All My Bags Are Packed....I'm Ready to GO!

Moving day finally arrived and I was up bright and early thinking of all I needed to do. While I took many weeks to pack boxes, it still felt like we had so much to do. So 5:45 rolled around and I was rarin' to go! Lily wasn't getting left, thats for sure!


Our lease technically didn't start until the 18th which was a Monday so I was worried about having help. Our landlord was awesome and let us move all of our stuff in a day early, Praise the Lord! We had Bob and Steve around to help get us moved. We were also quadruply blessed because our neighbor Eric Fichtner offered to help and he brought with him a posse of teenagers. The phrase, "Many hands make for light work" is so true! What a blessing to have so much help!

Steve started by taking apart all of the beds and of course Lily helped Daddy with his wires and technology.



Once all of the workers arrived we worked out a great system where we hauled down everything, Jill watched the baby amidst the chaos and Bob stayed in the truck as the official stacker-sorter-puzzle solver. It worked great and we were all packed up within 2 hours. WOW.



Now our new home is adorable, but it is not enormous by any stretch. It is spacious, but everything is smaller and of course having two families was going to put every nook and cranny to good use. I told Bob that our house is a metaphor for what has happened to America. Seriously, we have super sized everything including closets, door frames, hallway sizes and ceilings. It is really eye opening to live in an actual normal size house. We LOVE it. Albeit we have had a hard time finding a place for everything. The Goodwill has gotten much of our stuff over the past week or so. It has really shown me how utterly blessed we are! Thank you Lord.

Well, Jill and my first mission upon arriving in the new home was to paint the master bedroom.



I am so grateful too because it was a questionable yellow mustard color which was not going to work with my decor. So we secluded ourselves in the room and painted away. I think we took it from drab to fab. What do you think?

Before



After



The guys brought in the rest of the stuff and literally filled the dining and living areas.


Oh my. Since our lease didn't start until Monday we all headed back over to the apartment again to sleep on air mattresses.


Lily had a blast rolling around on the expanse of the living room and without TV we had a party on the floor and turned in early with the baby. Unpacking boxes would start tomorrow.

The Calm before the Storm

The week leading up to the big moving day brought in Grandma and Grandpa Hill from Illinois. Grandma Jill helped us move last year and she decided that she had so much fun she wanted to come out and help us again. We were all eternally grateful because the prospect of moving everything with a little Lily in our midst was somewhat overwhelming.


So we enjoyed all the best things of Summer complete with a run and latte every morning, nap times, swimming in the pool, reading lots of books (Pat the Bunny is her current fav!)


and play, play, play. Jill brought the little one this awesome new toy that has little things that pop up when you do stuff (I know, not a very technical definition, but you get the point). Lily loved it!


It was actually really challenging all things considered. There was a nob to turn, one to flip, one to move side to side and one to push. Poor Rocky was just about beside himself with the toy because the push button had a squeak in it which drove him bonkers. No Rocky, you can't eat the baby toy. It was almost as if Lily knew it bugged him because she would push it and then watch him with a big smile. Poor Neurotic Rocky!

Grandpa Steve was awesome with Lily and kept her thoroughly entertained. She especially loved playing with him in the laundry basket and swimming with him in the big pool. What fun.




A couple of days before the big move we all piled in our car. Yes, Me, Bob, Lily, Jill, Steve and Rocky along with our luggage including a pack and play for Lily squished inside our little Nissan and headed down to Charlotte for a visit with Aunt Darcie and Uncle Brent. Darcie scooped up the little one for some quality Auntie time right away.





Lily gets bigger and bigger with every visit. When Grandma, Aunt D or Daddy wasn't snuggling with her she was on the floor motoring about. She is officially on the way to crawling right now.


It is so cute because she does the whole army crawl on her elbows while pushing with her feet. Let me tell you she can motor about quickly when she wants to! Lily watched Brent cook our wonderful meal and Darcie and Bob fed the hungry bear cub.



Lily is such a great eater. She eats anything and everything these days. Darcie learned really quickly though that you should give the veggies first because after a serving of fruits, the veggies don't go down as easily. They do go down, but its harder to keep Miss Lily focused.

The next morning all of us (Baby included) headed down into Charlotte for a morning run. Bob pushed the baby and all of us headed on our 8 mile jaunt around town. Darcie and her running buddy move fast so all of us finished our 8 miles in around an hour and 13 minutes. What a run. We all felt great and finished strong.

After a much needed breakfast and a Starbucks run, we packed all of us back in our Nissan and toodled back to Raleigh, went to bed early and prepared ourselves for moving.