old house, new house

we moved again!  yes, our 8 month old baby girl is now living in the 3rd house of her life.  lucky for her (and us) wherever we are is her home.  the house we were living in was fairly dumpy, with no character inside and thousands of shards of glass outside, had no real yard and was too expensive.  we arrived on its doorstep from michigan without having seen a single photo.  so, we thanked God a few months into it when we realized that we forgot to check the "12 month" box on the lease meaning we could move away after 6 months.

we looked at just one place - right downtown, with two bedrooms and one bathroom.  it had so many windows with sun shining in and a fenced yard and a dishwasher in a vintage kitchen and felt warm and perfect.  it is a 10 minute walk to downtown.  the library and a park where they have weekly summer concerts is a 3 minute walk away at the end of our street and at another end (we are on a corner) is a woodsy trail that leads to a secret duck pond just a 5 minute walk away.  mateo would want me to share that there is a high school across the street which for him means SCHOOL BUSES ALL DAY OUT HIS WINDOW.  the house was built in the late 1800s and has character and feels like home after just a few weeks here.

the move was tricky: we had just 1 day to pack everything up after being away for Christmas, and 2 days to move it over to the new place.  we were so, so blessed by luke's mom coming out to stay with us to help and watch the little ones.  before she arrived, we tried so hard to pack but with a needy ruby and a take-everything-out-of-the-packed-boxes mateo, we didn't get very far.  we could not have done it without her.  

we had to be out by midnight on new years eve, and the gas company didn't turn the gas on for another 3 days after that, so we had to unpack and eat and sleep in 20-30 degree cold for 3 days.  this meant we wore layers upon layers to bed, full winter hats, 4 pairs of smartwool on our feet and at least one pair on our hands.  it was so cold!  these photos are from the last morning of our freezing - the gas man arrived minutes after we took them and walked in to all of us clapping for his arrival.  

now we are a bit more settled since taking these photos.  going from 4 bedrooms to 2 has been a blessing in that we are organizing, craigslisting, and goodwilling what we don't really use or need.  the house is so much smaller, but we can breathe so much easier in it.  and can you see the glorious light coming in?  each morning we rush to get out of our darker bedrooms and into the living room where the sun pours in.

and one last photo: new years eve, our first night here, after a long day of moving and a little ice cream celebration with family for the new year and new place.