Moving Day

We close on both our houses tomorrow!!! YAY!!!! The sellers of the house we bought graciously let us move in 4 days early so we moved the majority of our things on Saturday. It was SO great seeing our things again and letting the kids play with their long lost toys they haven't seen for at least a few weeks (and many they hadn't seen since we put our house on the market!) I think we can just skip Christmas this year since everything is new to them again ;)

A "first glimpse" of our new home in the country!

Getting the U-Haul all packed up

Some of our help on Saturday!! THANK YOU to everyone who helped us on Saturday and Sunday!

Aaron worked an overnight on Friday night and went straight to packing up the truck on Saturday morning instead of sleeping. He was EXHAUSTED by 6:00pm on Saturday night so he crashed with the kids (who didn't have naps and were pretty tired!)

 

My parents and I took Connor and grabbed a few more things from our old house and as I drove up to our new house, I looked out and saw this sunset and savored the moment! We had just come from a very loud, downtown house and when I pulled up, all I could hear was a gentle breeze outside. After everyone had left, all I did was sit in silence and soak up the quietness....some people are just made to live in the country and my husband and I are those people :)

 

More to come later! I'm trying to decide what needs to be unpacked next!

Meeting Family

Because the last 3 months of life have been just a LITTLE crazy, we haven't been able to travel to see some members of the family! Aaron's brother and his wife had a beautiful baby boy in September and we were SOOO excited when we formed a plan to meet them in Iowa to see him! We stopped by my grandma's house on the way there...she got to meet Connor for the first time! It was a busy day but well worth it!

 

Connor just slept all afternoon and liked meeting his great-grandma

Our newest nephew, Drake! What a cute little guy!!

Eating a meal with 4 kids under 4=total success! Seriously, they all did great and it was so fun catching up with family!

 

Tomorrow consists of getting the rest of our house packed up! We start moving in on Saturday!! YAY!!!!

Things I'll Miss....and Things I Won't Miss

All 3 kids are in bed (the 2 older ones are not sleeping but at least they're slightly quiet giving me a little breather) and I was reminiscing about when we moved into our current house. I've learned so much through this house-it's kind of hard to put it into words but I'll give it a shot.

Some things I'll miss about this house:
*The way that it made me appreciate the small things. It led to a simpler life for us and I'm grateful for that. We didn't NEED all that we had before....a small space was enough.

*The way it made me contemplate hospitality. Soon after we had Tristen, my husband wanted to be intentional about hospitality. My excuse was always, "We don't have enough room" and my thoughts were very "me-centered" (is my house good enough? Will people judge our current situation? Will I appear poor?) My husband and a sermon from John Piper(I think it was him but it's been so long ago I could be wrong!) made me reevaluate hospitality. The sermon told about a sweet older lady who lived in an apartment and felt the Lord's leading to invite new couples to her home for Sunday dinner. She could have used all the excuses that I had but instead, she obeyed and after a few weeks, she had SO many people in her small apartment....she didn't shy away from inviting people because of the space she had. It was huge in my life when I finally came to this realization. Just the other day, we crammed 9 high school guys into our small dining room to play games. And you know what? I heard laughter and good talks going on.....I pray our house has been used for God's kingdom and I'm so grateful for the way it has challenged me to be more hospitable.

*The coziness of having all 3 bedrooms close together.

*The late night feedings with each one of my kids. Connor is already sleeping through the night so the days of multiple night feedings are gone and I slightly miss it :)

*The amount of time it took to clean my house top to bottom! It could be done in less than an hour which is SO great when we had children!

*The way it made me deal with conflict. It's a small space so you kind of HAVE to deal with things out in the open since there's nowhere to run to :) I think I needed that in life.

*Having to be REALLY creative with space. It challenged me and I think (hope!) I'm a better organizer because of it.

Some things I won't miss:
*Days like today where I'm trying to keep my kids quiet while my husband sleeps. Something I didn't mention before is that the full time job he took is actually the overnight shift. My husband tries to sleep during the day in a house that is loud....needless to say my husband is pretty sleep deprived at the moment.

*Not having any personal space. We were planning out our new home and I was dreaming about how much I'm going to enjoy having space that I can actually breathe in again! We have such tight quarters at the moment that we don't have any place just to have to ourselves.

*Giving my kids a bath in the shower :) HA! Bet you didn't know that about us....my kids have had maybe 5 baths in an actual bathtub (when they would visit grandparents). We only have a shower in our house so we have had to makeshift bathtime for 3 years. I will definitely not miss that!

*Having my clothes closet under my bed :) We don't have a real closet in our house so I've had my clothes under the bed for the last 4 years that we've lived here. So very excited to have not one but many closets in our new home.

*Living on a busy street. I know I won't always be able to protect them and I need to entrust my kids to the Lord but living on a busy street has stolen a bit of joy from our household. We can't let our kids run and play outside because we fear they will run into the street...again, something I won't miss :)

But, this has been such a good house to us. There were so many uncertain times in our life in the last 4 years and this house offered us stability. There were lots of tears shed here but many MANY happy and joyful times too. I'll look back fondly on it and remember our first few years with the kids and the coziness that it brought to our lives. It was a blessing and we will miss this place.

Boxes, Boxes!

I'm doing so much better since I last wrote! I can lift Connor but can't lift the other 2 for a few more weeks still. This has forced us to transition Aubrey to a toddler bed (well, more like her mattress is on the floor since we're in the middle of moving!!). That girl LOVES her newfound freedom! Ahh! :) I guess we needed to transition her sometime soon anyway but I was hoping to make all the big changes once we got to the new home (getting rid of the paci that she's obsessed with, potty training, and transitioning into a toddler bed) Today is the first day she's actually sleeping during naptime so that's improvement!

The kids have been awesome about being independent though. Tristen is not even 4 yet and has really "grown up" in the last 2 weeks and I so needed that! He can use the bathroom all by himself (which helped a ton since our bathroom is on the 2nd floor and the stairs were the hardest for me), get ready for the day, and he even got breakfast ready for his sister and himself one morning :) Now I know what he's capable of!

Something else that has been SO fun to see him do is start Awana Cubbies at our church! He learned his first Bible verse which was pretty stinkin' cute! (even when he started shouting it and saying it over and over and over and over! Ha!) :) I'm so proud of him!

 

This weekend we put the majority of our possessions in boxes and moved them to the front of our house. Even though I'm so excited about moving into our new home in 2 weeks, there's still a bit of sadness about this place we've called home for 4 1/2 years. There are so many memories from this house and I want to cherish the last 2 weeks here...and not get too stressed about all the details that need to be worked out in the next 2 weeks :)

 

Thanks for reading, all!

Post Surgery

Well, I'm home and recovering! Yesterday I had my surgery and all went well. They did a test to make sure a gallstone hadn't gone into my bile duct and thankfully it hadn't so recovery should be a little easier.

The thing I was most nervous about was being put under. I have a hard time going to sleep at night so I was wondering if I'd be that person who couldn't be put under. Ummm, yeah, don't remember a thing! They must have drugged me before I knew what was happening :)

Funny story-When I was waking up, I was apparently "comforting a baby" by patting my shoulder and saying, "It's OK, it's OK" You can tell I have an infant at home :)

I definitely feel like I've been through surgery though. I'm pretty sore and tired but all in all, I'm doing good. Hopefully I'll update again soon but a nap is calling my name :)