home sweet home

It's official!

WE ARE HOMEOWNERS!

We signed the papers and everything, so it's legit, yo.

Technically, the house was ours on Friday, but the owner wanted to stay behind for a couple of days and clean the place up a bit.  And since I don't particularly like moving in with strangers [or their children or their children's significant others], we decided to wait until this Thursday to officially move in.  Call me crazy.

We drove over yesterday after church to walk around, just the three of us.  Every other time we'd been there, there'd been quite a few other people there [you know, owners, children, children's significant others] and it'd always felt like we were intruding.  It was a strange feeling picking up carpet samples while she was still cleaning there - walking into a house that was technically ours but felt far from it.  We were eager to be there by ourselves for the first time.

Ellie enjoyed it, too, obviously.

If you look around carefully, you will see that there is a special wallpaper situation going on that we will be fixing.  I guess I've just never been that into hearts on my walls.

But hearts or no hearts, we are more than excited and so grateful for this beautiful home that we are blessed to call ours.  We kept looking at each other and saying, "This is our house!" accompanied by spontaneous smiling outbursts.

[And, of course, we really are excited about personalizing everything, too.  Paint, no heartsy wallpaper, light-fixtures...you get the idea.]

We also decided that we were going to have our very first meal over at our new place.  Was our stuff moved in yet?  No.  Was it particularly logical for us to eat over there already?  No.  Meh, logic schmogic.  Who needs logic when you've got a new house?  Which was why we brought over some paper plates and tv trays and cooked us up some baked potatoes and steak.  Mmm.  Gotta break that house in right!

After our fancy paper-plated meal, we drove over the Jeremy and Ali's to celebrate Skyler's birthday.  He just turned the big 1-3!  The little munchkin is officially a teenager.

Jeremy holding Ellie:

And Skyler blowing out his candles:

Ali is gonna have her baby in a month!  Isn't she so cute?!

We just love those guys!  Happy Birthday, Skyler!

Before we move in on Thursday, we still need to finish packing [almost done!], get new carpet in two bedrooms [the old stuff needs to go], get the rest of the carpet professionally cleaned [because Ellie will be crawling soon and because we're paranoid], and get the exterminator out [hellogoodbye, wasp nests].

Wish us luck!

p.s.  Literally every single person who notices Ellie says the exact same thing.  "She's so tiny!"

[I think it's safe to say that my daughter must be "tiny."]