Today’s post is a little life update and my way of saying goodbye to a really wonderful chapter of our lives.
We made the decision to sell our house in Oceanside and move into a rental for the time being.
Tyler and I like to batch our big life-changes. New baby? NOT ENOUGH. Let’s put our house on the market and see what happens. Eye roll, lol. It ended up being worth it, even though we have been very, very tired the past month.
Though I’m excited for what’s to come for us, saying goodbye to our first home was heart-wrenching.
We were never going to stay in that little grey house forever, but it was still my happy ever after anyway.
We bought it on a whim when I was six months pregnant with Charlotte. We moved down from the Bay Area and scrambled to set everything up before I went into labor.
It’s not where our love story started, but it is where our family started. It’s where we brought Charlotte home, and then Emmie.
During the few months before we had Charlotte, we would say to each other, “do you think Char is going to like the house???” When we got home from the hospital, Tyler left Char and me in the backseat of the Jeep and RAN inside to open the windows. He wanted it to be perfect for her.
That home is where we learned about nap schedules and breastfeeding. It’s where we rocked our babies for hours upon hours and heated up mugs of coffee no less than ten times before noon. We’d collapse into bed every night, only to stay up for an extra 20 minutes showing each other pictures and videos of the babies from that day.
There we watched Charlotte take her first steps (without help, ever, only when she was ready to teach herself), got pregnant (again), and introduced our sweet girls to each other.
We had all of our favorite people over for pool parties, morning workouts, Bachelor viewings, football Sundays, and game nights.
We became parents there, fell more in love there, and watched our babies grow.
We moved into our new place a couple of weeks ago, but Tyler and I drove up to the house the other night to finish cleaning and getting it ready for the new owners.
As we walked into what was once our very happiest place, I had to steady myself. I bit my lip and repeated to myself, “It’s just a house. It’s just a house. It’s just a house.”
But instead of holding it together, I let the house remind me of every single memory we made here all at once:
Tyler making smoothies at the kitchen counter every morning, narrating it like a cooking show for six-month-old Charlotte while she looked up at him through her dark lashes and shrieked with laughter.
Our friends Bianca and Andrew helping Tyler nail in the shiplap for our new fireplace as I supervised, one hand clutching a slice of pizza and the other resting on my nine-month-pregnant belly. We were so excited about that little project.
Charlotte dancing to “Señorita” and “South of the Border” next to the front door, squealing with delight and bouncing up and down like crazy.
Being SO pregnant and lying on our white couch in the corner by the back door during Charlotte’s nap every day this summer–reading, sipping iced coffee, and feeling Emmie kick every few minutes.
It’s on that same white couch that Charlotte “held” her baby sister for the first time, Emmie’s soft little head propped up on Char’s chunky toddler legs.
I’ll miss the cozy tv area where Tyler and I ate homemade pizza on the weekends and watched a thousand episodes of Suits and Billions.
I’ll miss the sounds, too, I think: the sticky front door opening when Tyler got home from work, the garage door rumbling open before he started a workout outside with Charlotte, the splash of the basketball bouncing off the hoop and into the pool, and the “smack smack smack” of Char’s bare feet scurrying across the travertine floor, always running, never walking.
I might even miss the fridge beeping louder than a car alarm when we’ve left the door open too long.
It really is just a house, though.
Tyler and I finished cleaning up, packed up the car, and drove home–where our babies were sleeping soundly in their cribs. Where we still reheat our coffee mugs 30 times a day and where we still crawl in bed at night together and talk about how amazing our kids are. Where we are already making more memories and reaching more milestones and loving each other really, really hard.
I’m proud of the life we’ve built together. I’ll never get over how blessed I am. That little grey house will always hold a special spot in my heart, and I’m so grateful for all of the joy we experienced there.
A few pictures from our last night in the house a few weeks ago:
