spring in our step

I loved our sweet little house... 

 I still miss it. We visited the new owners not too long ago and when we got out of the car, Tatum said, "Oh! We're home!" It made me a little teary eyed, I felt as though I had taken something away from her  that she had loved and never bothered to give it back. I have so many memories in our sweet little house that I am ever so thankful I found my love for photography and documented so many of them. Those memories are ours forever.

I'm also ever so thankful for my sweet husband, Erik. He worked so hard to make our little house a home. We had more to accomplish there to make it what we wanted, but we just grew too big to keep it. I am so thankful for the sweet family that lives there now as they are treating it with such love and care and it looks adorable. I know that they will continue to bring love and happiness there and make changes to the house itself that will bring it new life.

As for us, our new home is so different. It's bigger, has quirks that we knew about and others we are uncovering. Some, just small issues, others eerily similar to the time we had to zip wall the house. Somehow, water does not like us. I stop there though, because we've hit our limit of three and that's that universe!

There's much to change decoratively, but that comes with time. As of now, Erik is once again working endlessly, tirelessly, day in and day out to give us the backyard that we never had in our sweet little house.  It was just a small patio. It worked when Kieran and Anna were really little, but as they grew, there was only so much sidewalk chalk I could convince them to play as I feverishly cleaned the house.

We have beautiful parks where we live, and we frequent them, but there were those days that I longed to send them outside if I was too tired or couldn't join them just then and say, "Have fun! Go play!" and have it last more than twenty minutes.

Our little dream of a backyard is becoming a reality. I say dream because I don't take for granted, not for a second, the hard-earned money, time, effort and love that Erik has given that has brought us to this point. 

Enter the in-ground trampoline.

 So

 much

 fun!

 Even for

the big kids.

There's no fence to the yard right now, so it's a little strange with people walking on the trail and seeing into our yard. Thankfully, it's only for another couple of days. Until then, if they were looking in, they would have seen a group of siblings (sorry, Liam, you were eating in the high chair at the time of these pictures) giggling and jumping with pure glee with their daddy.

You would have seen a little girl learning that along with her new home, 

comes new memories and comfort as we settle in.

You would have seen,

that love lives here too, and that's all that really matters.