Making a House a Home - Part 4

The first night in the new house was a hard to really "enjoy" as the movers didn't even leave until after 8pm, and there was so much work we still wanted to try and get done. We were so exhausted we basically just crashed. We were heading south in the morning to go back and take care of things at the old place. I took the boys to a birthday party and then the park to hang out with some friends while Daddy and MIL made our old place look spic and span!

We met back at the old place around 3 and it was so weird to walk inside. I was at the new house when the movers packed up so I never saw the Revere place empty.







It was so empty. Like we were never even there. It was funny how small the place looked. It seemed almost impossible that all of our furniture had fit in that space. It made me understand why some people pay big bucks to stage their homes when they put them on the market. Even at the new house; some of the rooms looked smaller than we remembered, until we started filling them with our stuff!

We woke up on Sunday and it was time to really start making this house our home! We still had a lot of boxes to still unpack and we had lots of organizing to do as well. The yard was going to need some serious TLC, but that would have to wait until Mid-week. The Doc still had to go back to Revere for his last few days of work. He scheduled an overnight shift on Monday so he would just stay at the Hospital for the night and finish up with his last day on Tuesday. The boys and I continued to unpack and run errands. And then on Wednesday it was time to start working on the yard.

We bought a lawnmower (our first one ever, since we have never had a yard before!), a hose, a weed-whacker and a composter. We havall new toys to try and make the yard look loved again! We had the irrigation system serviced in hopes that it would help revive the dead lawn and to some extent it has helped but next spring we'll have to do some more serious work to fix it.

Evan helping with some weeding


Building the composter


The inaugural mowing of the lawn


Evan wanted to "help" Daddy


The weed whacker


My new composter! It will be great for our garden next year. In Concord, you pay for your trash by the bag. So you purchase special purple trash bags. We always recycled but now this is just one more advantage to starting our compost!

Making a House a Home - Part 3

Part 2 left off with our last night in Revere, and so part 3 begins with us waking up early the next morning - it's officially MOVING DAY! Charlie, David & Shaun drove to Jac's to pick up some breakfast (this place had the BEST French Toast!) before the boys and I head back to the new house. The movers are expected to show up to pack up the boxes around 9am and someone needed to be at the new house for our second furniture delivery.

This was the new dining room set and a couch and love seat for the lower level. While I was waiting around, our new next door neighbors stopped by to say hello and invite us over to their cookout. They have 3 boys as well, but their youngest is 9. As she was leaving the cable man arrived to install our phone, cable and internet! It was nice that we were able to get it scheduled the same day! The delivery guys arrived right on the earlier side and set everything up and then Omi arrived for some back up so that I could get some things organized before Charlie and the movers arrived.





After all the delivery was made and the cable was hooked up, we were still waiting to hear from Charlie and the movers. I called to get a status; it was about 2pm at this point. He was expecting to have already been on the road but they were still working. So without a crib and no pack n play, I had no place to put Evan down for a nap, so we all decided to take a drive over to the mall and check it out. It's small but nice. I was able to find a comforter for David's new bed at a store called The Bon Ton. I had never heard of it before but it's basically another department store like JC Penny or Macy's. We ran a couple more errands and headed back to the house.

The movers arrived at 5pm and wasted no time getting things started. It had already been such a long day and there was still so much to be done.


They told us that any boxes we unpacked they would take back! It was great because that meant we wouldn't have all those boxes and trash lying around but it meant that we weren't going to have the luxury to take our time finding places for everything.

Kitchen disaster!


Bedroom disaster!


Playroom disaster!


While Charlie and the movers unpacked, I took the boys over to the neighbors and they had a fire going. It was a nice distraction for the boys and kept them out of the way. They road their bikes around the driveway and once the movers had put Evan's crib together we were able to put them to bed. They were exhausted and went right to sleep with no issues.

David sleeps UNDER his pillow!


Shaun likes to have his flash light


Evan fast asleep


It was going to be another long day, this time back in Revere to take the boys to a Birthday Party while the Doc and MIL clean up the old place. To be continued...

I Heart Faces / Water

This weeks challenge is over at I Heart Faces is Water. This one was easy as it's been so hot and we've been taking the kids swimming a lot! As I was sorting all the pictures I took from our last trip to the pool I decided to enter this one of David. He was having fun with the water fountain in the kiddie pool at my parents camp. This kid LOVES the water and it totally shows on his face!!





For more water fun check out all the other amazing entries over at I Heart Faces!

Making a House a Home - Part 2

Part 2 of the move was to paint and get ready for some new furniture. After we closed Charlie and MIL headed out to Home Depot to get some paint. We really loved how the house was painted with the exception of the Master Bedroom. So we chose our paint color and they went to work. Interestingly we ended up choosing the same color we painted David's nursery from our Philly house!



