a house tour

It's hard to believe that a week ago, we were just beginning to find this place under the dry wall dust!  I've come to the realization that we will continue to find construction dust for months to come!  Even so, it's amazing how far we've come in a week.  The kids adjusted immediately and Beau and I are adjusting a little more with every box unpacked!  Sure, we dream of the day when everything has its place and we don't have a project looming over our heads, but we sure feel lucky to get to make this space our own and create a life here.  

I wanted to share a few pictures of the house pre-move in.  I may not live to see it this empty again!  

The entry and office/playroom/formal dining room.  We wanted an open floor plan with a little division between this room and the rest of the house.  The board and batten is one of my favorite add-ons and I look forward to filling this room with a pretty rug, a vintage desk, and lots of family pictures. 

On the other side of the house is our dining area.  It's large enough to fit a big old barn table and a gray hutch I bought on a whim at Little Prairie Girl a couple years ago.  I love the built-in bench Beau's dad built, a perfect spot for green plants and casserole dishes when we fill our table with people. 

Our living room.  We went a little built-in crazy with Beau's dad's cabinetry skills, but I couldn't be happier with the end result. 

Standing in the living room looking into the kitchen.  Can't wait to do lots of cooking over there.

My kitchen!

The kids' bathroom on the other side of the house.  Love my octagon tile floor and subway tile shower. 

Mila's room.  The kids' rooms and the master closet are the only spaces with carpet in the entire house.  There is a sea of dark maple floors everywhere else and our house has an echo as of right now.  We'll add some rugs eventually. :)

And Cruz Man's room.  Mila got the chandelier, but Cruz got my favorite paint color of the whole house.  Love this Stonington Gray. 

Our master bedroom on the other side of the house. 

Complete with my French door I couldn't resist.

The master bathroom.  This room as a lot going on, but I love how it all turned out.  Beau's dad did a fantastic job with our vanity, I'm obsessed with this blue gray color of paint, and my outdoor barn lights work quite well as vanity lights.  You should have seen my electrician's face when I handed him the lights. 

And maybe my favorite room of the house!  The walk-in is adjacent to our laundry room and it's big and dreamy in there.  Beau did all the closets using Ikea Kallax organizing systems.  He did a great job with it. 

Our brand new living room, complete with our basement furniture!  We got a little overwhelmed with the final decision process that we didn't get furniture ordered until very late in the game.  It will be here at the end of the month, so for now we're making due with what we have.  This room looks pretty good, but our master bedroom is another story.  It looks like a college dorm room with our side-by-side dressers from when we were kids.  Bedroom set is next on our list!

My plumber and HVAC man, aka, Dad, slacking on the job.  He was amazing help to us along the way, and I'm sure we drove him up a wall at times.  At times I thought we'd never get to this place.   

On a Monday from my new house

Well, it's Monday afternoon and I'm currently sitting at our little card table, the card table we brought up from the basement after selling our dining room table at our house on Fleur.  It's the card table that I blamed for prompting our moving hell that occurred in the month of November, a month that now seems so far away.  This time, though, I'm sitting at this card table in my dining room, looking out my four over-sized windows onto our new backyard.  This spring, we'll plant green grass, hang a clothes line, and go explore in our new neighborhood.  I look the other direction and see this house we've dreamed up for months, with its dark wood floors, its creamy white plank ceiling, and butcher block island, and none of it feels real quite yet.  I keep waiting for our contractor to call with a question, keep trying to think of what needs to be ordered or decided next, and then it hits me that we're here.  It's ours, this house, and now the work begins.  Boxes to be unpacked, furniture to be placed, memories to be made.  It starts here, yet I'm not sure where or how to begin...

We officially moved in on Saturday, even though our first night sleeping here was Sunday.  I underestimated (once again) the amount of cleaning that needed to happen before this place was ready for our movers to come, but thanks to my mom and Ben and Noah from Concept to Creation, we were pretty much ready by Saturday afternoon.  We laughed that we seem to always pick the coldest day of the year to move, as we moved into our first house on a very similar day in January eight years ago.  We never expected the same on the day before March!  This time, though, we had a moving company come, which made our work much warmer.  I, much to my husband's opposition, directed the vast majority of our boxes to our enormously empty basement, with hopes I would unpack little by little and keep our main floor intact rather than creating a sea of stressful boxes for our kids to come home to on Sunday.  Let's just say our basement looks a little overwhelming at this point, but I still think I was right. :)

After unpacking the kids' rooms, washing all of our bedding, unpacking the kitchen, and setting up some very college-dormesque furniture to get us by until our new stuff comes in, we were ready for our kiddos to join us and so excited to see their reactions.  Mom brought them over around suppertime and said they had been excited all day long.  Cruz kept asking random questions about it and even told Mom over lunch that he was going to get to sleep in bunk beds.  I'm not quite sure what he was visualizing, but I hope his new Captain America sheets won him over just as well!  Cruz immediately went searching for his Batcave, his most prized possession that had been in storage, and was over the moon when he started to realize the magnitude of toys that he hadn't seen in nearly four months!  He even shut the door of his room, acting very possessive over his new space, signs to us that we think he is a fan.  

Mila was a little hesitant at first, but soon started taking advantage of the open space and waddling her way from room to room.  She liked the toys, too, but much rather preferred to start checking out the inside of our cupboard doors and trying to climb on the furniture!  There was much to explore and both kids seemed to be on a sort of high as they got acclimated to the new space.  

