Settling In

Buying a house was not only a major milestone for us but it was a pretty big move.  We moved outside of the city to a small town about 30-35 minutes from the apartment we were living in.  It's an adjustment getting used to being out of the city in a few ways.

First, errands take much longer due to drive time-- the closest grocery store is at least 15 minutes as opposed to the 3 minute drive we were used to.  There are several options for shopping in all directions so it's just 15-20 minutes pending which direction you want to go.  I have found that when I go into town, I just have to take care of everything-- knock out all the errands at once.  The down side is that usually leads to fussy, over tired kids after going in and out of several places, but the upside is that we have more time at home to just hang out and play.

It takes Daniel at least 20 minutes to get to work-- sure it stinks to have the extra drive and have to leave earlier, but he also appreciates not living where he's working and being able to leave work at work. It's also 20-25 minutes to the gym, and he's a gym addict, so when his gym trips used to be there and back in an hour/hour and a half, they're now 2-3 hours.

So aside from the time and drive, there's also the adjustment to the space.  We live in the country which means next to no street lights, so at night it gets dark, REAL dark!  At the apartment even with blinds and curtains on the windows some street lights still shone through-- Leeland was pretty startled the first night here when we put him to bed, cut out his lights and he couldn't see a foot in front of his face.  Along those same lines, we don't hear ambulance, police and fire, and really we live on a dead end so there isn't much traffic heard other than our neighbors.

Leeland also had a bit of an adjustment to calling a new place "home."  That was something I didn't anticipate and broke my heart. When we moved, he and Hayden stayed with family and that evening we went to pick them up and brought them to the new house.  We moved everything to the new house the same day and spent the night here that evening.  I made a point to try and have his room all set up so he could sleep in his own bed that night and I just assumed he would see all his stuff and be fine.  That wasn't the case-- that night when we laid him down, we went through the routine of singing, reading etc.  and when we were leaving his room he began to cry and kept saying over and over "I ready to go!"  I don't think he could articulate what he was wanting, but I understood him.... this wasn't his home and he was ready to go home.  The 2nd night we went through the same thing.  It took lots of me explaining over and over-- "This is our new home. We brought all of your toys, your big boy bed...."  "You have a new room.... look at your nice new room!" etc. etc.  After a few days he finally had it!  And I even went back to the apartment complex a couple times this past week to check the mailbox and Leeland didn't pitch a fit or call it home.  

It's been more of an adjustment than I was anticipating honestly-- I grew up in a small town not far from here, I moved out when I was 18 though and had lived in the city since then, I guess it just doesn't take long to get used to certain conveniences of the city. (Still LOVE the place though and am enjoying the memories, and just can't get over watching Leeland run around the place-- he has the space now! Run on little man, run on!)

New House Decor and Craftiness Part 2

Totally forgot when I posted last night to include the cool craft that we made at MOPS (Mothers of Pre Schoolers) last week.  Super easy craft, that's hanging by the garage door in the kitchen.

It's a magnetic board-- it's simply a round cookie sheet (most likely from the dollar store), with a piece of scrapbook paper mod podged to it and a ribbon to hang it with.  We made a fancy magnet by gluing a small magnet to a clear rock and mod podging a piece of scrapbook paper to the flat side of the glass rock so that you can see the paper through it. (Rock magnet is shown in the second picture.)  It will probably be used to hold lists, notes and reminders since it's right by the door.

And then today I whipped up a some super easy valance curtains for the kitchen.

Made out of the same red and blue floral fabric that I used for my hoop art.  So I think I've done and hung about all that I wanted to decor wise in the kitchen, though as you see the window still needs blinds.  They're in the garage in the box, for whatever reason the window needed a valance before blinds. Makes sense, right?

I guess it's time to move on to decorating the rest of the house, but it's nice for at least 1 room to feel "complete."

