This Is Where My Mom Took Pictures Of Us...

In just a couple days, we will hand over the keys to our old home to a new family who recently purchased it. It's an exciting, bittersweet time. Tonight, we all went back for a "Farewell Pizza Party" to celebrate, reminisce and more.

To say that a lot has happened in that house would be a gigantic understatement. This was our first home together.  I was pregnant many, many times - starting with Gavin!

We were thrilled to welcome him home to this house. 

(Fun fact: that "Welcome Home" sign hung in our garage every day after that. I always wanted to pull in and remember how grateful I was that we welcomed him home. That sign is now at our new house and it makes me feel the same way.)

We brought Brian home fifteen months later and were so excited to announce to our neighbors that he was coming!

I washed hair in the kitchen sink...

Watched the boys relationship develop and deepen...

Made gourmet meals nightly. Wearing my pearls, of course...

We documented all the "firsts" along the way, including first crawls...

First roll overs...

And first steps!

We celebrated holiday traditions and made so many wonderful memories.

We LOVED our neighborhood and neighbors and enjoyed walking and letting Gavin practice in his walkers on the "open road."

When Gavin died, we welcomed hope into that home...

...and Hope into hearts.

Even though we moved out of that house in July and we've been in our new home since then, Brian was suddenly very emotional about the finality of the house being sold. I wanted to come up with something special we could do as a family to make it a little easier for him. So tonight the kids and I headed over with their sidewalk chalk, Hope's stroller and Brian's bike and we had one last hurrah in the driveway. We also threw a frisbee and played tag in the back yard.

Brian also made chalk "signs" for the new family - hoping they would see it on their move-in day.

We moved inside so Brian could write and "hide" special notes for the new family. He started in his old bedroom...

...and left the note in the closet to tell them, "Enjoy the room - and this was my old room!"

Hope took a spin in her old room...

...and took silly selfies in our bathroom mirror one last time.

She helped Brian write some more notes...

...including one for the landing that said "This is where my Mom took pictures of us."

So I did. One last time...

And when Daddy arrived for the "pizza party" after work, we took our very last family shot. 

We look forward to meeting the folks that will be standing in that spot for their family picture. And we hope that their journey in their new home is half as happy and memorable as ours was.