Just a few pictures to remember this house I loved so much. Seems silly but I can’t seem to come up with the right words to say about it. It was just a house after all but it was more than that. It represented God’s faithfulness over and over again and heartache and growth and healing and so many wonderful wonderful memories and celebrations and births and deaths and discouragement and renewal. All I remember feeling when we were packing up was extreme gratitude. I truly believe God has been guarding my heart with that peace that passes all understanding because I can’t explain our willingness to move any other way, or the absence of my usual basketcase-ness. So anyways, despite never getting the relaxed lovely pictures I always intended to take, here are some hurried ones snapped quickly while the kids were out of the house ;)

I called this my little woodland garden AKA the redwood droppings garden. It never did become what I wanted it to but c’est la vie..

But THIS garden… despite it looking terrible when we sold it and possibly to everyone but me for the rest of the time, ugh, I loved this garden. It would catch the light in the evenings and sway and make me oh so happy. I would go and sit against the redwood tree to hide hehe so I could sit and stare at it in peace and watch the little birds that would come sit on that fountain and all the happy buzzing bees and butterflies and it just brought me so much joy for probably looking like a tangle of weeds to everyone else.

That silly little sign that I found on Etsy also brought me a surprising amount of joy for whatever reason..

And this was our welcoming committee :) Maisey Bonk.

I still remember the day I put that little sign up. We were going through the HARDEST parenting stage and I remember putting the kids to bed so angrily and they were being so naughty and I was probably yelling or whatnot and just storming down the stairs in a huff and seeing that. dadgum. sign. And having to turn around and reluctantly go apologize for my bad behavior and say sorry for all the things. haha it was our turn around and repent sign and mayyyy have just transformed our family cause I feel like we were headed to a bad place! So there ya go. Scripture doing what it does best :)

The PIVOT stairs and my most beloved painting <3

Called this room our morning room and I will never get over how lovely it was to finally have a fireplace after months and months of waiting for rain cause the guy building it could only come on a rainy weekend :) but coming out in the dark of the morning while everyone was still asleep and getting to sip my coffee in silence by a fire!! It was my most favorite.

I also remember when we bought this house, we didn’t have much, if any furniture but we were determined to open it up to whoever cause we loved it so much we thought other people would too haha so naturally we signed up to host a bible study.. with no furniture. But! that couch came unusually early – naturally the morning of our first meeting. And that will always make me smile.

Ha! That old oh so heavy piano came with us because it was the one my sister learned on when she was a little girl and I miss her and now I have a bit of Whad in my house to make me happy. :)

I also remember being pregnant with Abbie, sitting on our small hard couch in Pasadena, looking out our ugly small windows and dreaming about how much I would just love to nurse this baby on a big comfy white couch next to big beautiful windows… never thinking in a couple of months we would be moving and He would *so specifically!* provide all those silly things I was dreaming of!

The ever evolving little room that could. It was an office, a play room, Luke’s nursery, Noah’s nursery, and finally Abbie’s room!

And thissss room went from being my least favorite, grossest room in the house to the coziest, loveliest, most wonderful place to wake up to :) But it was dark and small so the pictures don’t do it justice :D

And again, despite the terrible pictures, this will probably forever be one of my favorite bathrooms. Maybe, again, it was because of how gross it was before but I just loved this room even with all its quirks and flaws :)

Guess what. I never finished painting the kitchen.

This was a n o t h e r room that I probably loved more than necessary simply because I remember how grungy and impractical it was and how hard it was to cook anything on the stove that couldn’t fit a full pan and had the one burner that worked.. sometimes. So very many good memories in there :)

And THIS room had one of my favorite views in the house which is just the loveliest thing if you have a lot of folding and ironing to do. And no I do not have a picture of said view because I tried and it could not be captured and so it shall stay in my head.

But this side was my actual favorite because it was pretty and practical and hid all the boring stuff and still had loads of storage :):) and Greg just recently realized how much storage this house really did have which was just the most lovely music to my ears!

She was plain and boring but I liked her. And she had a lovely little bench that I loved to escape to except Greg would always find me and ask why I was hiding.

And here’s my broken fish I never did fix. I still have all the parts! but who has the time..

Let us go upstairs, shall we? AND I FORGOT to take a picture of the deck and it’s view :'( and of the dining room. ERGH. but those were two of my other favorite spots! I felt like I was in a bustling city up there, what with all the traffic noise you got ;)

Loved that little room :) but I was worried once they grew out of the mural, how to get myself to paint over it. So at least it won’t have to be me anymore!

So there she is! And she was so fun to love on and fix up here and there. And I shall miss her. But the thing that was the hardest to leave behind was :'( my :'( garden :'(

That was saying goodbye to hours and hours and hours and hours of hard, manual labor and work and sweat and tears and love and so many gifts and memories that I wish I could have dug up and taken with me except last time I did that, nothing survived except my one twisty plant that I had to leave here :[ but the trees my dad gave me for Christmas and the ones my mom gave me and the mock orange my aunt gave me for Abbie’s dedication and the snowball bush she gave me for Luke’s dedication and the dogwood tree she gave me for Noah’s dedication and the rose my mom gave me for mothers day and the grape vine my sister gave me for my birthday and the olive tree my mother in law gave me when Luke was born and and and!!! I did sneak one out here all defiantly because I just couldn’t leave it behind no matter what the rules were! It was awfully fun and rewarding to see this space transform and although I never got to see what I saw in my head, that yard was a mother-load of work and despite my love of gardening, it’s sorta nice to just have to remember to water a few plants each day rather than lie awake at night trying to figure out how to keep a thousand babies alive. So in memory of my beloved garden, here’s my most favorite place in the whole house.. especially at sunset when the sun would make everything glow. It was just so magical to me :)

Our little schoolhouse <3 speaking of, do pray for us as I finally did the math and realized we should probably start school ummm tomorrow. I am not in the least bit prepared or ready and am SO intimidated by 4th grade as we have to start learning Latin and studying Plutarch and such. But off we go to fill our heads with knowledge amidst the boxes and mess.. ahhhhhhhhh!!! Oh well.. what better lesson to learn on the first day of school than life isn’t perfect and to just move on through the mess ;)

So there she is! The little house we once called home. So thankful for each bit of her and all the wonderful memories and parties and people that came to celebrate all the things with us. She was good.