Move Day(s)...

Be prepared.... this is a marathon post!!

We picked up the Uhaul for our move on a Wednesday afternoon right at closing time. (I won't go into the bad experience i had trying to get them to honor my reservation). The boys were esctatic that we were taking this huge truck home! I mean - ECSTATIC! Uncle Todd met me at the uhaul place & drove it home thankfully because Randy wasn't off work yet & i wasn't about to get behind the wheel of that monstrosity! It took up our entire driveway! It was 26 feet long!
About 5 minutes (literally) before our help arrived, the bottom fell out of the sky. Seriously, it was a monsoon for about 75% of that evening. Bastian & Brian both stayed regardless though & were troopers. Theresa luckily (for me) stayed & helped me reign in the kids & keep my head from spinning off too! She's good like that! Here, the guys were making a run for it to come in for take-out hibachi that i picked up in the flood.... Once Rebecca got home from church, she came over & relieved all of them & we (Randy, Rebecca, & myself), finished off most of the remainder boxes. That mainly just left the cleaning & last minute boxes for Thursday after work. Randy ended up calling in to work on Thursday though because the new homeowners wanted to do the walkthrough that evening & we knew the house wasn't going to be ready if we both worked. So Randy & his dad cleaned Thursday & that evening we packed up the random outdoor stuff that needed to be moved & drove Randy's truck over to his parents for the evening (since we would have an extra vehicle with the Uhaul!) Needless to say, Randy's truck looked like Sanford & Son driving down the street....The boys stayed the night with Mema & Grandad which was kinda sad for me. Eli had never spent the night away from us before & apparently, they both cried for us that night. I guess all the change was getting to them too! But even though they were a tad stressed, we still were able to get more done & be ready for closings the next day with them gone. I told Randy that our first night in that house we spent the night just the two of us with Gracie (the dog) & the final night we spent the night just us & Lola (the cat). She was NOT happy & kept trying to escape when i would give her a little freedom from the bathroom! She preferred the house full of boxes i think to the empty house!
She really wanted to go out! And poor thing, she had NO idea that she wasn't going to be going back out for awhile yet!
I took a few last minute shots of the house when it was empty. It was kind of sad & i tried not to think about it too much.
There are so many memories in this house, both good & bad- but that is what makes it our life together here, right?! It was our first home, we brought both our babies home here, i rocked a baby for the first (& maybe last?) time here, we have great memories of the first 8 years of our marriage here & it just seems odd to walk away from it, even though we are going to make new memories at our new house. I literally teared up at the attorney's office when i handed over the keys! Randy looked at me & said, "don't you even start it!" Ha! But the couple moving in here is getting married in the fall & they can't be any more than 22, in all seriousness! But they seemed so excited & that made it a little easier! So, once we finished that closing we started the second which was for the new house & the rest is history! Our great realtor gave us this cute little cake!
Thankfully we had so much help from men at church to get us moved in on that Friday afternoon & it was in the high 90's - HOT HOT HOT!! But they were such a blessing! We had the Uhaul unloaded (& the contents in their proper rooms), as well as the storage unit loaded in the truck & unloaded in the house all in 4.5 hours! Can you believe that??? It was awesome. And i was so blessed to have my dad & stepmom come up & they set up all our furniture- so we had a sofa to sit on & beds to sleep in! ahhhhhh- it was nice- especially after Rebecca & Marie stayed until 10:30pm & we got my ENTIRE kitchen set up & unpacked. That was such a load off of my chest & has made the rest of the unpacking so bearable. Everyone has really pitched in to help us & we are so appreciative! Everyone has done something, & we don't take it for granted! Jeremy even mowed our grass that night & cousin Becca took the kids out for the day on Saturday to help us get set up more in the house! So, THANKS EVERYONE, we could NOT have done it without you ALL! We are pooped!

Final Week at 148......

{Leaving for church for the final time from this house! Aren't they sweet?}

Well, this is our final week at this house & it shows! We have boxed & packed until we just can't take it anymore! The house is a total wreck but that is what it has to look like before we can move it all out, i guess. My brother & sister in law (uncle jeff & aunt malissa) came up today & we "traded" our TV armoire for the matching couch that he had (that matched our love seat/chair combo). All of which (both the living room set & armoire) used to belong to Grandaddy & Grandma Tee. We won't be able to use the armoire in the new house, so we didn't want to move it. So luckily, Uncle Jeff wanted it. (He hated moving it though- it was the one peice of furniture that Randy dreaded moving from the get-go. It is massive & heavy!) So at least one big piece of furniture is already gone!
We have had to do a lot this weekend because Randy is working all week & I am working wed/thurs myself. Sooo, that makes for an interesting week since closing is Friday morning. So basically, we have to be ready to be moved out by the time we leave for work on Wednesday morning. After work, we will pick up the Uhaul & start loading Wednesday evening with the big stuff from Randy's shop & the larger furniture & appliances. Then the plan is to move the boxes into the Uhaul on Thursday evening & clean the house. Whew, i am tired just thinking about what lays in store for us this week. I am sure we will be worthless before the actual move-in! The move out just might do us in since we are having to drag it out all week! But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? Here are some pictures from the last few days....

