This one's gonna be long...

I’m starting to feel a little settled in, but still incredibly disorganized. I can’t believe it’s been 3 weeks already, but I still can‘t find stuff. Just this morning I finally located our Peanut Butter. We have a lot less space here, and I want to be able to use all that space for things we use all the time…that means more purging. Right now the basement is full of unpacked boxes, and about half our garage space still has stuff in it. Part of the basement will be designated for storage of items we use but don’t need out, like holiday decorations. My goal is to have a functioning space for an office area, a stained-glass area, and a place I can easily access and use my craft and quilting stuff. I also don’t want boxes of stuff we don’t really need just sitting around. My goal is to unpack at least one box a day. Not a lofty goal by any means, but a reasonable one considering the three kids.

The boys are still having a bit of a hard time adjusting. We’re still dealing with a lot of fights and tantrums. I don’t know how much to attribute to normal childhood behavior, and how much to chalk up to the inconsistency we’re still living in. Hopefully things will settle down soon.
Mia is doing great. She’s a really easy baby, just like Dom was. She smiles all the time now, and we’ve gotten some giggles out of her on occasion. Of course, when I try to take a picture of her smiling she stops, so I haven’t gotten one yet.

On to hunting news: Joe got two deer within five minutes of each other. He shot a good sized doe, and while heading over to see if it dropped, he saw another doe and a buck. Since it is "earn a buck" up here, he had to confirm he got the doe before he could take a shot at the buck...so he figured he wasn't going to get the buck after it walked off. But, when he got close enough to see that he had gotten the doe, the buck reappeared, and he got it too. Another lovely eight pointer that will be hanging in my house somewhere, I'm sure. I'm so excited to have venison coming!!

We're Here!

We've officially transplanted ourselves to Wisconsin, and boy was it F-U-N. We got here on Saturday, the 27th at 8:30 pm. We basically unloaded the trailer, and went to bed. On Sunday, Joe and his dad had to go back to IL to get all the stuff we couldn't fit into the vehicles on Saturday...and there was still stuff there, so my brother went and picked the last of it up, and it's in my Gramma's garage. Apparently humans are like fish...we expand to fill our bowls. After getting rid of six minvan loads of stuff prior to the move, I never would have imagined we'd still have so much. I'll be purging more as I unpack, because I refuse to have a bunch of stuff we don't really, really need. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself, because I didn't get to purge the kitchen stuff like I wanted to...we just ran out of time.

Note to self: Never, ever move with a newborn again.

This week has been interesting to say the least. Zack has picked up on the fact that this is our "new home", but Dom has said several dozen times, "Mama, I want go home." Which is not easy on me, because frankly, I want to go "home" too. Thankfully, I've had a bunch of help from my in-laws in moving stuff and watching kids so I could unpack, and my friend came over for a few hours on Weds. so I could unpack clothes...I finally found my socks!! I'm hoping some of the overwhelmed, homesick feelings will dissipate once we get somewhat settled in.

The townhouse is really nice, and I'm looking forward to decorating and making it "our place." One major downside is the neighbors who live in the other half have, thus far, been less than welcoming. I was really hoping we would get along with them, and be able to have a friendly relationship, but it appears it's going to be more along the lines of us just tolerating each other's existence...at least with the husband. Joe had a brief encounter with the wife yesterday, and said she was friendly, so we'll see what happens.

Well, I've sat here long enough for now...I need to go work on organizing toys...yippie!!