Simple Home and Happiness

Inevitably when you are a talker and open like I am, people will ask you questions. When I am pregnant, the questions often center there. The other night, while out with several friends, I was asked the same question over and over. How did you know you wanted another baby or how do you know when you are done having babies? Obviously I cannot answer for everyone, but I can tell you what my experience has been. With each of our pregnancies, I would wonder, "Is this my last pregnancy?" Then I would be cuddling those sweet little newborns, with their soft skin and fresh smell and I would wonder "Is this the last time I will have a newborn of my own?" People had told me over the years, "Trust me you will know when you are done having babies." But it was such vague answer, it was something they couldn't describe, just a knowing sense. That was frustrating. This is my fourth pregnancy, we have three wonderful little girls. In discussing whether ...

This pregnancy has been hard. I do not want sympathy, I am not asking for pity. I put myself in this position literally and figuratively. I am owning that. I am simply saying to all the mothers out there, whether you have one or ten, having kids is hard. I have reached my limit where we are in survival mode. With my other pregnancies, I could still pull myself together the majority of the time. Now just putting on pants is hard. The whole process of having to find a clean pair, and take off my pajamas, and actually put one leg at a time into them is hard. The baby ate dried flies off the windowsill the other day. The four year old got stitches. The kindergartener had to bring me crackers because I was too sick to get up. My mom and sister folded my laundry while visiting. My bedroom looks like my closet threw up. A wonderful person complimented me the other day on how well I handle motherhood, and I nearly burst into tears. Because it is so hard. Don't listen to that little...

The days are long but the years are short. Amen. Every day feels like I am working in circles and at the end of the day when I lay down, if you asked me what I did that day, I wouldn't be able to tell you. My days are full with babies, naps, messes, kisses and cuddles. We also fight and cry and apologize over and over. It is a season for grace, a season for learning, a season for growing, but mostly it is a season for loving. I've been told over and over by friends who's children have grown that the little years will go by fast. If I am honest, for a long time I couldn't wrap my head around that. The days just felt so long, and so hard. But time is a fickle thing. I am coming to realize that there will always be dishes, and laundry, and rooms to clean, but the days where they fight over who gets to sit next to me, or climb on my lap to read a book or just want me to hold them, will soon fade. Then I will be left with the laundry and the dishes and the rooms,...

I have been catching up on the blogs that I follow and I see so many end of the year round ups. I am not that organized, nor am I anywhere near having before and afters of the work on the Lucky house  all tied up in a pretty bow. What I do have though, are before and in-progress photos. I will let the pictures do most of the talking, but here is a little recap of where we started and where we are now! The journey to finding our home was a bit of a surprise and definitely a whirlwind of the best kind. In May of 2013, I got a message from a neighbor asking if we would be interested in buying their farmhouse. You can read all about it, here , here ,  here  and here ! So we bought a house, poured the foundation and moved the ninety year old house approximately two miles. We then jumped into renovations, additions and remodeling. We moved into Lucky in February 2014. Since then projects largely stalled, while I awaited the arrival of our third baby! It has been a ...