Get ready for a novel, folks. I feel like so much has happened in the past three weeks that I haven’t mentioned on this blog. I tend to mention them on instagram (follow me!), but the pictures (or stories that go with them) seldom make it over here.

Let’s start with the past four months. Since December, we’ve been actively searching for a house in the East Bay area. Long story short, there were a lot of new career growth opportunities if Tyler were to switch to the San Francisco office. So we prayed and searched high and low for a house. We even seriously considered moving into the city for a year or two, and kept our eye out for rentals in certain neighborhoods there. After we had exhausted all of our options (and I really mean exhausted – it’s a stressful process), we still didn’t know what was the right choice (East Bay vs. San Francisco vs. Peninsula). We had an awesome realtor and we found two excellent houses – one that we even signed everything to put an offer on. But about three hours before the sellers were going to make a decision, we changed our minds.

Basically that turned our world – and all of our future plans – completely upside down. The house was perfect for us, but something just didn’t feel right. I’m glad Tyler had the courage to take action there.

So we’re staying in our lovely house here, and we’re calling it home. I don’t know if we’ll be here just another year (or two or three!) but we’re doing our best to feel grounded for once.

Amid all of this housing chaos, we’ve been keeping an attentive listening ear for Jack’s speech to improve. He knows the rhythm of words, but can’t seem to put his vowels and hard consonants together to make recognizable sounds. He’s always done things on his own time, being extra cautious (and usually 3-5 months after other kids do), so we haven’t been too concerned. But as a precaution, we are currently getting a few extra opinions for speech therapy. Hopefully we’ll know more soon about which path we should take.

…And that brings me to our next bullet point: we bought a second car! We’ve been wanting to purchase a second car for about two years now (since we graduated), but it hasn’t worked out. Finances, the “right” car, and moving here and there have all held us back. And because we had already planned on buying a house (and a cheap commuter car shortly after we moved in) we decided to finally take the plunge and get something nice. Ya know, to reward ourselves for all of these big decisions we’ve made lately. (I kid, I kid!) Tyler’s work is also moving to a larger office next week, and he won’t be able to take the train to work anymore. I think we were both tired of me being a literal stay-at-home mom.

Our new car is primarily my car to drive, so I got to pick it out. It’s a 2014 Mazda cx-5. I got to pick out the color and everything, which was a big grown-up moment for me. I’m so glad we toughed it out being a one-car-family for so long, because we really did get everything on our wishlist that we didn’t think was possible. (Our two biggest wishes: great gas mileage and our phil & teds stroller has to fit comfortably. We’ve tested out every other small- to mid-SUV on the market, and none have met our demands until the cx-5.)

Other noteworthy things in our life are that our jones family basketball brackets are shot (who knew the underdogs would all win this year?!) and I DIYed us a new front doormat that I’m quite pleased with.

Baby Amelia also would have turned 7 months last week, which for some reason was a difficult milestone for me. We visited her grave on a warm Sunday afternoon, and Jack gave her a pinwheel that I think she would have loved. Her grave marker is being made this very minute (it’s not the angel one above, that’s her neighbor), and should be installed later this week. I’m excited to show you the custom design I created. (Hint: I hand-lettered part of it.)