Our first day visiting this new home was a special day.

Picnic in the dining room, lots of running, games of hide-and-seek and pick-your-favourite-bathroom. I got real friendly with baking soda and vinegar tackling the bathroom and kitchen. We made use of my box of recently thrifted dishes and KNEX. We tried to convince the kids that basmati and peas make a wonderful dinner – they were not fooled. Friends paid their visits, we gave our first tours.

It’s funny to look at these photos. Photos taken before Dan attacked the textured ceiling. The popcorn ceiling from the second floor has come down with the help of a friend and now the second and main floors are covered in plaster mess. That same friend and my brother pulled up baseboards and removed a built-in desk. Next the ceilings get sanded and the carpets come up.

It’s hard to imagine how it’s all going to come together at this point. There is a lot of work to do – some by us (mostly Dan), some by professionals. And of course I’m impatient to have it done now. But I’m cooling my jets as we decide our priorities and bearing with the outdated and sometimes scary touches. (I haven’t even given you a peek of the window treatments, that’ll be a photo story of it’s own.)

We’re taking a day off today. Staying at “home”, cracking the school books, and getting to bed early. Gearing up for a busy weekend and, of course, exciting weekend.

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Thank you once again for all your support. I’ve been so encouraged by your wisdom and empathy during this wild time. 

Wishing you all a most wonderful weekend. May it be full of light, laughter, and love. 

xoR

It was still early, the kids freshly in bed, but I was already exhausted. I stood up, hoping for bed, but decided I couldn’t take the chance of the boy waking before me. The birthday decorations needed to go up. I lifted down the box labeled PARTY SUPPLIES, pulled out bunting and banners. I stood on a chair, masking tape slung round my wrist when the tears came. Hot, heavy, silent tears as I was struck with the reality: our last birthday in this home.

That surprise banner hung on the birthday child’s doorframe through so many years of growing up.

That bunting, the first project tackled on my grandmother’s sewing machine, for a boy’s birthday years past.

That Snoopy banner, sent by my mom for my 18th birthday – my first away from my parent’s home, and hung for countless birthdays since.

I climb down from the chair, slump head in hands, and cry. Silently, while Dan is on a late evening work call. I catch up the sobs and blow up balloons – the balloon chair needs dressing. And the birthday door.

There – a spare piece of tape left from a past celebration and I’m welling up again.

Finish the balloons, tuck back the box, pad down the stairs to shift laundry. I’m a sentimental fool and I know it. And I’m sitting on my grandpa’s couch in the basement sobbing. Wanting to hold on to these walls. Cling to this same. Resist the change.

But it’s good this change. We’ve asked, waited, begged, waited. And like I said, we knew…we know. This is right. Even though I’ve got cold feet. It’s not regret or even doubt I feel. It’s just cold, creeping fear, telling me lies.

Because I know, I know these people, these memories come with me. There will be more, many more memories made. And this family needs the space. We have limbs to stretch and growing pains to ease.

These tears are good. I know there will be more. They are good, healing, necessary; I know it.

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And now we hold the keys to our new home. We’ve spent two long days exploring, cleaning, and tearing it up. Moving boxes we won’t need for a few weeks, and imagining where everything will go.

At the end of these busy days I have tears brimming as I drive into our back alley, unload kids, and wrestle the six into bed. I’m still longing for home – this home, with its comforts and familiar. And soon, I know, I’ll find those in our new home. I know, I know.

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Thanks for all your sweet and loving words. Thanks for sharing in our hope and excitement. I’ve been blessed and courage bolstered by your kindness. I’ve got photos to share with you tomorrow so you can see what we’ve been up to.

xoR

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal

into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our

past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

~Melody Beattie

In the name of gratitude and truthfulness I’ve decided to post a little piece of reality here once a week. Likely just a single picture. See my original post here.

Sometimes I’m a doofus. Sometimes it’s more often than sometimes. Usually I can laugh about it. See that paper where the piece of cake is missing? Well I baked those two round cakes dutifully on parchment paper. I painstakingly sliced off the top of the bottom cake with my fun little tool. I made a buttercream border and filled it with last summer’s raspberry jam. I plopped on the second cake and iced it with the requested yellow tinted buttercream. Not until I started serving it, after the song was sung and the candles extinguished (with the reminder that sparklers make a nice mess of the top of a cake), did I realize. I hadn’t removed the second round of parchment. Geez.

The adults laughed and laughed. The kids wondered. Then I somewhat tore that cake apart pulling out the paper….

And here is a terribly unflattering photo of me as we laughed it up.

Oh, I’m thankful for laughter. And good friends to laugh with. And my sweet husband who finds my silly antics endearing.

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If you’d like to join in with a reality check of your own, please add a link or note in the comments!

Paints decided, drawing with bunny nuggets, sunshine days, and rainy afternoons.

A whole lot of celebrating, birthday breakfast, sweetest gifts from the sweetest siblings, wonder at sparklers, and three incredible years.

Rosebuds mouth, sun-kissed cheeks, curly locks, and tangled tresses.

More planning, packing, strategies, excitement, anticipation, and the countdown – two days until we hold the keys to our new home.

Simple joys, great celebrations, dreams come true – this is how we spent our weekend.

How did you spend yours? 

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joining Amanda for weekending

Three years are just a drop in the bucket. But they are three years which have changed us forever.

Three years with this sweet boy full of love, kindness, and hilarity. Three years of little boy curls. Three years when my heart has been squeezed that much more.

photo by: Cheryl MacLennan Photography

Happy Birthday, little man.

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Wishing you all a beautiful weekend!