Lovin' it

Well, we are living in the dear sunshiney cheerful new house. The "move" was hard, the friends who would help us were literally all out of town or sick or having new babies (Congrats A and J on your new baby girl!!!!!!!!!!!) and so we just did it with our own vehicles, trip after trip, mostly just Steve, as taking the kids in any capacity or combo out in the sub-freezing just to look at the half-empty old house was depressing, difficult and impossible (where to set the baby? on the bare floors with dust and nails and lost legos?....) so it was pretty much a joke and ended up back on Steve, whose cheer and energy must come from some invisible fountain of RedBull deep inside himself, he is incredible (and stubborn. didnt want to spend the $$$ on the moving truck or the POD type thing, so, well, what can I say?)

Its not even that I have no back muscles or no stomach muscles, its that I have all these little kids with noone who will babysit them and nowhere to put them so I can at least use my strong arms and strong will to grab the end of the bunk beds, couches, dressers. So I sit and nurse and watch my husband bust his bum, not willing to "deal with" having anyone's issues over us intentionally moving to a smaller place (gasp! bigger! bigger! move up the ladder! more more only!) he refused to involve his parents after a few ridiculous episodes that showed us exactly what they thought of us and our increasingly "weird" (to them) lifestyle choices....never mind that as we move closer to our values and intentional living we get happier and happier and the children unfurl and blossom, no no thats all just TOO weird.

But I didnt mean to be negative for even two paragraphs because we are actually doing great already. the house is everything that I lay awake and envisioned and then some. each and every one of our plans and purchases has worked out gloriously, everything is just like I hoped it would be and then some!
Mornings: This house is so wonderful to wake up to. Warm and cozy, quiet and serene, its only a matter of days before we build my front window park-view "bar"/shelf and I can sip coffee while looking out at the misty hills...the big open kitchen inviting cereal and toast and the floors are so warm and the south facing front window lets in sun the whole day.

Days: Good vibes and good cheer, everyone sort of gets themselves ready at a gentle pace. I have been doing tons of dishes by hand, dont know why, we have a great built in dishwasher, real quiet and eifficient, but its just that kind of kitchen. You want to do the dishes and feel the sun. I am freaking myself out how much I love this place.

Afternoons: nap has been no problem and the older kids have been reading and making their endless movies with my little videocamera. They will be YouTube stars soon, I feel it. I dont even know how to make a youtube yet, seriously.

Dinnertime: again, its fun to cook here and its fun to run to the market for ingredients, too. There are alot of stores close by and lets not forget my rockin new van!!! Luckily we have a verrry long driveway or else that thing would block my wooded view==not cool. We have a glass top stove which i find quite swanky and it is fun to cook on it. We sat around as a family after dinner just talking and laughing like best friends with a bottle of wine--except it was a bottle of trader joes sparkling lemonade (too yummy) until 930 pm! We never do that, its usually go to bed darn kids so me and daddy can watch tv and "relax"--sorry to say. But besides Charlie, we all just had a great old hang-out at the kitchen table. and here I was kind of worried about not having a dining room. Fooey! I love eating in the kitchen now!

Bedtime: very smooth. Much bigger bathroom lends to many kids brushing teeth together without being smashed or fake smashed or whatever they used to scream and fight about. Nice deepish bathtub, too. Gonna take a bath ASAP.

Eska seems to love it here, she can crawl everywhere as it is all nice clean carpet, and there is a little track where she can go round and round the house and she loves when we play peek a boo and act all surprised to see her--she is SO cute and hilarious!

I refuse to take pics until we get unpacked. Its too box-filled....but soon soon soon.

Living in a little house is a great gift to me. I do not feel like some crazed washer-woman/cleaning lady/maid. We have 6 rooms and it is plenty. For real. I am busy enough without having to maintain some mansion. When it warms up, this is going to be heaven, truly heaven.