Our new Home Sweet Home

We're IN!!!

And what a crazy week it has been.

The moving company came on Sunday and packed up our "old" house.  That was completely exhausting physically.  A very long day.  Thankfully, my parents came in the morning and took Aidan, Maura and Audra back to their house.  That just left Riley, but he is like a fly on the wall...literally!  We could work around him and his little pile of entertainment, moving him from location to another every so often.  Although, towards the end of the day he did start asking how much longer...and I was asking myself the same thing!  We didn't make it down to my parents house until almost midnight.

Sean was up bright and early the next morning (5:00am) to go back to the house to finish up a few things before the new owners did their walk through at 9:00am.

He met me back at my parents house then it was off to the first settlement (which was conveniently located just a few minutes from my parents house).

  

1 hour and many signatures later:

we had sold our beloved home and were officially "homeless"...

for a few hours that is!

So we rushed off to the walk through for our new house and then headed over to our second settlement of the day.

A few hours and many, many, many signatures later:

we were officially homeowners again!

The second settlement was long and mentally exhausting.  It took longer than expected for all the required paperwork, and monies from the first settlement to be faxed/wired for the second settlement.  So there was some sitting around, waiting, asking how much longer.  Finally all the "i's" were dotted and all the "t's" were crossed and we were the proud owners of a "new to us" house!

This house has more square footage, 5 bedrooms, more land and sits on a quiet cul-de-sac with just five other houses.  It has long views of trees and open space from the backyard making you feel like there's nothing around you.  There is a huge over-sized garage that we plan to convert to an apartment style in-law suite for Sean's father.  First floor living will be a necessity for him someday.  And eventually it will be the perfect place for Riley to have some independence.

After our whirlwind of a day Monday, Tuesday was a more low-key day at the new house (for us!).  There was lots going on but all we had to do was sit back and watch/direct.  We had the carpet and flooring installers come as well as tile cleaners.  And our realtor had a cleaning company come too!

Luckily the weather was pleasant because we spent the whole day outside/in the garage.  The kids played in their new yard and we had a picnic style lunch of Subway and McDonald's.

All of which was exhausting for our little peanut, Audra, who took a nap outside on a moving blanket!  This girl really can sleep anywhere :)

Wednesday was a more hands-on day for us.

Sean got to work on refinishing the powder room cabinets.  He has grand ideas of refinishing the kitchen cabinets but I thought it was best for him to "practice" first on the powder room vanity.

My mom and I removed the wallpaper that was in the dining room and she helped me weed through the flower beds at the front of the house.  There are some lovely flowers/plants in there, but there is way too much stuff crammed in and the little things are hidden by some overgrown things

Thursday was move in day!

Sean {conveniently} went back to work that day so I got to deal with the movers all by myself.

Seeing our furniture in the house finally made it seem like our house.  It definitely started looking better in there...

until all the boxes starting piling up in every room.

With beds in place we could now "move out" of my parents house, where we had been staying since Sunday night.  What a blessing is was to be able to stay with them while we got the new house livable".  It allowed to kids to be distracted from the all the craziness and instead they enjoyed trips to the park, board games, nail polish and hair-do's for the girls from grandma and a movie and lunch for Riley with grandpa!  And without a kitchen to cook in, it was so nice to have a real meal each night.  Take-out would have gotten old quick! 

Now the real work begins!

Unpacking,

organizing,

and

updating...

the house that is!

It's a bit of a fixer-uper.  It's not in bad shape but needs lots of updating, inside and out.

So the little picture above is the only glimpse of the house that I'm going to share for now.  I'll be doing a Before/After post later.  Let's just hope that it doesn't take forever to get to the After!