Dear renters

Dear Renters, 

Today, we cleaned your house.  Today we tried to take away all the  marks that turned a house into a home.   It is now spotless and ready to go.  But, if you still find some, please know that leaving our literal mark on the world actually happened out of love.

Also, if you find some marks, please recognize all that we covered up today.

1) The scuffs from drudging a  baby carrier through the front door.  

Aspen meeting A. on her first trip through the door.

K. on his way home for the first time.

Aspen and A. meeting K.

2) The marks from the wagon wheels against the foyer walls from taking the kids and dogs on walks night after night.  It was one of these walks where I met one of my closest friends when I was 9 months pregnant with A.  One of those walks led to baby running away which, thankfully stopped the horrible phase where A. was running away from us all the time.  

3) The marks from the rocking chair in A. and then K.'s nursery.  I can't tell how many nights I spent rocking sweet babies to sleep.  

4) The red paint marks on the bathroom door from one of A.'s first temper tantrums.  I told her "no" to something and she carried on and on for so long that I left her alone to "figure it out"  I put myself in the bathroom and locked the door.  She took her little maraca and banged. banged. banged until she decided whatever happened was no longer worth the effort.  I made her little 2 year old self clean it up but, it wasn't until today when Mr. Clean's magic eraser and I really got it out.

5)  The many many dots of paint and crayon wax covering the corner of the sun room from making Aunt Stacy's melted crayon birthday master piece.  That hour of fun took me about an hour of no fun to get off today.

6) The polk a dots from A.'s big girl room and the stripes from K.'s nursery 

7) I also cleaned a lot of cabinets.  In them, I found bits of shredded paper probably from this

 and about 100 lentils probably from this.

 I guess Mommy's rule about messes isn't very effective.

Really, renters, what I'm saying is that we loved that house.  It was the home where we went from a family of 2 to a family of 4.  Our kids learned to walk, talk, and pee on the potty there.  We had our first family dinners there and hosted our first holidays there.  

Now, we are moving to a new home where we will watch our kids go to school and play sports.  It will be the next step in our lives.

We ask that the marks that you leave, be marks of love and keeping that sweet house a home.  

Thank you,

love the Collins family

ps. we left the really light pink stenciled bow on the fireplace mantel because it took us 2 years to even notice that it was there.  Then it made us laugh every time we looked at it.  It's our little gift to you.