Moving Day(s)

We awoke St. Patrick's Day morning feeling lucky, so after some green smoothie and green yogurt-topped pancakes, we herded the older kids off to school and brought the three little boys to the Choteau Title Office, where we signed our names about a 100 times, handed over a fat check, and POOF, became real homeowners again!

We dropped those little boys off at my generous friend's house and started moving in right away. With a huge tarp placed oh-so-carefully atop the livestock residue in another generous friend's horse-trailer, Aaron got right to work and had all of the couches moved over in record time, with just a little physical help from me (and a kind passing stranger) and a lot of really helpful advice from me. I have good ideas. Though some unnamed individual may feel my ideas and communication of said ideas just slow him down when he's in his impressive get-'er-done zone.

Soon the extremely generous J&C Stott family arrived and we really started to get 'er done. I feel such a debt of gratidude to them; they sacrificed their whole weekend for us--all day Friday and all day Saturday--despite it being their daughter's 17th birthday on the 17th in 2017 and everything. After school, their older kids came over and helped, too. Since Kaleb had spent most of the morning screaming at my friend's house, I was so grateful that their dear birthday girl had the touch with Kaleb! She was such a blessing to me!

Speaking of after school, that was probably the craziest part of the day. Xander came home to the old house, and was under the impression that his sisters were right behind him. But they weren't. I waited and wondered. And called. But Aaron, being in get-er-done mode, wasn't answering his phone to let me know if they had come home to the new house. When there was still no sign of them and it was nearly time for Elodie to go to piano lessons, I hopped on my bike and zoomed the five blocks to the new house, where I found both girls' bikes and eventually the girls themselves. With all the back and forth we were doing with loads of stuff, this scenario played out several times. Having two homes may seem luxurious, but when they are within easy walking distance even for young children, it gets very confusing very quickly! When the generous horse-trailer loaning friend dropped pizzas off at the old house for dinner, we rounded everyone up at that house and headed over to the new house, which required some people walking on foot and being carried in arms since car seats and strollers were at the other house, and others driving to get another load of stuff over. But by the time we got to the new house, Aaron and the guys had already left to get another load from the old house; I think it took an hour to get everyone gathered for dinner! Hectic!

As we finally sat and stood on the back deck of our NEW HOUSE eating pizza, I was quite impressed with everything we had already accomplished--most of my kitchen stuff was not only moved, but also put away and organized in its new and improved cabinetry.

Aaron even managed find enough energy past bedtime to get mattresses in place to satisfy everyone's wish of sleeping in the new house that very night! And, miraculously, Oliver did an amazing job of staying in his new big boy bed for the first night ever. Lots of change and he handled it without a bump. (Saturday night was a different story. In our exhaustion of trying to finish up a few last things to get the house ready for Sunday, I got to tuck the little cutie in 5 times and Aaron 3. I guess we both needed a little test of patience that night. I actually had to excuse myself at one point when I had gotten so desperate I was begging. I told Oliver I'd be right back, I just needed to go upstairs to eat some dinner--it was 9ish and I'd only had a few canned mandarin orange slices that I'd found in the old house fridge around dinner time--to help refuel my patience.)

This was my biggest St. Patrick's day surprise.

Green. Bright green. My master bedroom has two vibrant green walls. the shocking part was not as much their color as the fact that I did not notice this color the 3 times I had come and looked at the house! How could I miss such a not subtle color?? I just thought the whole room was this fun, pretty shade of blue.

Apparently, I am not the most observant kid on the block. But I think I'll learn to like the vibrant colors. (I'm definitely not the most eager-to-paint kid on the block. Y'all can have your HGTV reno plans and projects, I'm just happy to have a move-in ready house at this busy stage of life!)

Today, I was just so thankful for some generous friends who had invited us over to their house for a delicious dinner and pleasant company! It was a peaceful, rejuvenating way to spend the Sabbath!