New House Decor and Craftiness Part 1

Labeling this as Part 1 because should time and finances permit, I hope that there are more to come.  I mentioned in the last post that we are still gradually unpacking, so I guess it's a bit odd that I've done some decorating but it's been a nice break for me.  I spend most of my days doing dishes, laundry, picking up and chasing after little ones and then unpack a box here and there so occasionally it's nice to break the cycle and do a little something for me with the added bonus of making our new home look nice. 
For the most part decorating has barely begun.  Thankfully the house was move in ready in a sense that we liked the paint in all rooms but one so that has saved us some time, but we haven't hung much on the walls because I don't quite have a clear plan of where I want everything to go. 
Here's what I've done with the kitchen:

The yarn wrapped 'K' was on the wall at our apartment and I have a previous post about it.  I just made the hoop art.  Took these photos at night so the lighting was a bit wonky with my camera (yea, I still haven't quite figured out how to work my fancy camera), but anyway, the walls in the kitchen are a nice Windsor/Navy blue.  All of my kitchen decor from the apartment are red, like my coffee maker, utensils, kitchen towels, table runner etc. All red.  So I wanted to find some fabric for my hoop art that would look good with the blue and incorporate the red-- there's a red fabric with white polka dots and then a red fabric that has a blue and beige floral pattern. Then the darker fabric is actually black with a beige floral pattern, all of our appliances are black.  I like it!

And here's another little thing I hung by our front door in the foyer, a gift from my Mom:

It reads "Sworn to serve and protect"-- so cute!

And of course new house warrants a new yarn wreath, so here's what I came up with for that:

Mustard yellow, royal blue and beige.  It really pops on the brown door.  And it's huge!  Much bigger than the yarn wreath I had previously made and posted about.

We Got The House! (and moving.)

It was a long hard road, (that you can read about in several posts on the blog) but we finally got the house!  It's a total miracle that the sellers were willing to wait on us and work with us for so long by holding the house for us.  We closed on September 21st and we moved in on the 22nd because we work fast like that.
Moving was pretty straight forward-- we were up well past midnight the night before doing final packing, and we had plenty of help arrive at 9am that morning.  Everyone says that moving is the hard part, but I have to disagree-- moving is exhausting, yes, but it's fairly simple to pick things up and put them down.  The hard part for me/us has been the unpacking and putting away.  When I have moved in the past (pre-kids) things were unpacked and put away within 24-48 hours.  This time it's much different-- we have more stuff and we have kids that take priority.  Kids that have wants and needs, one of which is still nursing.  Hayden has been teething like a champ and been extra clingy so much of what has needed to be done has been done with him on my back in the Boba.  It's been a gradual process of all of our items finding their homes and a process that we're still working on a week out.
I have worked on a few little crafty projects to decorate our new place and I hope to post some pics of those soon.  We appreciate each one of you who was praying throughout this whole process-- we didn't get to the end without several hiccups but we did get there and we officially own the house. It sort of all reminds of the verse John 16:21 about how once a woman gives labor her pains are forgotten, very similarly, we now have the end result and have the house and I've sort of forgotten about the process to get here.
We are loving our new little place in the country!

Eek! 7 months!

We're over half way thru the first year and what a blast it has become. For the most part I'm through the sleepless nights and hazy days. He's had a few nights in the past month that were wakeful due to some teething, but thankfully a little snuggling and nursing does the trick.

-Hayden is starting to really show interest in table food and is actually swallowing some things and not just playing with things.

-Foods he has tried: banana, avocado, spaghetti, peaches, green beans, strawberries, apples, cracker, cheese bunnies.

-7 months and we're still breastfeeding! Yay!

-Hayden is pulling up, and will bounce around. He's not taking any steps, just bounces.

-Hayden adores his jumperoo, and it appears he could bounce right out of it.

-He 'goos', 'gaas' and laughs.

-Still SUPER ticklish!

-Though he's been teething for some time, no teeth yet.

Just adoring and loving my boys more and more everyday. Couldn't be happier to be a Mom and to be blessed with 2 precious little boys!