Woohooie: 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.