within the walls of our home.

Our very first home was a tiny 1-bedroom apartment in a complex called Union Square. It was just south of BYU campus, and it was ours. We were newlyweds, and it was crazy to see our wedding pictures on the wall, and our clothes in the closet, and our little tv that I won in high school on the tv stand (we kept that little tv for FIVE years, people). The previous blissfully newlywed tenants had left a vinyl quote on the wall with a big open space above it, where they had obviously hung their massive wedding picture. So, naturally, we hung our massive wedding picture there too. I can't remember what the quote said. I wish I could. We watched a lot of West Wing and Gilmore Girls. And we exchanged our first Christmas gifts as a married couple. It was perfect.

Our second home in Provo was a mansion. Literally. It was an old mansion on Center Street that was divided into apartments. We had a massive living room, a dining room, a random room that made no sense, and a bedroom, where the only AC in the place sat in the window. Our massive living room had a little alcove with a fireplace, and double doors that opened up onto a porch. We hosted a lot in that home, with that massive living room. Our kitchen, however, did not having a dishwasher, something I promised myself I'd never live without again. Once we were having an MTC party (Chris worked there for several years) and we were short on time, so we shoved a bunch of dirty dishes (they were rinsed, in our defense) in a trash bag and hid them in the storage closet. Oh, those were the days. Our next door neighbor was the actor who played Pontius Pilate in the church video The Lamb of God, and I got a little thrown off every time I chatted with him. We were a bit further away from campus, so I rode a bike to and from school and work most days. I loved that slice of mansion. I was so sad when we left it to cross the great plains and settle in Tennessee, of all random places.

In Tennessee we found a spacious two bedroom, two bathroom apartment. I managed to get a full-time job on campus, with benefits and the works. To us, we were bringing in the bacon, and life was nice. One bathroom was decorated in UT decor, with bright orange bath mats with big white Power T's on them, and a shower curtain covered in little orange Power T's. The other bathroom was blue and brown. It was in the blue and brown bathroom that Chris and I stared in silent amazement at the plus sign on my pregnancy test, and it was in the Power T bathroom that I have the most distinct memory of puking up chili dogs a few weeks later (who eats chili dogs while pregnant? rookie mistake). A few months of praying after that plus sign, and I decided to quit my job when baby came. In preparation for a significant income cut, we moved into a smaller apartment. A smaller apartment when we find out we're having a baby? Yep, that's us.

But this smaller apartment, that place was precious to me. We decorated the small second bedroom in pale teal and pink and we waited for the big event. I continued working until 2 days before having Carly. I would work all day and come home and fall asleep instantly. Chris would wake me to eat the dinner he had prepared, and I'd go right to sleep afterwards. It was that smaller apartment, apartment 8D, that we brought our first baby home to for the first time. Chris was in his second year of his Masters, and I was nursing, so we had a deal that I would do those newborn nights. He slept on a sleeping bag in the living room floor. It was in that little apartment that I went storming into Chris crying and saying "I don't know what's wrong with her!" and his daddy touch would calm her down every time. It was in that little apartment that we enjoyed the Winter Olympics, the World Cup, and watched the Penguins win the Stanley Cup. Carly rolled, sat, crawled, and walked in that apartment. When we moved out, headed to Michigan of all random places, I watched 1-year-old Carly run around the empty space and I couldn't believe how far we'd come.

We have had exactly 1 home in Michigan, and we've now been here nearly three years. I have literally not lived in a home this long since I was 16. When we moved into this spacious, three-story townhouse, I was flying high. A washer and dryer in the basement, 2 large bedrooms upstairs, open living room and large kitchen. Carly's room was adorable, with a sky blue accent wall and lots of pink, purple, orange, and yellow. The three of us had a good thing going, and plenty of room to stretch our legs. You all know what happens next. When we brought the twins home, our home got instantly smaller. In the last few months they have shifted fully from babies to actual humans, and we are bursting out of our walls. We were so close to moving to a little rental house with 3 bedrooms and a fenced in backyard. I wanted that house so bad. I was decorating it in my mind. In the end, we couldn't take the financial hit. One more year, we keep saying. We can make it one more year.

