Our house.

We had Easter dinner here for our whole family on Saturday night. It was awesome. There was me, Chris, Izzy, Sophie, my mom and dad, my aunt, both of my sisters, my sister's husband and two kids, Chris's parents & brother, and his brother's wife, kid, and two step-daughters. Our house was busting at the seams! And it was wonderful.

A few years ago, shortly after we moved in here and long before we had kids, we bought a giant table that seats 10, so that our entire family could come over. On Saturday, we added three chairs and a highchair to the main table, and had a kid's table with four more chairs there. Since my SIL is 24 weeks pregnant, we'll shortly be adding another chair, too. We love having everyone over, and this is a great house in which to do it. At 2000 sq ft, it's not that it's huge, although it is nice and roomy. But it has this great covered porch. The last few years we've made it a tradition to have Mother's Day and Father's Day cook-outs and everyone always congregates on the porch. There are several empty lots in front of our house, so there's wide-open views that resemble a park with all the trees around.

Tonight we took a walk. There's only one road into our neighborhood, which makes it wonderfully private and secluded. We walked through the neighborhood, crossed the edge of one of our neighbor's lawn, cut through another gorgeous field and entered the next neighborhood, where my sister used to live and her in-laws still do. We walked down the main road into the heart of town and then walked to the plaza where I got my first apartment on my own, straight out of college, and ending up living there better than four years. It was a great apartment, over top of a furniture store and on the old Main Street that had been closed off and renovated to resemble an old timey village. There were a couple of cool bars on the plaza. It was a great place to live while I was young and single. Then I met Chris and fell in love. After we'd lived there for about a year, we decided to move on to bigger and better places, and we eventually ended up here.

As we walked back to our house, we cut across the empty lots in front of it, and Izzy got the whole view of our house, which is something he'd never paid attention to before. "It our house, mama?" "Yep," I said. "It's our house. Do you like our house, Izzy?" "Yeah, I like our house," he said happily. "Me too," I said. "Me too, mama!," said Izzy.

This house has been a wonderful place to live. It's close to town without being too close. It's a safe, quiet neighborhood where everyone has lived for decades, some for a couple of generations. We're two lots from the river, but up high so that flooding has never been an issue.

We've had some of the best times of our lives here, too, including bringing both of our babies home for the first time. But when I think about it, all of those good time have centered around our family, whether it's been our central family of four, or has included our extended families. As a matter of fact, we've had some really great times in all of the places we've lived. It's just easy to get especially attached to the first place that you buy, though, and we certainly are.

But home is where your heart is, and I'm sure we'll make wonderful new memories in our new home. IF WE EVER SELL THIS PLACE.