December has been a crazy month!! Filled with a lot of ups and downs and trying to figure out when our house would actually be finished so we could move in. It was suppose to be done before Thanksgiving, but the Monday before Thanksgiving we were told that they would have it done on or before the 20th of December! We were devastated and so frustrated!! We had been told we were going to get to move in September and then October and then November so to be told we weren't going to get the house until 5 days before Christmas was just so frustrating. Especially since there was not a whole lot left for them to do on the house. So we were hopeful that they would get done before the 20th, but we weren't holding our breath. At this time we decided that the only way we were going to get moved at Christmas time was to hire movers. We found a local company that gave us a good deal, but we still had to figure out when we would actually get to move. I'll give you a bit of a timeline so you can see (and I can remember) just how crazy it was! On the 9th we scheduled our walk through with the builders for Thursday the 12th. On the 12th we did our walk through and asked the builders if they would let us in early to get a few of the rooms painted. They gave us permission to paint on the weekend. Friday I had a showing for the house (our house that we are renting) and had to scramble to get a insurance policy set up for our new house, fortunately Hans was able to do that from work as I tried to make our house semi presentable with 4 kids underfoot! We spent Saturday the 14th and half of Sunday the 15th painting at our new house with 4 kids tagging along in an empty house. Amidst taking the girls to play practice and then of course to church on Sunday to do their Christmas program. The evening of the 15th Hans' parents arrived and helped us with some of the painting. On the 16th we were still left wondering when we would close. Our paperwork was seeming to take forever due to having to get a new appraisal done as the one that had been done earlier had expired. I was also very frustrated with all the last minute we need this paper or document.
The builders had the final inspection scheduled for Tuesday and we wanted to know if we would get it all closed and be able to move by my absolute last day to move before Christmas of the 19th. Monday we heard the paperwork had been sent to escrow and that we would be signing soon. We also decided last minute to go over and paint the master bedroom. We decided to go ahead and plan for the movers to come and move us on Thursday the 19th. My absolute last day that I would move before Christmas. Tuesday we signed our papers and thought, hey that is it we can move in! At the end of signing we found out it wouldn't close till Friday!! I was sick! There was no absolute way that we could move before Christmas if we waited till Friday! We had the girls' ballet performance on Saturday and tickets for the Nutcracker and there just was no way to get us moved. Hans made the decision to still have us move on Thursday and went and talked to the supervisor and got our keys after implying to him that we had closed...We packed frantically and moved Thursday!! We were so glad we hired the movers. We have a ton of solid wood HEAVY furniture. They did a great job padding everything and were so strong! I seriously could not believe how much they could lift!! They were well worth the money as there was no possible we could have gathered enough people to help us move. It took 2 trucks and we still didn't get it all we had to take quite a few loads on our own with the less than important stuff.
So Friday at about noon the house closed! Did you catch that? Yep, we moved in a day early!! I wouldn't recommend doing this but after they made us wait so long to get our house we didn't feel too bad. Hey we had signed all the papers and paid all the money!! But our new favorite story to tell is that of when our realtor arrived at our new house at 1 pm on Friday and told us about how he found out that we had moved in early!! He wanted it to close so badly for us so we could move in before Christmas, but was shocked to hear from the superintendent of the project that he had already given us the keys and that we had moved in the day before...HA! His first in 12 years of realty that someone moved in early. He should have expected it from us, hey we moved in early at our last house by almost 3 weeks before we had our occupancy permit.
So if you can imagine how crazy this has all been with 4 little girls, Christmas to be planned for, and trying to get painting and cleaning and moving all done at the same time. We were exhausted to say the least. It was so helpful to have Hans' parents with us to help us pack, clean, paint, and move stuff. We moved Thursday, got sorta settled Friday, had dance show and Christmas decorating Saturday and then went to the Nutcracker! We were so fortunate to get a new fresh tree from some friends for free as our first tree which we planned to move with us was so super dry that there was no way it was going to get to our new house with many needles. Sunday Hans and his dad built shelves in the garage while I did more unpacking and switched into Christmas mode. Fortunately I was able to get most of my shopping done early and on Amazon and would spend evenings wrapping presents before we moved. It was crazy, but we got it done.
That evening we did a little gift exchange with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Eric which was really fun. The girls were so excited to finally get to open some gifts.
They got the big Barbie camper with 4 sisters! They loved it! It is perfect for our four sister family that loves to camp!
Monday morning the Tolfs took off for Kevin and Anna's house and we hauled a few more loads from the old house and did things that needed to be done.
Playing with daddy! Boy does he have a strong back to hold four girls!!
Christmas Eve we relaxed with the family. We did puzzles together that we gave them early, listened to Christmas music, and made cookies for Santa. For dinner we had lasagna, sourdough bread, and salad, with cookies for dessert.
Then we opened up our Christmas eve presents. The traditional Christmas jammies and a toy.
Then we got ready for church and headed off to the Christmas Eve service. We were so excited it only took us 6 minutes to get to church from our new house.
Christmas morning, Santa arrived!! The girls did their stockings and then we had cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs for breakfast.
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| Christmas Jammies!! |
After breakfast we opened the rest of the presents!!
Then we got ready and headed to Bothell to spend the rest of the day with Kevin, Anna, Riley, Liam, and Grandma Mary and Grandpa Eric. It was nice to just relax and enjoy the kids while everyone else took care of dinner. We had prime rib that was super yummy! It was a nice day and the cousins loved playing together! We headed home that night because we had to have the carpets cleaned bright early the next morning at our rental.
Uncle Hans/Daddy getting all the kids wound up!!
Worn out after a long day!!
And as if life wasn't busy enough we decided to keep with our original plan of going to Montana after Christmas as this was/is the best time for Hans with his work schedule. So Friday we spent all day packing for a 10 day trip to Montana. And here we are...the rest will be continued after the first of the year!!
Happy New Year and see you in 2014!
