Home Sweet Home

Did I lose you? Because, man, it's been a long time since I loved on this blog! Let me show and tell you why...

In the past month...

We house hunted all over the Derby City, stalked "For Rent" signs and Craigslist, convinced someone planning on selling their house to rent it to us instead, put in an application five minutes after walking through the place, signed a lease and moved our of my parents' house (God bless you, Mom and Dad--they're saints, I tell you) into our new home (!!!!) within a week. HGTV's House Hunters is fun. Real house hunters is not as fun, especially when you've usually got three kids in tow (more on that later). But man, WE LOVE OUR NEW HOME. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT.

 We ate a lot of applesauce. Mom (aka me) wasn't as focused on healthy, balanced meals this month. We were doing well to get calories in our precious first born.

 We held two lemonade stands. Who's this, you ask? One of the two girls I am nannying for this summer. How's it going, you ask? It's interesting.

 Will kept growing bigger. And he spent a lot of time in his car seat, making up for the months he didn't have one in NYC.

 We drew a lot of pictures. This is in our kitchen!! We have a breakfast nook in our kitchen!! Ah, I love our house!!!!

 We welcomed Uncle Tony to Louisville and took him on a tour of the city and ended at Waterfront Park downtown. Louisville, you do parks right.

 We played in the water since we experienced a heat wave of ten straight days in 100+ degree weather. What was Clay doing during most of this time? Working construction. My husband is a badass.

 We had so much fun setting up Will's new room, unpacking a million boxes that had been in storage or my parents' basement for over a year, and feeling like Christmas had come in July. When I opened up three--THREE--boxes of books for Will that had been in boxes for a year, I about cried. He's got a full bookshelf again, full of the greatest stories and drawings. FULL BOOKSHELVES. Yup, that's heaven, friends. That's Gahan heaven.

 We went shopping. Three trips (and counting) to Target and other excursions to Trader Joe's, consignment shops, three straight weekends of yard sales (bought a $3 cooler. woot woot!), and of course a million online sites. We bought the couch above. Love it.

 We put it in our new living room.

Our new living room.

Can you see me smiling as I am reading this?

More house pics to come.

 And then we, as our own little family, on the spur of the moment, decided to go to a baseball game. People, you have NO idea how BIG a deal this is. Our lives have been INSANE for weeks. Between Clay working full time and tutoring at night and me nannying during the day and teaching online at night (hence no blog posts) and, oh right, moving in and trying to prep for the upcoming school year, and oh yeah, being PARENTS, there has been no room for spontaneous or recreation. And then suddenly there was. And the three of us headed to the game like it was totally normal. And my heart SUNG.

 I don't know how we got here. But we made it. And I love my family so much my heart hurts sometimes.

 And then Clay and Will climbed a rock near our house and then we all three (four including Cam) waded in a creek until we heard from some guy that the creek was dirtier than a toilet bowl and pointed out the signs that said "TOXIC" and then we all went home and took long showers.

And in between all this, we...
...prayerfully considered and interviewed and toured childcare options for Will only to be given exactly the perfect situation for him next year. Hallelujah. He will be in a great preschool 2 days/week, with my amazing mother 1 day/week, and then in the loving home of one of my oldest friends, who also has a 2 year old. Perfect. You have no idea how much time I thought about his care. After being with him and knowing his sweet disposition inside and out this past year, I wanted him to have just the right care next year. We are so blessed this worked out so well.
...dogsat for two other dogs for ten days.
...cut a boxspring in half and then put it back together again (okay, that was Clay, and man, it was impressive).
...saw an awesome play with our friend as one of the leads (way to go, Neill!)
...exercised at an awesome gym in Louisville
...went to a super fun dinner party with future collegues
...washed clothes for FREE in our very own washer and dryer. No more $1.25 loads for us!
...took a lot of videos and not as many pictures.
...organized all of Will's clothes ages newborn to 2 years in bins in my parents' basement.
...went for a walk in our neighborhood only to be attacked by a stray boxer. Poor Camden got a little bite taken out of him!
...had a lot of margaritas (courtesy of the frozen bucket in the fridge that my sweet husband brought home one day).
...bought a twin bed frame after the third consecutive night waking up to Will's frantic screams because he was hanging off the side of his crib. Good thing we (really, you) assembled that crib.
...watched The Bachelorette. It's my guilty pleasure.
...almost finished the book I LOVE and started back in, uh, April...(Cutting for Stone)
...bought plane tickets for Maine in August!
...used our dishwasher and loved every easy minute of it
...sat on the couch, looked around, hugged each other and watched our son play in front of us, and realized that we were so, so, so very happy.

Overwhelmed with happy.