{ deep breath }

{ Oppsy Daisy ( as Annabelle would say ) to those of you who already commented, I apologize...somehow my post went up before I was finished with it...}

  We moved out of our rental house into our big fixer-upper, with the sweet help of David's Mama, sisters and brothers. They were serious box moving/scrubbing any and all surface angels. This is the fourth move in 10 months for us.

We didn't see that coming a year ago. At the end of each day God's goodness and grace towards us, continues to blow me away. As does that husband of mine and the miracle he has worked on this old, dilapidated house.

Three days after we moved I left for the long/planned/ anticipated weekend away with " the girls" at Seabrook.
Many beauitful posts came out of our precious time together. And many beautiful faces were missing from the house that weekend. And you know you who are. And know this as well, you + your sweet babies were missed with much love. Very much.

  Rumor has it that jumped out of a moving vehicle to get to hug  + her and then later her and her, for the first time and that was such a dream come true for me. While away in the pouring sunshine, by the sea in our darling little rental cottage,  we showered and celebrated, hugged and prayed over this beautiful friend, who worked very hard and came such a very, very long way to be with us. The food was seriously heavenly. All of it. As was the company. I can't tell you how many time over the weekend, the inside-out beauty of those 10 women took my breath away. I have never cried or laughed so much or slept so little as I did in those 5 days.

We were ever so lucky for the privilege of bringing some lovely friends home with us. Fairlight + Rosie for a few short days and Miss Mac from Down Under, for a almost a week. Having them in our home was the biggest, biggest treat. It was so much fun to think of something I wanted to tell them and instead of having to sit down and type up and email or pick up the phone, I could just run up the stairs or shout it across the room. It's probably a good thing we only had those few days with Fairlight or our heads might have exploded in the aftermath of our collective brainstorming sessions.  It woudl take several lifetimes to follow up, let alone through on all our bright ideas. The girls were super gracious under our rather rough and tumble accomadations...with half of the house still under construction and mostly unpacked. I treasure our time with them here and only regret that I couldn't have documented every special day with dozens of photos. It was so very sweet to have them meet our little family and to watch those extended bonds of friendship grow.  And the only hard part of being together in real life is how much greater the distance feels now between us.

Things are getting back to some sense of normalcy around here. Friday night was the first time that just the four of us had spent an evening " at home " in longer than we can remember. Down-time has seriously been lacking in our lives for months now and it was just what we needed to reconnect, to stay home, sleep in, take multiple walks to the park, have a picnic, and a egg hunt to celebrate the first day of Spring, dance in the kitchen, and just be.

Today my dining room is getting painted " Robin's Nest. " I am excited to start sharing pictures of the house soon. I have told many of you this already but being in my kitchen feels like I am living in a Country Living article. "  My friend Andi said it best the night she told me " Chelle, it's totally a Tumblr kitchen! "  
  I cannot and will not stop singing the praises of a certain man + his best friend ( my brother in law David ). They have breathed another 150+ years into this house and done an truly stunning job on it's renovation.
As my Aunt commented the other night. After who knows how many years, maybe even decades..." it's a happy house again. "

Show and tell is next, I promise.

{ image source from here }