For my extremely nostalgic personality, I won't deny that moving was very, very hard for me. It was so much more emotional than I ever anticipated. I am very grateful to all that God has given to us. I brought five babies home to our home on Duxhall Court. I started homeschooling our children there. I sat for hours watching them ride their bikes around our cul-de-sac. I knew I would miss all those things.
I am the person that snaps photos as we are leaving the hospital after having a baby as we are leaving our room. I try way to hard to remember everything.
I will remember the hill in front of our house for the hours they set up shop and would sit in their lawn chairs. It was great to watch. They would play house. Other times, they would ride their bikes down the hill over and over and over.
Dom's hobbit hole. Almost every time we went outside, he would crawl through this hole and sit in his fort. I kept waiting year after year for him to outgrow it and he never did while we lived there.
He, along with his sisters, sat for hours also in this tree conducting the world. Every spring, we had a nest. Every fall, we vowed to each other to take a picture every day at lunch so we could watch the leaves change each day and then look back at our pictures when the leaves had all fallen. Wouldn't that have been fun?
I wanted to take a picture of each of them in front of the house so in 25 years when they return to look at their childhood home, they could take another picture and see how much they have changed.
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| Clairvaux, 3 years old |
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| Dominic, 11 years old |
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| Lillie, 9 years old |
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| Zellie, 6 years old |
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| Rose, 8 years old |
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| Zellie, 6 years old |
They also would sit and dig in this dirt pile for long periods of time.
Our view which we looked down many times waiting for John to come home. I looked forward to him coming home every day.
Climbing the trees was a right of passage. They loved it.
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| Vianney- 4 years old |
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| Dom's other perch. He would conduct the world from this tree also. |
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| One final lunch in our dining room. |
I was glad we had one last day in the home to just do nothing. Everything was moved out, but we sat around with our laptop and chess board waiting to move the next day.
I miss that house. I drove by every day for two weeks. I am so grateful for our new home. I am just so glad that all of my favorite people moved with me.
I had somewhat similar feelings when we moved this summer. While our new house is definitely the right step for us, the old house held so many memories for our family. I still feel as though I know every nook and cranny by heart. We still drive by it every few weeks (we moved a half hour away) both by the front and the alley and comment upon the fact that the new owners don't seem to be giving it the love that we did. :) All this to say...I understand a little of what you feel about your old house! I like that you took a picture of the kids out in front of it before you moved!
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how your house grows into a home. The walls and floors are no longer just walls and floors...but stories. I felt this way for the first time when my grandparents moved off the farm and I visited their house for the first time without them there. It was still a home to me...even without the furniture and the people there. It's because of the memories that still float through each door way.
ReplyDeleteWe had to move two winters ago when we were expecting #6. Fortunately for us we found the best house for our family. Unfortunately, the selling market was in the tank and although we were blessed to find renters for 18 months we are still trying to sell our starter home. Apparently no one wants tiny 1940's era charmers these days. Every time we have to go back I'm flooded with memories of our older kids being toddlers and since our renters hardly touched anything, everything is almost as we left it so it still looks like we just moved out. I truly hope this is the year the house is full of people again.
ReplyDeleteWe moved out of our first home a together a few months ago. It was time--it was a two bedroom apartment in the city, and we were expecting twins in addition to our little toddler. I love our new home so much, but I still really miss that apartment. Our first married home, the home we brought our first baby to, the ability to walk down the street to some of our dear friends' houses ... it was a good home.
ReplyDeleteI`m astonished! How come can you have 8 kids in an empty house and ENJOY doing nothing? And still take those gorgeous and glamourous pics? Oh, my god, what is your secret? When I moved to this house I had only 2 toddlers, and I had to spent a whole day in it with only toys and a stereo, and they could simply kill themselves... I saw this post yesterday, but I couldnt take it out of my mind. But i figured out the reason why it seems so easy and fluid with your 8 kids: because most of them are girls!!!! Your only boys are way too gorown up (so he behaves) , or too young, so he can't move and run away! Anyways, on my way to a big family (oh, boy, I only have 3 kids...), I'll have your family in mind, so I can say to myself: it is possiblem even if you have 8 boys and one girl.... (like these people... http://9peasmom.blogspot.com.br/)
ReplyDeleteI totally understand your feelings about leaving your house. We are about to put our home on the market after living here 8 years and my youngest being born here. We will be building a new home on a river and it will be lovely but it is hard to leave.
ReplyDeleteA bevy of emotions could really hit you at times like these. Trepidation. Anxiety. A bit of stress. The general sense of dislocation. Yet there is also an elevation to be had, especially with a property as weighty as your house. You will go off to a better place. And this can go all the way to galvanizing the market. It will all work out.
ReplyDeleteBlair @ Creb Now