I took the boys out for a ride to drop my Mom off, since she came to watch the boys while we signed all the papers. We figured it would make the painting go much smoother (and FASTER!) if the boys weren't around to "help"! Before getting back to the house I picked up a few necessities at our new Target (only a 10 minute drive!), in fact all of the shopping is 10 minutes away! It's actually quite convenient! Anyway, since the painting was a much bigger project than expected I decided to let the boys have a little fun in the big bathtub!



The boys had a blast and even though I didn't use that much soap; the jets made the whole tub fill with bubbles.


It was getting late and I had to be back bright and early the next morning so that I could be here for our first furniture delivery; this one from Jordan's! We're hoping that a member of the Sox hits the sign so we can get it all for free! But if they don't (and odds are they won't!) we still get a voucher for 20% total purchase to use towards a future purchase! It will come in handy this fall when it's time to buy Evan his bedroom set and a nice new desk for our office!

The Couch, Love Seat and Chair for the Great Room:


FINALLY! A KING sized bed!!!!!


The boys bedroom sets. Evan will eventually get the same one too!




The furniture ended up being delivered early and they were waiting for me! It was nice to not have to sit around for four hours and wait. So after they were set up the boys and I headed back to Revere for our last night! The boys arrived home and were surprised by what they saw, because while we were at the new house the Doc was with the movers, who packed all of our stuff into boxes. And with all of our stuff in boxes; that didn't leave much for us to do at home so we drove out to the mall to walk around. We picked up some hot dogs and ice cream at Hot Diggity for our last meal in Revere and then it was off to bed because it was going to be another early morning and another LONG, LONG day! To be continued...again...

Making a House a Home - Part 1

It has been almost a month since we closed on our house and I am happy to say that we have made great progress turning this house into our home! With the exception of a few boxes; most everything is unpacked and put in it's new place! We've even hung some of our pictures on the wall. There is still so much we have planned but most of it will have to wait until at least next spring. I have been photographing the journey and wanted to share the first stage of our move tonight:

Boxes are all packed in Revere:




Evan's Room


David & Shaun's Room


David and Shaun seeing the house for the first time and checking out their new bedrooms! Only Evan (who was 10.5 months old at the time) was the only one to see the house before we closed!



"My Monkey, I have a Monkey!!!" Shaun's reaction to seeing the big gorilla that is painted on the wall of his new room!


Evan already knows his way around!


The kids had a BLAST running around the empty house checking out all the rooms and opening all the doors; finding new places to hide and explore! The next step is furnishing this empty house with all the stuff packed in the boxes above! That made for a very interesting and very long day...(to be continued!)

I Heart Faces / Props

This weeks I Heart Faces challenge is Props. I took this picture of the boys with their friends at Popham Beach State Park in Maine. The waves were wicked that day and kids had a blast jumping them and trying to catch the water with their buckets to fill up the big hole they dug. Pails make great props for summertime photos!





As always; there are so many great photographs over at I Heart Faces so don't forget to click on the link and check them all out!

I Heart Faces / Red, White & Blue

This week over at I Heart Faces, they are celebrating Red, White and Blue! I am excited to show off my action picture of my oldest son jumping in the bounce house at a 4th of July celebration in our old city. I have been practicing taking action shots in manual and have had the hardest time with the images coming out blurry. I would become discouraged and either accept that there were fuzzy spots or "cheat" and switch to the action setting on my camera.


In any case; I am starting to get the hang of it and understand how it works. Practice makes perfect. And because this is a "non competition" week; I also wanted to show off my first firework shot. I still had some issues trying to figure out how to capture these but by the end of the night I was able to get some really cool shots and of course, there is nothing like a little help from Lightroom to get rid of all the noise!



Hope everyone had as great of a 4th of July as I did with my friends and family! I end this post with a picture of my boys sporting their classic Old Navy Flag Tee's in Red, White and Blue! Don't forget to stop over at I Heart Faces to check out the other amazing entries!

Happy 4th of July!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday! Enjoy your summer BBQ's; fun in the sun and fireworks!

Oh, and what a difference a year makes!

Evan - July 4, 2010

Evan - July 4th 2011 (check out his big boy haircut!)

Home Sweet Home

It's been a week and a day since the movers packed up all our belongings onto the truck and brought them to our new home! We have made some great progress in getting everything unpacked and into place. There are only about a handful of boxes left unopened. Since the weather has been nice we started doing lots of work on the yard. The lawn is pretty much dead on the entire side of the house and weeds have taken over the front flower gardens. Nothing a little TLC won't be able to fix; it won't be perfect this year; but it will look a lot better!

The boys have adjusted as well as can be expected from a big move away from all their friends and the life they knew before. The hardest part for them has been adjusting to being in their own bedrooms. Tonight wasn't as bad but I think that had more to do with them being so tired from the busy day! I have been documenting our move with my camera and my plan is to put together a little slide show; but for now I have our first official family portrait in front of our new home!