Well, last time we moved to a new house, back in 2008, our family looked like this: We grew a little bit in the almost 8 years we lived there, in a lot of ways. And here we were on our last day there. Our little dollhouse. We laughed and cried there, buried cats and chickens and flushed fish there, broke arms, had surgery, sweated, fretted, relied on the Lord and the ward, and grew. Our final act before leaving to live in our friends' basement for a week between houses was to tour the house together, and then all crowd into one of the loft closets and immortalize ourselves and the time we spent in our first real home. After a week of life in a graciously offered basement apartment, we were so pumped to finally move in! We've lost all sense of shame since we moved into our first house, obviously. The two of us showed up at 2:30 on a Monday. Nate's first act, if you must know, was to go #1 in the master bathroom. (We have a master bathroom!!!) The #...

Hello. I feel somewhat long and lost here, so I figured I'd give a little family update. Nate: Busy busy busy! He's pulling lots of weight at work doing the JSP and other projects plus managing. He's recently turned in a first draft of a chapter he's writing for a co-worker's book on the side. Also the web manager for Addison and Bryn's school and the blog administrator for LDS Earth Stewardship. Teaches 10-11-year-old boys at church. An endearing quality: takes whole quarts of peaches to work as part of his lunch. Michelle: That photo's just for you, Mom. Haha. Staying busy trying to keep afloat with normal everyday life. Recently asked for a release from nursery after almost two years. Still slightly torn about whether that was a totally dishonorable thing to do, but very much appreciating the change and the new scenery as Primary chorister! Doing mental gymnastics to try to figure out how make our house stretch and fit us all for a bit lon...

Our house has been on the market for almost six months! I feel like we need to have cake and ice cream or something. 2015 has been a roller coaster of a year because of trying to sell our house. Ups and lots and lots of downs. At the end of the day, we love our home. There is so much that we love about it and we'll miss it when we leave. We have put a lot of time and effort and money into improving it this year, and I think we have something to show for it. Here are some of the projects that have been keeping us busy. Our realtor, who is a close family friend, tiled our bathroom for us because he is awesome. It was laminate before. Kind of rotten laminate. New carpet in our bedroom. It was our first time ever ripping out carpet by ourselves. Our eyes were definitely opened. Lots of dust, and lots of sand underneath. It makes me want to re-carpet monthly. Before After Remodel of the loft. It's a bedroom, but we couldn't list it that way because it didn...