Our House

With the pending entrance of baby Pumpkin we are assessing our living situation and how our little one will fit into this space. We have lived in our house for almost 12 years and we have gradually made changes to it to fit our family. Before Megan was born we had our basement finished, and it made our house feel so much more usable and less cluttered. Then last year we opened up the kitchen and did a complete transformation. We love the new kitchen space everyday. Throughout our living here we have made the bedrooms and bathroom work. When Bridget joined us the bedrooms got really tight, but we found an inexpensive loft bed on Craig's List and everyone adjusted. The bathroom situation though has gotten less and less manageable. Regularly there are multiple people in there at the same time and privacy is something we only dream of. Right now we have too much stuff for the size of our house already and it feels cramped, we tried to lessen that a little at a yard sale this weekend, and mentally it helps to see stuff going. Now we are looking at how and if we can continue to work with our house to fit the new family size of seven.

Pumpkin will need to sleep somewhere. We discussed moving a bedroom to the basement, but none of us like the idea of one child being so far away from everyone else. The most logical move would be Emma, but the teen years are not the time that I want to separate her from the rest of the family. Or any of the girls for that matter. We are looking into putting on a 2nd floor addition. We have had contractors over and a number of drawings done. It is expensive so we are very tentative to take that step. We have also been looking into moving to a new house in our area. There is a lot of cost involved in this step too and so much uncertainty. We would also have the very real emotional hurdle of leaving our home. Rachael especially is attached to the place of her birth and is the least able to deal with change. It would be really tough to move. None of our options are standing out right now as the right one. We know we need to do something and we pray for God's direction in making the right step.