Moving

Moving is the pits. Even under the absolute best circumstances, it's hard and not fun. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with moving actually, because I love de-cluttering the house, getting more organized, simplifying. But I hate, hate, hate, the unpacking. I hate deciding where to put stuff, the stacks of boxes everywhere, and not being able to find things for a while (hence the lack of blog posts . . . I just found the USB cord to my camera). Luckily, we had some amazing help! My mother and father in law are movers extraordinaire and basically had us packed, moved, and unpacked in a couple days. Pamie (my mother in law) LOVES organizing stuff, so her mad skills came in handy! We also had some amazing friends show up with a truck and trailer, and big muscles, to help with the schlepping!

Our home teacher, Aaron, loaned us his truck and borrowed a trailer from another member of our ward so that we didn't have to rent a truck. Super thankful for great friends!!!

Thanks to the money we saved on the truck rental ;) we were able to get a new IKEA kitchen table. We spent a good full day assembling IKEA furniture. The kids helped, and were actually "helpful" for the most part. Amazing!!!! They did have fun, despite Eli's bored face in this picture.

Happy boy after a very much needed nap. Eli and Sariah helped me screw the bolts into these cute blue chairs that I stained. They were quite determined and were able to get the screws in all the way (even too far in on one occasion). Meilani was the keeper of the hundreds of small parts, and Liam took a nap, which is why, I think, the furniture assembly went so smoothly!

Seth trying to assist Daddy.

Me, trying to keep the "Baby Monster" away. Cute new purse huh? The kids thought my joke was funny . . . which it was, until Liam tried to hold Seth like this!

So, we're moved in, extremely pleased with our new house, and enjoying our crazy lives. After the first night we slept here, Ben and I both woke up commenting on how "at home" we felt so quickly. All of the kids even slept through the night soundly. It's been comforting to realize that a house is just a shell for our family spirit, so to speak, and that "home is where the heart is." Our hearts are rather full of gratitude at the moment, but I'll save all that for another post.