It was weird telling my parents goodbye after living with them for almost four months.  It was time for us to all have our own space, yet, it still felt bittersweet to see it come to an end.  A part of me felt rather childish as I closed the door, like a very small girl in this large house without a clue of what to do with it.  I remember feeling the very same thing the night I got engaged, the day I walked down the aisle, and the day I brought both of my babies into this world.  The big, grownup days where you stare life's biggest moments in the face and know your world is changing before your very eyes.  It is in those vulnerable, life-changing moments when you realize that sometimes it just feels good to have your mom by your side.  

So here I sit, this small person in this big new house, without a clue what to do next.  Maybe I'll unpack a box or two, maybe not.  Mumford is coming to Waverly in June, which has caused me much distraction today.  I think I will turn it into motivation for getting this place ready for house guests.  Just don't tell my eager husband that. :) 

Pictures from our first night...

Mila trying out our touch-sensored faucet.  Thanks for introducing her to that one, Papa... 

I love the look on his face - his eyes are exuding happiness.  Kids are so adaptable, it amazes me.   

Mila finding her favorite place to sit...

I'm sure I will sometimes miss our wood burning fireplace, but it's pretty neat to have a fire with the flip of a switch.  We had one going all day yesterday and Mila learned the word "hot" pretty quickly!

Frozen pizza, applesauce, and blueberries - our first official family meal.  Signature moving meal, right?

8/52

"a portrait of each of my children, once each week, in 2015"

Cruz: Our first night in our new house.  I hope I remember how excited he was about everything, most of his Batcave.  He has been asking about it for weeks and completely associated moving into our new house with playing with getting to play with his Batcave again.  I even asked him if he wanted to see the rest of the hosue last night and he said, "no thanks, I just want to play with my Batcave."  He was in his room most of the night, with the door closed like a teenager, getting reacquainted with his toys and setting into his new home as seamlessly as I expected.

Mila: And what has Mila been up to in her first night in our new house?  A lot of WALKING!  Mila decided to officially start walking last Saturday, February 21st and she's been improving every day since.  Papa Ray thinks she looks like an orangutang!  She prefers to have an object in both hands when teetering around the house.  She has lots of room to venture here and she looks so tiny.  This picture is especially funny to me because Daddy dressed her this morning, in an over-sized sweatshirt and blue tights because we couldn't find a clean sock in the entire place!  It's going to be a slow start getting settled, but we're celebrating our successes, one unpacked item at a time. :)   

Valentine's Day

I've been a little absent on the blog this month, not because I haven't had plenty on my mind to write about, but because the Jorgensens are getting ready to jump ship!  Three days from now, we will finally move out of my parents' house!  They aren't going to know what to do with themselves!  This past week has been a complete whirlwind and I've come to peace with the fact that it likely will be for quite some time.  None of this is easy with two jobs and two kids that require us around the clock.  That said, though, I'm so ready to dive into the deep end and work my way to shore, hoping that by summertime, I'm sitting on the sand with a cold drink in my hand, shaking my head in awe when I look out and realize the extent of our swim.  I just hope I can tread a little while longer... 

Before I can turn the pages of this short but very full month of February, I had to share a few pictures from our Valentine's Day.  Beau and I scored our very first date night since moving and we celebrated with hibachi at Sakura and a trip to Home Depot.  Glamorous, I realize, but I had an ulterior motive for our stop, much to my husband's surprise.  We were in the thick of ordering light fixtures for our new house that week and I had been utilizing Home Depot's online ordering service frequently, making a purchase and choosing the 'free store pickup' option on their website.  I told Beau I had to pickup another light fixture at their customer service desk.  I made Beau go up to the counter and inform the associate we had an order for Jorgensen waiting.  To my husband's surprise, however, a shiny new table saw awaited his pickup instead of yet another schoolhouse light fixture for our hallway.  He was surprised, excited, and then completely understanding as to why I tried so hard to convince him to drive my car instead of his.  We made it work, though, and made a quick detour to our house to drop off his gift before making our way to Sakura.  

Saturday was Valentine's Day and Beau spent most of it working with our dads at the house.  My mom helped me celebrate with the kids and we had lots of fun dressing them in red and pink, corralling them for a picture together, and letting them open a special present.  Mila received a plastic tea set and a new Llama Llama board book, and Cruz happily opened a new Switch and Go Dino and the book, Dinosaurs Love Underpants.  He's been asking for another new dino since he opened his first one at Christmas and it was fun to fulfill his request and watch him be entertained the rest of the day. 

To stick with his dinosaur theme this year, Cruz helped me assemble a special set of dinosaur Valentine's for his class at school.  With 20 students in his 4 year old class, and 12 in his preschool class, Cruz had a big task of writing his name over 30 times, but he nailed it in one sitting and only grew frustrated at a couple. :)  Then, he helped me choose a dino for each of his friends and we secured it with a piece of colorful washi tape.  We also signed up to bring treats for his preschool party and made some yummy monster cookies, also per Cruz's request.  It's so fun for me to sign up for these simple parent responsibilities and see how much joy they bring to the littles involved.  Cruz was so proud to bring his cookies and so proud to share his Valentine's with his class.  Miss Dana told us his dinos were a hit, especially with the girls in his class!

It was a simple, but sweet Valentine's Day, and I am so thankful for these little love bugs in my life.  They are the reason for my smiles throughout the day, my reassurance after the hard ones, and I love the responsibility of filling their lives with joyful moments on the holidays, and the every days in between. 

      

A Sledding Day

Some pictures from a sledding day in Allison a few weekends ago.  Boy, am I glad we got this one in - the weather has been awfully cold since and now I can say Mila was in her snowsuit for the first time all winter!  Between the cold, her colds, and the no snow on the ground for most of winter, we've hardly had a chance to wear it!  Maybe she won't grow so fast and be able to wear it next year?!  Oh well...