Home is where the Army sends us...

And in this case, the Army sent us to Fort Campbell on the Tennessee/Kentucky border where we purchased our first home.  

Our beautiful home...the one we fell in love with almost instantly.  It was probably the 3rd house we looked at and even though there was only subflooring down, no kitchen and no bathroom fixtures, we knew it was the perfect house for our family.  

So many things happened to our family in this house.  Many wonderful things but some bittersweet and downright sad things.  This is the first house that Kemper will ever remember and a house that Hudson probably never will.  This is the home that Kemper mastered climbing the stairs and left his pudgy little handprints up and down the wall.  This is the home that Kemper and I returned to the day we said goodbye to James for his second deployment and this is the home that we welcomed him home to after a long 12 months.  This is the home that we brought Hudson home to and where he quickly added his pudgy handprints to the walls and learned to climb the stairs.  Kemper stood on the front steps of this home on his first day of Kindergarten and ran down the sidewalk each day from the bus stop.  This home holds so many memories.

This is the home where we welcomed friends who turned into part of our Army family.  This is the home where we planned for holidays and parties.  In this home, we gathered around the table with part of our Army family and celebrated Thanksgiving with delicious food, but most importantly, lifelong friends.  

Many kitchen disasters happened in this kitchen (and Pinterest disasters that James swears were attempts to poison him), but there were far more delicious meals and treats.  These counters held Kemper as he helped me cook and held Hudson while we gave him doses of medicine.  The counters were almost always cluttered with papers and drawings and mail.  The table where Kemper and I looked over his daily folder and worked on homework together for the first time.  Many donut dates took place in this kitchen and many rounds of "high point/low point" as we ate dinner.  

We entertained and threw birthday parties in this house.  So many amazing Army women gathered in our home for coffees and Christmas parties.  So many wonderful, amazing, thoughtful friends gathered to celebrate 4 of Kemper's birthdays and Hudson's first birthday.  As hard as we tried not to let them, toys cluttered this room and Matchbox cars left tiny tracks on the tables.  Picture frames and baskets were rearranged.  Coasters stacked and restacked because they're way more fun than blocks.  I always thought that this room looked most beautiful at Christmas with the tree twinkling and stockings hung on the mantle.  It has definitely been a room we haven't often used but it's always been cozy and welcoming to family and friends.  

This house is where Kemper got his big boy bed and his big boy room.  I was so terrified to move him out of the crib but when we did, we decided to completely give him a different room that was decorated for him.  Many changes have been made over the last few years but I have always loved this room and how it turned out.  Our marriage was tested when we painted the room but I loved how it turned out.  Kemper's hosted his first sleepover in this room with Joey when her family came to visit from North Carolina.  Toys seemed to multiply in this room and it seemed like we were always trying to cram just one more thing in here to keep it out of Hudson's reach...Legos, markers, all of the toys that come with tiny (tiny, tiny) pieces.  Kemper's own little corner of the world where he stores (and sometimes hides) his most prized possessions.

Our room was often the catch all, throw it in there and shut the door because company's coming room in the house.  Many Matchbox cars and tiny toys have graced the floors and my feet have always found them in the middle of the night.  Kemper and I spent almost every morning cuddling in my bed watching cartoons while James was deployed.  Hudson spent his first few weeks at home in our room next to my side of the bed.  We moved a rocking chair in our room where we spent MANY hours rocking and nursing.  Precious mornings of both boys joining us to snuggle and watch cartoons.  

Hudson spent the majority of his life sharing his room with the guest room.  He routinely got kicked out when visitors game but when we removed the guest bed and gave him his own room, he seemed to really love all the new space and toys.  MANY hours were logged in the rocking chair nursing and rocking him to sleep.  Many nights pacing in front of the crib trying to lull him to sleep, or sitting just outside of his room willing him to sleep.  Now he loves sitting in his little chair and listening to us read every night before bed.  Always the same books, with very few changes in our repertoire.  Goodnight Moon, Snuggle Puppy, But Not the Hippopotamus, Horns to Toes and In Between, and Are You a Cow? rounded out the favorites.  He went from barely taking up any of the changing pad to barely fitting on it.  This room went from Kemper's when he was in a crib, to Hudson's.  

The bonus room is what sold us on this house.  We walked in and immediately knew that this house fit our needs perfectly.  How blessed we have been to have this amazing second living space.  We were able to keep almost all of the toys upstairs in the playroom.  It has been our family room and the boys' playroom.  We've had movie nights, we've set up tents and forts, it has looked like a bomb went off more times than not and it has hosted our families when we moved our guest mattress in after Hudson came along.  It has hosted MANY playdates, a few early Christmas mornings and Santa visits.  It is where our second Christmas tree has always gone because it just doesn't seem right not to be able to see a Christmas tree from the front of the house.  Babies have played on this floor and those babies have grown into big kids who have run around and wrestled on this floor.  

This house has been such a blessing and will always hold a piece of my heart.  We moved into this house as a family of 3 and are moving out as a family of 4.  We moved into this house without knowing a single soul and are moving out with hearts full of amazing friends who have visited and hung out in our house.  

Home is where the Army sends us and it sure knew what it was doing when it sent us here.