Moved In!!!

It's been crazy folks! I would never, ever, ever, ever recommend moving with 3 kids 3 and under unless you have professional movers to do it, or lots of family and friends to help! We are finally over the most stressful week of our entire lives! I wish I could say I got through it with grace and peace and patience but my husband, kids, and brother will testify that I was cranky, exhausted, overwhelmed, and negative much of the last couple of weeks. The main reason I was so stressed is because Justus hasn't slept well in a month and especially in the last few weeks he has been waking up constantly at night, demanding to be fed all the time. His nurse said it's probably a growth spurt, but the little peanut is a shrimp and is still only 11. 5 pounds, 23 inches long, so who knows? We have tried desperately to get him to take a bottle of formula at night and even bought special bottles and try daily but he'll only take about a teaspoon of it.

So, on top of no sleep, we had to deal with sorting, packing, and moving everything and I pushed myself to get more done than I should have. I should have let my hubby do it all and just not worried about it, but being the type who likes to get a headstart on everything and knowing we were under some deadlines, I was cleaning the old and new place like mad, and running a few van loads a day across town with 3 kids in tow, trying to clean while keeping them out of the grime and keeping them from destroying all my hard work. The folks who left this house left tons of grime and of course even though our landlords had shampooed the carpets well we went over them a bunch with our own shampooer because of the animal urine scent that was so disgusting when we first looked at the place. I'm majorly obsessive compulsive about things being clean when we move in so I have to wipe down every shelf and sanitize every doorknob and light switch and make sure the floors are polished to a shine! My cracked hands are a testimony to the hours of scrubbing they have done in the last week! The place doesn't smell like dog pee anymore after the two shampooings but when I put a vaporizer in the kids' room it reeked like cigarette smoke! I guess the steam released old odors from carpet so I guess we'll be skipping out on using the vaporizer at this place! If you put your face to the floor you can still smell urine scent in some places so I plan to buy some odor-destroying product soon and I've been sprinkling baking soda all over before vacuuming too. We also got a huge living room rug for 50% off on Black Friday so it covers the majority of the living room and makes me feel good about laying my baby on the floor and letting my kids tumble and play. I've been making lots of orange-clove things to naturally make our closets and bedrooms smell good. They work really well and have a wonderful, holiday scent.

On top of moving, our lives were filled to overflowing with endless activities we couldn't seem to avoid. I had to be part of a babysitting class at church, our church had their once-a-year meeting which we really needed to attend and I needed to help babysit for, Ali had a preschool Christmas program, my mom was hosting the yearly cousin cookie party event all day Sat. where we see all our extended relatives on her side once a year, we had two birthday parties we were invited to that weekend, my brother had me help him speak in church during Missionary Sunday at our church, and there was a potluck after church. I also had a CE board meeting at church and a check-up for the kids. Throw in the fact that our phone company turned our phone off on Friday but didn't hook up our new phone until Tuesday and you have mass insanity and having to drive to my folk's house to use their phone and use the internet at church just to communicate with our former landlords. Oh, and did I mention that we had to show our old apartment to prospective tenants in the chaotic two days before our move? Praise the Lord, they decided to take it, in spite of the huge mountain of boxes and bags everywhere and because they are taking it, we will be getting half of December's rent back so we won't have to pay for rent for two different homes like we thought we would be doing this month!

I'm still not done organizing things but for the most part we were unpacked and settled after just one major moving day (Saturday) thanks to the fact that we don't have as much stuff as most Americans. My hubby worked 17 hours straight that day, only sitting down to eat lunch! We were like Moving-Maniacs, unable to rest until everything was put away!

We are grateful our friends, the Blasdels, brought us a meal so we didn't starve on Friday! A young man from the youth group helped my husband move the bulk of our stuff Sat. morning. My parents didn't offer to help, and I didn't ask considering how stressed my mom was over getting ready for her big annual Christmas party. She did watch the kids for us for a couple of hours after the big party though, which was nice! My brother helped a little bit with babysitting during nap time a couple of days. Other friends offered to help, but the thing I discovered is that it was impossible for other people to help in most areas of moving. After all, sorting and packing your stuff is kind of hard for someone who doesn't know where you want things. Also, no one else can really nurse the baby for me and attend my kids' program for me, etc. No matter how many folks help you move, or help by watching your kids, it is still incredibly stressful due to being uprooted and needing to clean two homes top to bottom and create a homey haven and routine again. No matter how much you prepare for it, it's busy and crazy. I just hope there aren't too many more moves in our future!

So.....whew! I've been dying to post and let you all know how it's going. I hope to take some pics in the next couple of days and give you all a virtual tour of our new place! We are so thrilled with it!

Life is settling down to normal again! I can't believe I actually have time to sit and blog again! Now, if only I could sleep....