I'm Alive.

Don't worry, I haven't kicked the bucket.  I'm alive. It's just that during every RARE quiet moment that I've had in the past month, I have tried to catch up on sleep, watch mind numbing t.v. to relax, or talk to my husband.  I have missed blogging and keep repeating what I want to write in my head...finally I'm getting a chance to type!

Our move was as you would have imagined:  exhausting and not fun.  BUT it's done and things went relatively smoothly.  We moved in 2 parts....1 weekend to move everything we needed to live with at my parents house plus some special things we did not want to put in storage. Then 2 weeks later (we had a friend's wedding in between) we moved the rest of our stuff from Alexandria to a storage unit in Richmond.

Per usual even though we got help with relocation, we chose to pack and move ourselves to save some cash.  We are very good at packing and organizing to move now...I wasn't stressed, but I still hate packing.  There are moments of "Another Pyrex dish??" or "Where did we get all this crap?" and then the inevitable moment when you need to get on the road and just start shoving shit that doesn't go together in boxes marked "miscellaneous". (These are fun to unpack later..."What room does this go in?")  Lastly you just throw things like plants, mops, and trashcans in the truck and hope they make it in one piece.

she thinks moving is fun.

Packed up house.

moving day kitchen disaster...complete with lots of coffee, cleaning products, and fast food.

my life in the past year has looked like this a lot.

We had some eventful/painful moments along the way.  Waverly got used to sleeping in a new room while getting 2 teeth. Plus everyone got a cold.  There have been some long nights, grumpy mornings, and lots of rocking to sleep.  Which caused me to have a strained neck till I saw a chiropractor. That was a painful week. We are all finally healthy again and the little one seems to be getting back to her regular sleeping habits.

Another "eventful" moment is that while moving our stuff into storage, Nick broke our everyday dishes.  The ones we got as wedding gifts. After getting Waverly to bed, I showed up at the storage unit to help and he told me that the dishes box fell off the cart.  Our good friend was helping us, so as not to appear like a crazy wife in front of everyone, I stayed calm and said "Ok, well let's take it home and take a look."  When we opened the box at home, we found that 99% of our dishes were broken including serving platters and mugs.  Crying ensued.  Since then, I have gotten over it, but it was a big loss during the move. (I'm thankful that we have wedding china!) 

Lastly, we had a hell of a move out inspection.  In all our years of renting, this was the shortest lease.  5 months to be exact.  Yet, it was the biggest hassle.  The property management company was difficult to deal with and had a ridiculous amount of fees and stipulations.  We had a move out inspection that lasted over 3 hours.  3 hours WHILE we were packing the truck, cleaning, having the carpet cleaned, and taking care of a baby.  The inspector was straight out of a movie - frumpy with glasses and took her job very seriously.  Yes, I'm being judgemental, but she was unreal.  She took 3 hours to take notes and pictures of our place while asking me to replace light bulbs, dust the banister, and "Don't forget to wipe the light fixtures!" I felt like I was on that show "Boiling Point".  Then, as we were almost done, she asked Nick to weed the yard. Weed. The. Yard. We wanted to die.  Throughout the inspection I must have said 12 times, "We've only been here 4 months".  That didn't seem to click with her though.  Luckily she found nothing to go against our security deposit and allowed me to pee and give my baby a bottle before locking the door behind us.  Needless to say, we were happy to be done living there.

In the meantime we have settled in nicely to my parents house.  They made room for us to live, store some things, and set up our own family room in the basement.  The first week was a lot of excitement while everyone got used to living together.  Now things are calmer and we seem to have gotten into a routine. I have also learned the mystery of what my retired dad does all day...let's just say that retirement is nice and relaxing.

Cole is very settled and doing great.  He has a ton of room and places to lay...he chose this spot one day.

Apart from moving and settling into my parents house, we have been very busy. Nick's new job is going great and he's really happy. Waverly and I have had lots of playdates with our friends which we both love! Walks, playtimes, and lunches...busy social calendar.  Plus there's lots of playtime with my parents, Nana and Granddaddy.  Nana likes to take her on walks and sing little jingles to her.  Waverly bounces around like she's dancing, it's pretty funny. Granddaddy likes to get snuggles during the rare times that Waverly stops moving enough for a hug.

Nana and Waverly

Swinging with our friend, Sophie!

Stroller crew. At least the sidewalk was wide enough!

Speaking of Waverly, she has changed so much since we got to Richmond!  With all the space in my parent's house, she has taken off for the races.  She seriously crawls so fast!  She also started pulling up to standing which was cool, except in her crib because she couldn't figure out how to get down and would just stand there crying till I came to her rescue.  She has finally learned how to get down.  She's also waving and saying "da" to Nick and "da da da" at Cole for "dog"!

life is good. rock on.

While all this has been going on, we also found a realtor, went house hunting, had some family portraits done, and celebrated Mother's Day! Phew!  Just wanted to give you a preview of blog posts to come...soon, I promise!

Love from Richmond!