{the living room looks like a tornado went through it! Broken down furniture & boxes everywhere!}

{while Randy worked in the yard & i worked in the house, we wasted some water & let the kids play in the sprinkler to keep them a) entertained & happy and b) out of the way!}

{I am sure you can see the total stress this is causing Lola. I mean, this is about to send her over the edge- can you tell!? (sense the sarcasm!) No but seriously, she is so relaxed & stretched out that she almost fell off the edge of the bed! She just cracks me up when she lounges like this.....}

{and this leg, all propped up on the pillow.... she totally thinks she owns the place!}

Approved!! (officially!)

We didn't have any worries about actually getting approved for our new home loan, but it sure was nice to receive THIS in an email from our loan officer:

"Congratulations! Your loan is approved and has been given to my closing
co-coordinator. The loan package should go to the attorney's office
within 48 business hours."

Whoooo Hoooooo, we are on our way. This time next week, we will be literally sleeping on mattresses on the floor & those mattresses should be the only things left in the house, not loaded on the UHaul yet. Pretty crazy, huh?

Now let's pray that the guy buying this house has already gotten the same email from his lender!!

What fun packing can be.....

..........for a cat, that is!!! Lola has been having a good 'ole time while i have been busy packing! She hides in & out of the boxes, then pounces (at nothing really!)..... see her hiding behind that box?She also has been playing in the paper, pouncing in & out & hiding inside of it all.....
She even tasted some.... as you can see from her licking her chops!
Her friskiness has come back full force since all these supplies have been hanging around. She runs laps across the living room at night too- which sends Randy's blood pressure on up! I think it is funny myself! All this playing & romping tires a girl out.......
Such a sweet girl. I love it when she snoozes with her paws up at her face like this!

Oh, the boxes!

{i couldn't resist a picture of this in front of the new house}

Stress is kickin' in over at our house. Tomorrow marks the one week mark for when we pick up the Uhaul to start loading up for our move. And as much preparing as i have done, i don't feel like i am going to be ready. I have just begun to feel the pressure & to try & counteract it, this morning i treated myself to a cappucino blast from Baskin' Robbins. I have to say, it took the edge off for a few minutes! Ha!
The boxes are closing in around me.....
{the office- this is what i call the packing zone...... where i have been keeping all the supplies, it is looking totally unorganized & hectic in there!}
{I've even got piles of boxes going in the kitchen.....}
Since i took these pictures, piles of boxes have also popped up in the master bedroom, master bathroom, & i have emptied out the master closet. Whew! I didn't take more pictures though... but maybe if i do, i will feel like i have been more productive.

Meanwhile, Randy has been getting the inspection list knocked out. I am so proud of him! He has worked really hard to get it done by this past weekend so that our final weekend here can be devoted to last minute packing. (So basically he complied with my OCD for a few weeks!)
He had to do a "makeshift" job of getting some branches down that were touching the roof, it was a little tricky since he didn't have the right kind of saw & he was balancing on this ladder, plus, he was quickly losing light outside!
This was the only time i took a picture of him working on these things, but he has had to do a lot of handy work! He has had to lay vapor barrier in the crawl space, replace vinyl siding, replace a vent cover outside, get on the roof & replace the plumbing boot stack flashing, replace interior laundry doors, yard work, etc etc! He is tired of all this, i know, but he did a great job!

For now, we are trudging through, though. We are living out of suitcases for the last week & a half, so i am packing up the clothes today (& yesterday). Hopefully once this is done, then the only real big room left is the rest of the kitchen. I will pack that up this coming weekend before taking the white fridge to a friend. We are getting there!!!!!

Give me a long weekend....

And i will give you a partially potty trained kid,


A freezer full of meals,

and a LOT of boxes!!


