We had several requests for showings on our house in December which kept me very busy and then a week before Christmas, we received and accepted an offer on our house. The first weekend after the holidays we took a trip to Wisconsin for a wedding. On the way back, we took the kids to Chicago for some museum fun. A few days after we returned, in the wee hours of the morning on January 13th, my family was faced with much sadness as our wonderful American Eskimo dog Cazzie died very suddenly. He was a great dog, full of energy and love. We were blessed to have him for 12 years but I wish it could have been even longer. He was such a good boy and we all still miss him terribly.
I spent the next few weeks packing and house hunting. We ended up having a double move as we had to be out of our old house before our new house was finished. We spent our transition staying at my moms house and my kids especially loved that. In fact, they tried to convince us to just forget about buying our new house and live with nana permanently. Nana does love to spoil them! We finally moved into our new home just before Valentine's Day. Moving was a ton of work and I'm so happy to finally be in our new home. I still have a lot of unpacking to do but we are getting settled and have all of our essential things unpacked now.
A couple of fun tips that I want to share with you: My friend Kelly (who is an Army wife and experienced in moving) gave me a great idea to help keep the kids busy while I packed. She suggested letting them decorate the moving boxes. My kids had a blast with this and it kept them busy for a few hours. Great idea Kelly! It worked out much better than me trying to pack while they unpacked the things I had already packed :)
Another fun thing that I did with our boxes after we moved into our new house: I let my kids make cars out of boxes. I gave them paper plates, markers, crayons and tape and they had a ton of fun creating their own special car. When they were done, we pretended to have a drive-through restaurant and they placed an order at "Mommas pancake house". After dinner, we had a "drive-in movie" night. My kids loved it and the next day, they wanted to do it all over again. I think it made a fun new house memory for them. I have to give my friend Sarah credit for the drive-in movie idea. In a phone conversation, she told me that she did that for her son's birthday party and it was a huge hit. I knew my kids would love doing that too. So, if you are moving or just have some boxes around the house, have some fun and make some memories with them!
