We're Moved In!

This house is our fifth house. We'll celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary next month, and in that time we've moved four times. That seems like a lot to me! I think our third move was our hardest. We were moving 30-35 minutes away and thought we could make little trips with the van for a lot of our stuff... ahem...(don't do that unless you're moving really close). We didn't have much time to prepare, we had 4 children ages six and under, and it was Christmastime. Hard. This move was also at Christmastime, but although it probably wasn't our easiest (we have a LOT of stuff between the seven of us), it really was on the easy end of the spectrum. I would say it was well paced. We had time to stretch it out a bit and even get the kids' rooms painted before moving in. The gradual pace meant we also had time to unpack as we went and get things feeling fairly settled quickly. I'm so, so thankful for that! Historically, I haven't done well with moving. The limbo of not feeling like the new house is home yet, but the old house isn't home anymore... I'm kind of a baby about that part. I hate feeling so unsettled. So, being able to have a good bit of the house set up already is a huge deal for me. I don't take it for granted.

Our friends have helped so much, too. And my sister and her family. Oh my. What would I do without them? Seriously. Friends to help clean, to help unpack, to help remove the basement handrail and force a full-size freezer down the steps, friends to bring meals. I am so thankful for all of them and the ways they've shown love to us.

I picked up my camera this afternoon. I wanted to remember they way things looked this first week here. We first slept in the new house on Saturday night. This is our fourth full day. It feels... homey (?) but still kind of surreal. Like it's ours and familiar but it isn't and it's not. Moving is so weird, isn't it?

Here is the house around 3:30pm today. I didn't move much around. Some things are just as I want them and some I'm really antsy to change. Kinda crazy that this is our home now.

Now, time to feed everybody and get out the door for AWANA!

(I just had to mention that I shot all these in jpeg and didn't edit them at all. The white balance is making me crazy, but I'm making myself deal with it. Kind of.)