home.

Our house is officially on the market! And in no surprise turn of events, I'm a little sad.

Seven years ago we found ourselves in a bidding war for this house. I really wanted it – admittedly because we were getting married in a couple short months and I didn’t like our other living option. During our last walk-through of the house before making our final offer, the owners happened to come home early and we got to meet them. I tried my best to turn on the “pick us! pick us!” charm. It turned out that the wife knew our good friend Leah! So we talked and talked and hit it off. In a brilliant move by our realtor, he suggested we enclose a personal card with our offer so the owners would know that it was us. I remember writing that card and selecting my words carefully. I wrote about how I wanted to make their house our home ... our very first home together ... where we’d make memories and hopefully start a family. I wanted it to be a place of warmth, and security and hospitality and love.

This past week I’ve thought many times about that card and how those words weren’t just a ploy to get the owners to accept our offer – they were truly the prayer of my heart. And then I think, with utter thankfulness, about how much of that prayer was so graciously answered.

I won’t sugar coat it. It wasn’t long after we moved in that our charming little home started to feel a little … crowded. I love hosting and entertaining and cooking for people, but our house was sometimes an obstacle. My big family kept expanding and they basically had to sit on each other’s laps when we had them over. I couldn’t host a shower if there was a big guest list. After we had kids, we lost a guest room and sleeping arrangements had to get creative when anyone visited. I’ve spent several days over the past few years cursing that house, complaining and dreaming about the day we’d move into something bigger.

But now, as the possibility of us moving is as real as it’s ever been, I realize just how special this house will always be to me. It was the house that welcomed us home from our honeymoon – a blank canvas for us to color. I filled it with way too many Target trinkets. I tested recipes in the kitchen. I tried (and failed) to be a gardener.

It was our foundation through the most horrendous goodbyes and the sweetest reunions. It was our stable backdrop through arguments, tears, decisions and uncertainties. It was our warm shelter when the outside world was too cold and chaotic. There we could be us. Just us.

And when I think of Caleb and Kenzie’s childhood, I will think of this house. It was the place where "welcome home" banners hung from our porch as we brought our babies home from the hospital. Where we gave them baths on our kitchen counter. Where they kicked on their changing tables – him in his room with the airplanes swirling around him and her with the collage of mirrors above her. Where they first sat in bumbos then highchairs then boosters then at their own little table. Where we spent sleepless nights and took temperatures and first let them cry it out.

While it never felt big to me, it almost always felt like enough. It felt cozy and familiar and a place I wanted to be. It felt like home.

I know this blog may be premature. It may not sell and we may be there for more years to come. But maybe I need this. Maybe I need to remember what we are potentially leaving behind. It makes me realize – stay or go – we are going to be fine and we are right where we need to be.

I am reminded once again that we are living today the life that we will reminisce about and miss later. No, I won’t miss the steep driveway and not being able to get our car up the hill even at the lightest dusting of snow. But I will miss the warmth. The security. The hospitality. The love.

I wrote my hopes and dreams for this house seven years ago before I knew anything about how our life would turn out. The shadows on our front porch have grown from two to three to four. And I remember when that shadow was just one. Of all the times I've thought that it may have been better for us to have lost that bidding war seven years ago, I have to know we are who we are today because we won.