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.
{Jackson thought it tickled when the baby chick "kissed" (pecked) his cheek}
{Jackson thought it tickled when the baby chick "kissed" (pecked) his cheek}
