If I had a hammer...

Of the many things we can be grateful for, Nate's handyman skills, which led to our finished basement, are high on the list. Our house is small - a quaint, three bedroom rancher - and with each child, it got smaller. Not only that, but the layout is not very conducive to a family of little explorers and limit testers (read: there's not much room to run around and the layout isn't open enough to be in one room cooking dinner, while the kids are in another getting into mischief of one kind...and another - shout out to Where the Wild Things Are!).

So, finishing the basement became less about "a great selling point" and more about "a necessary step to regain order and sanity." Now, I'll readily admit there were times I was convinced it would never be finished. Unlike all the renovations upstairs (which were mostly cosmetic), where Nate and I worked together, staying up late and starting early, devoting entire weekends to the cause, enjoying our little house projects in newly wedded bliss...the basement was different. For a majority of the project, I was either pregnant or chasing around a toddler or both...ugh. So Nate was on his own, with some help from our families, to get the job done.

And, like any good government-paid engineer, he took his time and spent as many hours thinking and sketching about the basement as he did actually working on the basement. But in the end - it's beautiful.

Even more beautiful? Ryan and Lindsey continue to bask in the loving attention of one another and are getting even better at actually playing together. Dorothy was right, man. There's no place like home.