Hi, Reader!

It feels like this happened 6 months ago at most, but we did in fact close on our house exactly one year ago this weekend! We not only moved homes but moved from renting to owning (again), moved towns, and moved schools! It was a big transition for us.

So how's it going now? It is everything we hoped it to be and more. Our kids have made true friends in our neighborhood: they ride around looking for who's available, play basketball constantly, and have some of them in their class at school. We are more involved in our church than we've ever been because it's 7 minutes away instead of 27. We host and visit with people regularly. We still aren't over how much space we have now after moving out of a home that was less than 1800 sq ft with one shower for 6 of us.

The House: Cost and Maintenance

The most stressful part of buying this home for me was the size of the mortgage. The basic math of the move was that the mortgage payment was double what the rent at our previous home was, but we also switched from private school to public for our boys (still paid for preschool for Ruby this year). In total, our net affect on the budget (current mortgage - previous rent - previous school payment) was an increased cost of $800 per month.

I'm so grateful this has not been an issue for us in year one. I had calculated the minimum income I would need to make each month in order to fully cover all expenses and I've been able to make at least that much and usually more per month. Kyle got a promotion and raise in October that helped a lot as well. Now in March, we did have to decrease our take home pay by $700 per month because of our taxes, but even with that we've been able to make it work and have room to spare.

The mortgage payment including escrow works out to about 33% of our take home pay - which is slightly higher than I generally recommend or want to see in my own budget. It's hard to calculate because my income is variable and Kyle gets a pretty large annual bonus so in some months it could be 40% of our take home pay for that month and in other months it could be 25%.

Utilities have been the same as our previous small rental! This really surprised me because I've never lived in a newer home (this one was built in 2013 and our previous rental was built in 1886 😨). I expected our utilities to go up since we were moving into almost double the square footage. The highest month we've had in this home so far was $430 (for gas, electric, and water) and the highest we had in our previous home was $380! The dryer and the stove are both gas in this new home and I think that makes a big difference in use and efficiency.

We have not had to repair anything major! Cross our fingers, knock on wood, and say a prayer. But the most expensive thing we've done to the house is replace a garage door opener for around $180.

• Truckload of dirt to fix negative grading around the foundation
• Replaced a couple parts in the dishwasher
• Replaced a garage door opener.
• Painted the first floor walls and trim

The Space You guys, just writing this email is reminding me how grateful I am for this home and how far we've come. Bedrooms? There are 4 bedrooms upstairs and one in the basement. Since Kyle works full time remote, the basement bedroom is his office and music room. We've used it twice for guests spending the night. Ruby still has her own room, the older 2 boys share, and Jude has his own room for the first time. Bathrooms? We went from a 6:1 person to shower ratio to a 2:1 ratio! It's life changing.

We hosted Thanksgiving for my family: we had over 20 people and it was comfortable! Space for babies to nap, a big table for adults, and smaller table for kids. I loved it. Everything I envisioned when we bought it.

Yard? It's going too far to say that the yard is a problem. But every home has it's downsides and the lack of outdoor space is the biggest downside in this home. The house is set far back on and already small lot. So we have a lot of driveway space. But then our already small back yard is cut in half by a retaining wall that takes up the back 4 feet of backyard width that we have.

We make it work and having lots of friends to play with in the neighborhood helps because our kids are not at all confined to our yard.

How Our Life Looks: Friends, Church, and School

Friends live so close to us! We get together spontaneously, watch each other kids, carpooled to preschool, and can easily jump in when someone needs something! It has deepened our friendships as adults as well as for our kids to truly live life together and not be confined to scheduled hangouts with a 25 minute drive each way.

Before we moved we lived in a town and school that we both loved. Our kids were going to the private school I went to for elementary school and lived in the same town as both Kyle's parents and mine.

But we were split in our social relationships. They didn't have any friends at school who also went to our church or friends from church who lived around our house. So we needed to maintain our "home and school" friends and our "church friends" It was these deepening friendships from church that really inspired us to look for homes in Peoria in the first place!

We are more involved in church now that we can say yes quicker with such a shorter drive and therefore shorter time commitment to volunteering, attending, and serving.

Our kids absolutely love their school. If you were around last August, we were unsure that our boys would even be able to attend the same school because the 3rd grade was full. But God provided a spot for us the night before school was set to start and we loved it.

I've been asked a few times on Instagram about the transition from private school to public. I can't say that any of my experience can be applied broadly, I can only speak to transitioning from one specific private school to one specific public school: we have no regrets.

Our kids are challenged academically and made giant leaps and bounds. There were a few curriculum gaps that naturally happen when transitioning schools since every school has a different sequence to their instruction: our kids were supported and encouraged in these gaps. I was able to meet with teachers, express my concerns, and find ways to help my kids thrive.

They made friends quickly and loved their teachers. There were activities for them to get involved with, neighborhood friends on the bus with them, church friends in a few of their classes, and just overall an environment that fostered so much growth for them in so many areas of their life.

While they don't attend a school with a biblical or spiritual lens anymore, we never saw school as the primary vehicle for this kind of learning and know that it is Kyle and my responsibility to instruct our children in this way: not a school's responsibility.

If I could talk to my 2025 self I would say:

Nothing bad happens.

Not because nothing bad actually happened (stuff broke, kids got sick, taxes went up, etc.), but because those challenges taught us good things that we could not learn without a challenge. The things that truly in matter are in tact and thriving - even in the face of those challenges.

And for that, we are so grateful.

For this new home that's bigger and nicer and newer than any home we imagined we could ever life in.

But more importantly we are grateful for what this home has facilitated in our lives in the past year beyond these four walls.

If you're in a waiting pattern like we were in 2023 when we had to move abruptly because of a horrible neighbor situation or again in early 2025 when we were getting rejected offers on homes before deciding to move further away...

I relate so much to the feeling. The unknown is exciting for some people and terrifying for others. I am someone for whom the future feels like a dark, scary place.

It works out. Not always in the way we want it to (I wanted to stay in our same town) or in the timing we want it to (If I could have had my way we never would've had 2 years of renting). When it doesn't work out the way I wanted it to, it's often better than I was imagining. And it's better because of the delays and changes and roadblocks - not in spite of them.

xoxo,

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