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.)

the new house

I really thought we'd be living in our current house for another ten years or so. It wasn't our plan to move this soon. But, we can't see what will come, and our best laid plans are just plans. Here we are. Moving. Again.

This new house is very different. It's much more like the house we lived in two houses ago. It's 15 years old and BIG. It's in very good condition, just needing some cracks fixed up, holes patched, and walls painted. The couple we purchased it from were the original owners (I think) and they never had children. As far as we can tell, the paint on the walls is the original builder's white. They've kept white paint in good condition for 15 years. There are some things about the house that make me wonder if they were here much at all or ever had guests over. At any rate, I'm afraid with 5 kids, a big dog, a cat, and plenty of gatherings, this poor house won't know what hit it :)

The main reason for getting such a big house is that part of it is going to be converted into an apartment for my parents. They live an hour away and everyone agreed it was just the best decision all around for them to move up to where my family and my sister's family lived. Having their own private space in this house will, we all hope, be a great situation. Mom and Dad are excited about the change and happy to be able to see their grandchildren so much.

My favorite thing about the house is the windows. And the high ceilings. And the floor plan. And the huge kitchen island. There's a back staircase, too! Cosmetically, it's pretty vanilla right now, but I know the power of paint from experience, right? :) But with all the transition in store for us as we get Mom and Dad's space ready and we all adjust to a new normal, I know the painting projects are going to need to be at a fairly slow pace. First things first... and that means getting 9 people safe, comfortable, cozy, and cared for.

Here's the main floor of the house :)

That's it. I wonder how long it will take for it to feel like home. Friends help. We've had 17 people in it within the first day and a half of receiving the keys. Three of the older girls best friends were here to help us clean on Friday night. Church friends old and new were here. My sister has been out of town, but she gets home tonight and I'm sure she and I will get over there tomorrow. The more happy times with sweet, familiar faces in this new house the better. It's a great house for big groups. Which is good, because when Mom, Dad, the seven of us, and my sister's family are all together there are 14 of us. And I think we'll be together a lot :)

Moving

So...

Hi :)

It's been a while. To say the least. But here I am :) And I have news!

We're moving.

These boxes were in my foyer this morning, but they're at the new house now! We closed on it yesterday, cleaned it last night, and had our first moving day today. Craziness. There's lot to catch you all up on, but for tonight let's just take a look at a few photos from the weekend and the first 36 hours after receiving the keys :)

We had so much fantastic help cleaning on Friday night. The house was already very clean, but it just doesn't feel right to me to move my family in somewhere without knowing what has and hasn't been done. Is that weird?

Then this morning, Sam rented a 26 ft. truck and six friends of his came to help us move the first stage of our stuff... trampoline, outdoor furniture, many boxes of books, a sofa that has belonged to Sam's grandma, a few chairs, a loveseat, all the attic stuff, most of the garage stuff... things like that. But not the main stuff we use day to day. We are still living here through Christmas. The next phase of the move will happen around the New Year.

The new house is just across town, so that part was really easy and nice.

For the whole first part of the day, our oldest daughter stayed with the other kids at home while we got through the bulk of the loading and unloading. Then, around 1pm, I picked them all up and brought them to the new house for pizza. We wound up being there for another four hours... which was a long time for the youngest two. But, they lived.

Hope has a bruise on her forehead from sword-fighting with her brother. She's four now! Can you believe it???

Cate fell asleep after lunch and stayed knocked out on the pink couch (yes, it's pink) for a couple of hours.

I was really excited Sam was able to get the trampoline up before it got dark. It was only down for a few days while it made the move :) This was last year's Christmas gift to the kids.

After we closed on the house yesterday, I went to Target and bought a celebratory candle. I think it's called Under the Mistletoe. It has a really nice, not too overpowering Christmasy scent. This photo reminds me so much of one of my first posts on this blog. Just after we moved in to the current house. I guess I'm always hoping candles will make houses feel like home faster :)

It's nice to have a few of our things in the new house now. We won't actually be living there for two more weeks, but we will be spending time there quite a bit before then. We're planning to start painting the kids' bedrooms on Monday. I'm thrilled we get to do that before moving in!

I snapped a few more shots right before we left to come home late this afternoon. It's fun to think of how these rooms will develop over time. And it's fun to see some of our home moving to a new place.

I'll show more of the new house soon! Now I'm going to go heat my back! I turned 40 while I was away. Ha.