THE MOVE.

Let's talk about important things first: I just ate four brownies (actually, I'm going to get another one right now so let's just say five) and I'm feeling good. I could blame it on pregnancy, but let's be honest--I would eat that many brownies any time, pregnant or not. At least with being pregnant I'm supposed to be gaining weight, right? But I am justifying it as 1) it's the holidays! and 2) we just moved and had a very stressful last few weeks and I am celebrating by STUFFING MY FACE. Repeatedly. On Wednesday I ate almost an entire bag of peppermint bark Hershey's bells by myself and it was SO GOOD. No remorse.

Also, look at this cute picture of Dane and his daddy. He wanted Daddy to read to him, but then told him to lay on the floor next to the couch while he read to himself. A parent's dream come true--oh, you just want me to lay here with my eyes closed on the floor? Okay! Such great father-son bonding time!

A few cute things about Dane before we go any farther:

-I hope I never forget how he says "bulldozer" right now--he says "bullzodirt," which makes a ton of sense, actually, since it's pushing the dirt anyways. I also love how he calls the piano the "panio" ("I play the panio, mom") and is always talking about how the trucks are going "up the fridge!" instead of "up the bridge." 

-I LOVE how he says "fanks" or "fank you" five hundred times a day. He's very good at saying thank you for things. The last week or so, at every meal, he'll look over at me and say, "Fanks Mom for making the yummy dinner! Daddy, say that to Mommy." Even when Tommy's responsible for the meal, haha. I'm not going to complain about all of this gratitude!

-We started doing some scripture reading with him a few months ago, and he basically hates it. He liked it for about a week before he realized it was boring (Seriously? Already!?) and now writhes on the ground or escapes to push his cars around while we try to read like three verses to him. (I know, Mom and Dad, it's just payback for my many years of hating FHE.) But we read the story of the Good Samaritan a week or two ago, and he was TRANSFIXED and has asked to read the story about the "bad guys" every night since. And he wants us to tell him the story many times during the day. His version of the story is (without all the prompting and helping from us): "The bad guys jumped out and crashed! They took his money and clothes. He had owies. Then the guy helped him and gave him Band-Aids, he was all better."  We try to always emphasize the moral at the end--"And Jesus said that we should always help people, right?"--but he always ends by saying, "I got hurt when I fell on the sidewalk." I'm pretty sure he's just interested in how the guy got hurt. 

-Whenever we're in the car, he'll start randomly laughing to himself and say, "I'm funny, Mom. I'm so silly, Mom."

-Dane's always asking to go back to our "old new house," aka our apartment (which he called the "new house" ever since we moved in six months ago). I am very happy to crush all his dreams in this department and tell him we're not going back to the old new house. Sorry, bud!

Anyways, let's talk about the real point of this blog post now. Our move went great! It was sooo stressful getting everything ready, but of course it all went smoothly. We closed on the house on Monday last week. We did the walkthrough of the house in the morning, and then went and signed all the paperwork, and then Tommy went back to work until 11:30 that night. (It was a CRAZY week.)

Our realtor snapped some real-live, unstaged photos of us signing the paperwork. I guess that's part of her job description--documenting the really important moments of her clients' househunting process. Except that she DIDN'T remember to take a picture of us in front of our house (and I forgot as well) so we really need to get a real one sometime.

The move was on Saturday after the closing. The house didn't need any real work, and was totally clean, and we were ready to get out of our apartment, so we figured we'd just move in right away. We had a bunch of men from the ward kindly come over and help us load our stuff in the truck AND unload it into the house--so nice of them. I am seriously, seriously grateful for all the beautiful people who made this move possible without us completely losing our minds. A few final shots of what our apartment looked like as we got ready to pull away:

Guess what? Our stuff DIDN'T fit into the truck this time! Luckily, one of the men from the ward who came over had a pick-up truck, so they managed to fit the rest of it in his truck. And then after everyone left, we remembered that we'd left everything in our storage closet for the apartment there still! Haha! So Tommy went back over to the apartment with the truck by himself and got all those boxes himself. We've apparently accumulated a lot more stuff than we had when we first got to Texas.

And, we spent the next four or five days unpacking and trying to find a place for everything. We're basically done with that for now, because we've reached the point where all the essential, everyday things are unpacked. And look at how hilariously empty our house is. This is the family room. In it, we have--a couch. (And the folded laundry from last night that I haven't bothered to put away yet.)

This is the front living room. The ONLY thing we've done is to buy bookshelves and put them together so that we could unpack all of our books! I was so happy to get them out and put them on the shelves. Tommy was a little dismayed to find out that we have enough books to basically fill up four bookshelves--he thought we'd have more empty space and wouldn't have to buy new ones any time soon. Sorry, dear. (All those boxes by the window are our pictures and wall-hangings, which we'll eventually get around to doing.)

This is our fourth bedroom right now, aka our extra storage closet. This entire corner is all of the baby/infant clothes and items. SO MUCH STUFF! Good thing we're having another boy to use it all. Our third bedroom is now Dane's toy room. He is basically Dudley Dursley with two bedrooms to himself... so spoiled.

And, our equally empty bedroom. There is a lovely little nook/corner that could be really cute and amazingly decorated with some nice reading chairs or something... But pretty sure that will never be a very high priority on our "to-buy" list, considering all of the other EMPTY SPACES we have to fill.

On Sunday after church we tried to take some cute pictures outside of our house. Dane refused to leave his blankie inside.

And then insisted on walking backwards down the driveway instead of being in a picture.

 

A GREAT picture of all three of us in front of our new house! Can't you tell? Haha. We'll try to get a better one sometime, either with a neighbor or with our tripod.

And, we really are loving the house. I LOVE how quiet everything is--no loud neighbors upstairs or outside or driving around the parking lot blasting music--aaaahhhh. And although I'm joking about how big and empty the house is, I know we'll fill it up in no time. And Dane is loving, loving having so much room and a backyard! One morning this week, he kept crying about going in the backyard and I kept telling him he could go by himself, but I had to stay inside and unpack some more. He wouldn't go outside until I promised I would watch him through the window. And he went out there and just started wandering around in the back by himself, kicking his little ball and playing in the dirt. It was so cute I couldn't help but running outside to take pictures of him!

SO happy.

The last few weeks have been a huge rollercoaster for us. So much has been going on for all of us. We have been vacillating between feeling completely overwhelmed and completely blessed to be where we are. It has been stressful and scary, because I do not feel like I am old enough or capable of taking care of such a huge thing as this house and this (growing) family. I still am looking around and feeling completely blown away by how much there is to do still with the house and moving in. How does anyone do this? But we are also so happy to be here in this house and so excited about filling it up and making changes on our own too. It is going to be really OURS and I can't wait.