Slow and Steady

We go to closing on our new house this week.  (Still need to write up a post about that...someday!)  We are not hoarders, but the amount you accumulate with five kids is amazing.  Or maybe it is just when everything from your entire house is tucked into a box and stacked in one place, it looks like a crazy amount of 'stuff.'  This is only the second time we've moved in our married life.  We moved into our first apartment when we got married and we moved into our current townhouse exactly 6 years ago when Gavin was a toddler and Maddie was a little eight-month-old dumpling of a girl. Now, we have five kids and our baby girl is Alaine, who will turn 8 months on moving weekend.  

Thankfully we have a little over two weeks to move from here to there (as opposed to the five days we originally thought!) so we've chosen to do this transition in baby steps.  Baby steps have meant packing three or four boxes a day instead of doing marathon packing...and making a list of phone calls to spread out over weeks instead of spending all day on the phone...and driving boxes over on several weekends instead of saving everything for moving day at the end of the month. 

Still, it is crunch time and the house is starting to look bare.  Daily a child will say, "Hey, where's my fill-in-the-blank," and I have to sheepishly answer that I packed it.  And does anyone know how many calories an exclusively breastfed, teething baby consumes in a day?  Neither do I, but I'd like to think it makes a serious dent in the calories I've consumed through stress eating.  I guess it also helps that she is fussy and needing to be carried everywhere which surely burns off the rest of the calories. 

Seriously, though, we are more than thrilled about this new adventure-- this new place to settle and grow.  We are grateful for friends who hand deliver moving boxes and others who invite the kids to play while I do the work. We are excited about a dishwasher and a backyard (with lots of grass to mow!) and  a large back deck and  a kiddie pool and open windows and pink paint.  We are thrilled for friendly arms to  move the heavy stuff and offers of food for busy days.  We are requesting prayer for calm.  We are thankful for the Body of Christ in action.