit about her – this stage? The 17-19ish month stage? THE BEST EVER. Sure, it’s trying. She’s testing the limits. Learning how to assert her independence. Trying to see what’s what. But amidst all of that? She is just so stinking fun. We can have conversations. We sing songs together. We play pretend. And it is amazing. She amazes me and fills my heart in so many ways every day. Like today when I walked in the door after a late evening at work and she ran to me, lifted my shirt and said “Hi my broser! My sitter!”

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I’m now in the single digit countdown for weeks left in this pregnancy. It’s a funny feeling. Like, I feel like the baby will be here in no time at all. Yet at the same time 2+ more months of pregnancy feels like an eternity. Am I the only one who feels/has felt that way?

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I know when I set out to write this post, I had a few more things that I had planned to write updates on. But, of course, I forget what they are. So for now, I’m heading out to watch my belly dance.

Blogland? I need to come clean…

It’s time for me to come clean. I need to ask for your forgiveness. You see, I haven’t been entirely honest with you over the past few weeks. I haven’t been lying to you, per se, but rather, I have been purposefully withholding pertinent information.

Remember a few weeks back when we got food poisoning? And then Evalyn gave us the worst week we’ve ever had with her while she cut eye teeth?

Well, friends, that is not all that was going on during that week. Other big, big things were happening in our family at the same time.

Clearly, I’m already pregnant, so that takes the #1 automatics guess off the table.

Any other guesses?

Yep! You guessed it.

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We bought a house!!

In fact, when I wrote the post about our food poisoning, I mentioned that we were sitting in a meeting when Evan first leaned over to me and told me he wasn’t feeling quite right. That meeting? Was with our realtor where we were putting an offer in on the place we had seen just before. The reason we had the lunch that made us sick in the first place was because we were having a busy day getting ready to go see the house.

And then on the Friday of that week, once we had recovered from that, and were moving on to eye teeth hell, we got word that our offer had been accepted.

It has been a long process since that day, getting everything sorted out and finalized, but now, we’re finally ready to say with confidence that we will be home owners at the end of May.

The house is a fixer-upper, to say the least. I’ll share some before pictures sometime in the near future.

I’m coming to realize that buying a house – especially your first house – is a big deal, folks. A big, big deal. I’m already losing sleep as I spend my nights having nightmares that when we move in we discover that the basement is infested with moles (?) and seeing numbers fly around in my head as we budget for the renovations that we are going to do immediately and those that are going to be saved for in the future.

But, at the same time, we feel so at peace with our decision. Already, even before having the keys in our hands, I can see how God has worked His mighty hand in this whole process – right down to the littlest details. Perhaps that’s another post for another day.

I hope you’ll stick around for the next few months years as we set out on our very first house renovating project. I’m certain there will be ups, downs, laughter, tears, perhaps a small argument or two and many curve balls along the way – and I’ll hopefully be here, documenting it all as we go.