Today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year. 2016 is the Year of the Monkey! Known for being resourceful, creative and intelligent (especially with finances), the Monkey is the ninth animal in the Chinese New Year cycle. This means that the next Year of the Monkey won’t be until 2028.

At home, I have my own “5 little monkeys” … they keep my husband and I busy, entertained and moving non-stop! When I met my husband, on our very first date, I remember telling him that I wanted to have a very big family someday. As luck (and fate) would have it, he did too.

We had our first baby, our son William on September 25^th, 2004 while living in NYC. Our next baby, Alexander came 12 months and 3 days later on September 28^th, 2005. Two babies, back to back was overwhelming, especially since we were living in a one-bedroom apartment in NYC! When I found out I was pregnant with a 3^rd baby 6 months later (hello to our Benjamin!) … we moved back to Rhode Island (where I’m originally from), and into our very first house.

We found a beautiful 4-bedroom Colonial that needed some tender loving care – but after living in such a small space in NYC – our new home was like a sprawling estate! We officially got our keys on January 5^th, 2006… and for the first time as a family, we truly felt at home.

Let me fast forward 10 years.

Our home has been wonderfully good to us. We welcomed 2 more babies in the last 10 years… our Henry and our Victoria! 5 kids – 4 boys, 1 girl… this house has seen a lot and definitely hears a lot. William is now 11, Alexander is now 10, Benjamin is now 8, Henry is now 7, and our Victoria is now 2 years old. When we fell in love with this house 10 years ago, we weren’t thinking about anything other than the fact that we needed space for our family to grow in. We wanted a yard. We wanted a driveway. We wanted a safe neighborhood for the kids to play outside in. We wanted room to have people come visit. We wanted the kids to have their own special spaces in the house. We wanted – what everyone wants – a place to just call our own, a home.

As a family of 7 now, life at home takes on a whole new kind of meaning. We’ve actually started to outgrow this house. This house that was so big and sprawling to us 10 years ago is slowly caving in on us. Our 4 boys share one bedroom (because we converted our smallest bedroom into a closet – it was THAT tiny of a room), which was fine a couple of years ago – but now (with 2 of them almost my size!), it’s tough. There’s still the tender, loving care that needs to be put into our home, but now with busy schedules, it’s tough to fit everything in (and believe me, we’re BIG DIY’ers!). All of a sudden… our hearts are just telling us that it’s time to move our little monkeys to a new home. Find a new place to set roots, and watch them grow.

I’m beyond excited to share that I have partnered with Owners.com to make this dream a reality. Owners.com is an online real estate platform offering end-to-end transaction services for buying and selling a home, including the ability to list your home for a flat fee and not pay the typical commission. That’s a nice chunk of change for the college savings account! It’s very cool because Owners.com presents a new model for today’s buyer and seller known as self-directed real estate. If you have ever bought or sold you probably did a bit of work on your own right? Whether you found your own home online before calling an agent, or you prepped your home for sale by making changes that you knew would get you the best price. Owning the experience and feeling empowered is becoming more and more popular.

We’re thrilled to be starting our journey with Owners.com and even more, it will be so fun to share the process with you here throughout the next year. Selling our house has not been an easy decision for us to make. It’s an emotional decision, as well as a physical one. Our house is part of our lives… it’s the only home my children know and love. It’s scary for them to think about moving to a new area and a new place.

During the year I’m going to be sharing with you what we’re doing to get ourselves ready to sell through Owners.com. We have a few projects lined up before putting it on the market becomes an option. So if you are in the same boat- hop in as we work with their team of experts to empower all of us. We put the official thumbs up on January 1^st, 2016 to making this dream a reality for us… and we know it’s something that will be a journey – but an exciting one!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored posting with Owners.com. All opinions are 100% my own.