I'm living a lie

Living in a "staged" home is beginning to wear on us, but our house has never been cleaner. Check out my Chicago Parent post.

Another house update

We toured our new house last Friday and since the walls have all been framed, we could finally feel what the space is like for the first time. Our living room is huge, the dining room seems like it is going to be perfectly proportioned for our furniture, and the family room off of the open kitchen is a little smaller than I'd envisioned.

All of the bedrooms are fantastic and the place is absolutely flooded with natural light from all the windows.

I've picked our siding (James Hardie fiber cement lap siding in Timber Bark), the trim (an aluminum cladding in Silver Mist) and our roofing material (GAF Timberline HD in   Weathered Wood), and every element of the kitchen has been selected save the hardware, which I continue to overthink.

Roof is on

View of living room from dining room

Me, in our bedroom

The girls, posing by two back bedrooms

The backyard looks bigger without a forest of weeds

Last weekend was a good weekend

I left work Friday a reeling a little from an unexpected reorg, but immediately met my friend Anna and headed up to Belmont Harbor for some trapeze action. We'd purchased a LivingSocial voucher 3 months ago for a picnic/Trapeze School NY Chicago experience and it was So. Much. Fun. Not only did we get to fly on the trapeze (and execute a "catch" while hanging from our knees--you can see the video here), we learned some fun partner acrobatic moves that I can't wait to ambush our friends with at the next get-together.

Then on Sunday, after spending the morning with Ada in her 1st grade Hebrew School family class, we had lunch at Smoque BBQ and spent the afternoon at the Renegade Craft Fair, which has grown absolutely enormous. The kids found all the child-friendly activities (photo booths, print-making and petting dozens of doggies) while I fingered scarves and handbags and ultimately bought some fancy soap. Actually, the kids made out better than me--Ada got a fox mask and Zoe scored a Megan Lee t-shirt to match Josh's.