7-Year Itch

This July my husband and I will have been married for 6.5 years. That means that this July I will have been in this home for 6.5 years (my husband will be celebrating the 7-year milestone in September).

I mentioned earlier that we are moving. We are looking for a fabulous new home, with more space, more bathrooms, a garage, and unicorns and butterflies and rainbows and sunshine ;) Well, we ARE moving. We have found a realtor, the bank is throwing money our way, and we have all the contractors we need to finish the basement, minus carpet (though we're tackling that today). We need to repaint, finish the aforementioned basement, and then we're ready to list. We're now thinking Oct/Nov to list. It's a slower season but we've been told by both realtors we've met with that it should still be busy enough. We'll see.

I have the 7-year itch, my friends. I am ready for a change. I am ready for a change of space. I have been browsing housing listings online, and starting to dream up new decorating ideas. Our current livingroom is brown, tan and red (VIBRANT red walls, hence the need to repaint). With our brown furniture do we want to try out a different color (like green or blue?) on the walls? Or do we want to keep the walls neutral, and bring in pops of color with pillows, artwork, etc?

Princess and Tobe's rooms were decorated for gender-unknown babies. I am now thinking Princess needs a suitibly pink with white wainscoting, and doing a chalkboard mural on a section of one of the walls.

I also like this next picture for Tobe's room, though I'm now thinking of more muted tones to match the blanket I made him for his first Christmas.



The blanket colors. They're muted, but not this muted in real life!

For our room, I'm not sure. I love brown mixed with blues, or greens. But I also like yellow and green, or burgandies and gold, or even plumb. We're planning on upgrading our bed (king size!!) and bedroom set so we can really do anything.

I am dreaming of a kitchen big enough for both of us to be in there to cook, a big backyard for Princess and Tobes to play, and just a beautiful new space for us to be in, closer to our dear friends and family!

7-year itch. While I'm far to sentimental, I am just so freakin' excited!!

Crafting Cute Stuff Overload!!

I need to remember this site for future reference. Sooo many cute things!

I wish I had more time to sew. I don't think I'd want to make my entire wardrobe, but I'm so short, and short-torso-ed, I usually have to get dresses altered to properly fit anyway. I'd love to make a whole bunch of cute summer dresses for myself. I have the material and pattern to make one right now. I just lack the time.

Le sigh. Too many cute things to make, too little free time (or free hands!)

Movin' On Up!

**So in reality I started this really awesome blog post on my thoughts on motherhood, inspired by Mother's Day, and countless conversations with countless friends, but I'm still writing it. Unfortunately between work, an online lactation conference, countless sewing projects, and (oh yeah) KIDS, I don't have the time to do it justice yet. But it's coming, I promise**

We built a house in the year before we got married. We moved Hubby in September of 2004, and then in January, when we got married, I moved in. We built the house as our "5 year plan". We planned on buying bigger and better (and in a more ideal location) once we were settled into our careers, and basically once we had more money. We were both just graduating from university at the time.

We're now on year 7, and Princess starts school in a year! It's time to put up or shut up. In reality, it's not the end of the world to move while she's in school, but we've been talking about this for so long it's time to go. Almost everything in our lives happen in the other end of the city - we are driving there at least 3 times a week. We want to move closer to family, friends, and church.

We're getting realtors in to give us quotes and advice (we're still in the process of finishing the basement), and we're looking at listing anytime between this November, and next March (depending on the market, and when we get renos done). We're going in to meet with the bank after Hubby's next trip (that's right, he leaves again pretty soon for another week-long work trip, but that's a whole other post!) and see what we qualify for, and we're starting to browse MLS and coming up with our wishlist and listing priorities - we like the style of new-built homes, but we want a larger plot of land, so we're talking about what to compromise and how.

I am far too sentimental for all this stuff though... Hubby moved about 7 times before he came to the city for University (and has since lived in 3 different places within the city). I have moved 3 times. I lived in one house until I was 5, moved to the house my dad currently still lives in, moved out to an apartment for the year before I got married, and then moved into this house.

This is the house we built oursleves (well, not OURSELVES ourselves, but we picked out every aspect from carpet to light fixtures to placement of electrical outlets, and visited the worksite every week to watch it grow) the house we first occupied as newlyweds, and the house we brought our BABIES home from!! Princess' room is decorated with murals that Hubby painted just for her, and Tobes has a beautiful tree just for him. I have videos of Princess' first steps in the livingroom, and of Tobes crawling down the hallway at lightening speed.

I'm really excited for what the future has for us. I'm really excited for more space, and a new adventure in a new neighborhood. I just might need to take a bazillon pictures between now and then so that we never forget this house ;)