Almost 4 years...

 We have lived in this apartment for more than 3.5 years. I always like taking pictures of the places I live to look back and see how my home evolves over time according to our needs. As I look back over the last 4 years of my life with my husband it is fun to see how much has changed. As I am preparing to pack everything up that we own and move to a new place, I wanted to show you where, and how we have lived for what felt like so long but really was very little. Since so many people we care about have never seen our current home, this will be my tribute to my newlywed years. Our first home, our diplomas, our first child, our first real jobs and many other things all started or finished in this place.

 This is the then of my living room... this was the first summer we lived here.

 And this is now. You can see that I have started to practice my long time enjoyment of decorating.

 This was our first table that I got at the thrift store and our bookshelves before we overflowed with books. It looks so clean and open in our apartment back then.

 And now, its a little more full.

Back when there was room to eat in the bay window...

 Now it is our office, our little guy got the second bedroom. At first this was hard for my husband, but as soon as he had every thing set up in this little nook he started to like it. I even heard him refer to it as his command center on occasion.

 Our current table. We quickly outgrew the round one. We used an outdoor picknick table for a long time before I got this one.

 Yeah, this pretty much sums up my least favorite part of our home. This is what our kitchen looks like, it didn't change much from before. I swear they do not build these apartments for people who cook.

And for the most private room of the home. These days I hardly ever show anyone what it looks like. I decided that it was my room, and that it was wierd to show it to people who came over to our home. So the door is mostly shut now, but it is my favorite room. Above is then... Below is the now.

Since we moved in I was able to get a few large wool rugs and all new bedroom furniture. When I say new I really mean old but new to me. I love old furniture painted or not. It gives such a history to my home.

 And the most special room of the apartment is where Bubbie sleeps. He is a really great independent player and I think he does a lot of learning and imagining in this room. Sometimes he goes in there and is really quiet and after a while I start to worry about him. When I check on him he is usually only playing quietly with his toys. I didn't ever take a picture of this room before because it was our home office, or should I say my husbands room. No matter how hard I tried I could never make it look organized or nice.

When I was pregnant we decided to decorate it in a pirate theme. It was really fun painting and sewing things to make this room special.

As I am starting to pack up I am realizing that it is a little sad to move. This has been the only home we have known as a family and as much as I gripe about its flaws I do think I will miss parts of it.