IT has been a productive long weekend! We decided since there would be 5 days straight of either Randy, myself, or both of us home, it would be a great time to potty train Eli. This was especially a good idea since Jackson is out of preschool, so less running around during the day & because i really don't want to potty train a kid in a brand new house. Let's get that over with here before we move! Although, that is exactly why it was stressful, because i have been packing up to my ears over here this week & so i literally had to set a timer to remind me to remind him to try to go. He has done pretty well with it, although he hasn't been consistent with his efforts. He will always go when you set him on the potty (M&Ms are a great motivator!) but he doesn't tell us he needs to go. So if he needs to go & he isn't near a potty, then well, there is a large splatter across the floor. We will get there though!

I also used this weekend as a time to get some meals frozen. A friend (thanks, Jana!) is letting me store meals in her deep freezer since i don't have a lot of freezer space & because i want to use these meals AFTER the move to help lessen the stress of meal prep when we first are getting settled. So if they are out of my house, then i won't have access to use them between now & then. So far i have frozen up black beans & sausage for black beans & yellow rice night, taco meat for taco night, chicken & rice, homemade spaghetti sauce, vegetable beef soup to eat with grilled cheese, "pasta, cheese & trees", lasagna, tetrazinni, 4 homemade pizza crusts- already rolled out to fit my stones, french bread, italian loaf, & turkey joe. Whew! And as we speak i am "cooking" a roast in my crockpot which will be added to the stock too and have already put together tonight's dinner of chicken enchiladas. So i already have roughtly 10 meals for our move. I am so excited about that. After we get settled i plan to start once a month cooking which is basically setting aside one day a month (saturday) to cook meals like this for the whole month. I can totally see how it lessens the burden of "what will we have tonight?" and hopefully decrease the urge to go out to eat on the nights that i am just exhausted.

THis weekend i also got started on packing up the rest of the house. We have 3 weeks & 3 days left! I didn't finish obviously, but i did make a big dent! I have been using the "office" as a packing area that is a "no kid" zone because they tend to come in & take things out of there & i find them playing with it or they want to get into the tubs where i was initially gathering items to bubble wrap before boxing. I have boxed up all of the interior decor items that need bubble wrap, but i still have the rest of the kitchen which will be a doozie. I plan in the next week or so, to start boxing up plates & glasses & start using paper/plastic for the remainder of our time here. Next weekend i also plan to pack up all the clothes except for a suitcase filled with a weeks worth of clothes for all of us & we can rotate that for 2 weeks. (Although, i may need more for Eli depending on how the pottying is looking next week!) The builder of the home we are buying won't bend AT ALL on using the garage to store our boxes a couple of days beforehand (not even if we paid "rent") so i am still trying to figure out the best way to get everything out of the house in one sweep since we will close on both houses back to back, thus leaving up without a place to put our things from the night before (walkthrough) to closing the next afternoon. It looks like i will be renting a big Uhaul in my future. Quite a waste of money when i am moving about 5 miles down the road.

Under Contract... for us this time!

So as of today, we are officially under contract for the house in the previous post! We are so excited that they accepted our (first) offer & i have already started thinking about what will go where- kinda decorating in my head. In fact, tomorrow i am meeting someone to get some pottery barn curtains / rods & tie backs for the playroom/boys rooms from craigslist! (So at least i am trying to decorate frugally!) But i only have 28 days to get this house packed up & ready to move out so i really need to be focusing on that rather than scoring a deal for the new house! But can you blame me? Decorating is much more fun than packing! But anyway- hopefully all will go well with both closings (scheduled for the same day june 16th) & we are hoping they will let us into the new house a day early to paint (i really love my green kitchen, so i want to at least paint the kitchen & boys rooms before moving in). But i am not holding my breath on that one- the builder would have to be super lenient for that one to work! So that is the newest news on the home front!

It could be ours......

Well.... last night we put in an offer for this house! We haven't heard back yet, but we feel pretty confident since our realtor talked to the builder before we made an offer. He pretty much laid out for us his lowest offer & we jumped all over it because it was a good deal. This house has roughly 2300 sq ft, 4 bedrooms & a bonus as well as a beautiful kitchen that i can't wait to cook in! It backs up to woods which is great for privacy, even though we will most likely still put up a fence eventually just for safety reasons with the boys. The lot is actually a little bigger than our yard here- it is .82 acres, but a lot of that is the woods behind the house. And did i mention that i will get my own closet? There are 2 master closets, so i am super stoked about that! This builder did a nice job of putting in some upgrades such as brushed nickel hardware, recessed lighting, & smooth ceilings which will be nice (much) later when we have to sell it ourselves. So for now, we are waiting to hear back that it is a done deal before i start decorating it in my head! ha!