We recently moved all the kids into the big bedroom. The results on sleep patterns has been somewhat catastrophic when combined with teething and our trip to Chicago. We're exhausted, but we're forging ahead, adjusting here and there to new routines and trying to sleep train a couple of spoiled toddlers. But you know what is wonderful? Waking up in a bedroom. Chris and I have been sleeping in the unfinished basement, and the last week of waking up in a room with walls and windows . . . magical.

Our three years in this home have held more blessings and challenges then we could have ever anticipated. Our big kitchen is a favorite dance floor. Our open living room is more of a playroom that happens to have couches. Our carpets are pounded by six little feet and covered in spilled sippy cups and crunched crackers. Our walls have been marked by crayons and wiped clean by magic erasers. While we have long grown out of this home, the prospect of leaving it tugs at my heart strings. It has been good to us. We have a very special brand of chaos, and this home has been its protector. Because while there is screaming and tantrums and the most perfect time-out corner at the bottom of the stairs, there have been bedtime prayers, tickle fights, Sunday naps, first steps, high-pitched giggles, splashing bath times, and sloppy kisses.

In the big open kitchen sits our kitchen table. We were given our table 6 years ago in Provo by a family friend who had (I think) 6 kids. It was old and marked up then; well-loved, if you will. They wanted to keep most of the chairs, but gave us two. That would be great, as we would surely get a new table before we needed more than two chairs. Six years later, and that old heavy table has moved to several homes in three states in different regions of the country. It is now covered in even more marks . . . paint from Carly crafting, marker from calendar scheduling, food coloring from cupcake decorating. It has the history of two families stained in its grain. It now has 5 chairs around it. Two are the original matching chairs. A third is painted in bright colors with designs and flowers. It was painted by Chris's late grandfather for Chris's sister, and is now Carly's beloved chair. I don't believe I will ever bring myself to paint over it. The final two chairs are $6 Walmart folding chairs. Yesterday they held two highchairs. Today they held two booster seats. Time really does move too quickly.

This table and set of mismatched chairs is a complete eyesore in my opinion. I have been saying for 6 years that we would get a new one. But it never even came close to a budget priority. A few months ago, a family moved in for a short time a few townhouses down. There were five kids in the family, a combination of half and step siblings. There was a dad and an aunt and a grandma. We are far from perfect, but it was obvious from the way the kids talked and behaved that they had a drastically different lifestyle than Carly. One Saturday we were playing on our back patio when the kids came by. They were mobbing the water table, leaving little room for the babies, and I was getting frustrated. The oldest girl, about 8, peeked through our glass back doors. She spied our table and 5 chairs. "You have a kitchen table?" she asked. "And you all sit around it?" Chills shot down my spine. My heart broke for her and I replied, "Yeah. Yeah we do." Her little brother piped up, "We don't even have a table."

That girl didn't noticed that our table was old. She didn't noticed that it was covered with marks, or that we had 5 crazily mismatched chairs. She noticed that we sat down and had family dinner together. And we do. Most nights, we do.

We don't do a lot right. I often feel we are kind of making this thing called life up as we go along. We have three kids and we're still in school. We scrape by. We live in homes that are too small, and do crazy things like sleep in sleeping bags in the living room and in unfinished basements. But our too small homes, I hope, always have the spirit in them. There are prayers and scripture study and on a good week maybe even a Family Home Evening lesson. In a regional conference of our church a few months ago, a speaker said, "What happens within the walls of our homes gives our children the strength to go outside those walls." These walls are sacred to me, and I pray that the laughter, the teaching, the play, the learning, and the praying that goes on within them will make our kids the good, strong people we hope they become.