house hunting – ittybittywhitty

little feet, little hands, little baby

To celebrate my blogs new appearance I wanted to look back at all of my different title taglines that the old original template lived through. These taglines changed throughout the past 3 years as our life has evolved and I love the story it tells.

May 20, 2016May 20, 2016 ittybittywhittyLeave a comment

After three years of blogging, I decided it was time for a blog facelift!

The blog started with a post titled “Home is where one starts from” – a line from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. This was a fitting beginning to our story having just become husband and wife and going through the process of buying our first home. I can remember that time like it was yesterday, eagerly anticipating our life ahead with such excitement and wonder. The reason I can remember the feeling so well is because today I am still filled with the same excitement for what is to come. Our next chapter was bringing home our French Bulldog, Rooney, and realizing that our hearts grew in size as our new love for this silly boy filled them. “Puppy makes three” was a fitting tagline for our new chapter as our life as doggy parents began. I couldn’t imagine how dull our life could have been without our sweet bundle of Rooney in it. He makes us smile every single day and that totally makes up for all of the mischief he gets into!

That leads to the present tagline and the title of this post – “little feet, little hands, little baby”. This is a line from Dave Matthews Band’s song, So Much To Say. Bryan and I both have a strong love for Dave Matthews Band and the line just seemed to fit this next chapter perfectly when we welcomed our daughter, Lucy. Lucy’s entrance into our family has truly been the most amazing chapter of all. I cannot put into words the amount of love we have for her. To honor this current tagline, please find my photos below which reflect the line by showing Lucy’s “little feet, little hands”, our perfect “little baby”.

love & lots of whit – jen xo

The Walk Through

August 21, 2013August 21, 2013 ittybittywhitty3 Comments

Sneaking a quick post in today – ONE day until we settle and we are happy to report that there were NO SURPRISES! Our HUD-1 final settlement statement came in at the amount we expected (actually a tiny bit UNDER which was an extra bonus). After work we met up with our realtor and did our final walk through and there were no problems to be found – in fact it was even more perfect than I remembered it! The biggest surprise to me was how big our walk in closet is – I literally forgot about the details of the house since we haven’t seen it in so long! We also found out that the previous owners are leaving us their lawnmower and trashcans which will save us some money that we otherwise would have had to spend immediately! All-in-all a very good pre-homebuying day!

Seeing this also out front put a HUGE smile on our faces:

My Thoughts on Packing

August 12, 2013August 21, 2013 ittybittywhittyLeave a comment

Why is packing the worst thing ever?

When you have as much junk from the past as I do from never having to condense or prepare for a REAL move – it can take forever! I spent most of my weekend trying to de-clutter and sort through my stuff. Well, realistically, it was an hour of de-cluttering, an hour of complaining about de-cluttering, an hour of watching HGTV dreaming about having a house, and then back to de-cluttering again with the new motivation after watching the nice homes on HGTV. Vicious cycle.

The categories of piles were KEEP, SELL, DONATE, TRASH. I don’t know if it is just me or what – but somehow I get emotionally attached to EVERYTHING. Do I really need to save my history notes from high school, my very first video camera that only records to VHS, my Halloween costumes from the past 10 years? Luckily I was able to trash a LOT of it. I have bags of clothes to donate, and I have a stack of things to give to my dad for his next big yard sale. On the other hand, I have a collection of old cellphones (maybe I should consider opening my own vintage Verizon store?) that are still tentatively in the keep pile, and don’t even try to get me to be able to part with these stuffed animal’s Bryan has won for me over the years in the claw machines!

we love you, jennifer

For now they will just live in a box in our storage room until the next time I have to de-clutter!

As this week continues I will continue to de-clutter, clean, and pack. Luckily for Bryan, he has already moved many times so he doesn’t have anywhere near as much as I do. For now I will just keep telling myself that the less we have to move, the easier it will be on us. In the end it will all be worth it!

love & lots of whit – jen xo

What are some packrat items YOU have that you can’t bear to part with?

Home is where one starts from.

Our story starts when my husband Bryan and I first met.

August 5, 2013May 13, 2016 ittybittywhittyLeave a comment

As the title of my first blog states – Home is where one starts from. I believe that this is true, though I would like to add a bit more to it!

Our story starts when my husband Bryan and I first met. The chapters started slow, but by the time we reunited and started to spend time with one another and start dating – the story started moving at lightning speed! After only 8 months and 26 days of dating – Bryan proposed. On May 11, 2013 we were married and our fairytale English Garden themed wedding was a day we will never forget. You can watch our wedding video below made by my talented friend Chris Roederer.

After our wedding, we had the most amazing honeymoon in the British Virgin Islands. It was the trip of a lifetime and we will always remember our honeymoon as true paradise.

And now is where HOME comes in. After two months of being married – we decided to start the house-hunting process. We initially didn’t intend on buying a house until about a year after we were married, but we quickly realized that interest rates were on the rise and in order to guarantee a lower rate – now was the time to act. House-hunting was a whirlwind of mixed emotions. As first time home buyers – it’s safe to say that I was literally CLUELESS about the whole process. We quickly learned our budget and found it hard to find something decent in our area and in our price range. Being in Maryland – the cost of living is pretty high. Several times during the process we day-dreamed of moving south where our budget would buy us a much larger home – but with our jobs, family, and friends here, we knew we couldn’t leave our hometown. After many home tours of the good, the bad, and the downright disgusting – we finally made our first bid on a house that was in our dream neighborhood. Sadly, we were outbid but that is when we heard the best piece of advice – which at the time sounded cliché. The advice was that everything happens for a reason, and if it is meant to be – it will happen. We were very discouraged but only a week later a house popped up on our lists after a previous prospective buyers’ finances fell through. We looked at this house that same night, and had won our contract on it by the next day. Needless to say, we were SO excited.

That is where the present comes in. It is almost as if we are at an intermission in our story. The contract is ours, but now we are waiting on the final paperwork and loans to be approved. Our tentative settlement date is August 22. We are positive that this is what that advice meant; this house is larger and newer than the other we placed a bid on AND less expensive. It is also the nicest house we have seen throughout the entire house-hunting process.

We are very hopeful & will keep the updates coming!

love & lots of whit – jen xo

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