Packing

As many of you know, we're moving in June. We're excited, of course--but right now we're in that part of moving that I don't think anyone enjoys. Packing. There's one question that figures prominently in my mind everytime I clear something (anything) off. How did we get this much stuff?

The new place

The last time we moved we were fresh out of college, and while we had a baby on the way, we hadn't really started collecting any of the items that go with having children. Four years later (wow, has it really been four years since moved into our house?) and we have two small kids. For all you parents out there, that should pretty much be enough said. For those of you who aren't--just wait. Kids are tiny, but they come with a whole load of stuff!

Plus, while the kids are excited and for the most part trying to be helpful, their idea of "packing" and mine are just not the same. Joshua wants his own box which he fills with his treasures and other random items. Which would be fine, except that he then moves it to another part of the house and dumps it out, only to start all over again. Lydia thinks that all the boxes are boats, or forts, or great stages for epic games of "peek-a-boo" and is quite upset if I try to use one of "her" boxes for it's proper purpose.

That being said, after a month of work and loads of boxes later, we are finally starting to see progress. So much of the packing I did at the beginning was of stuff that found its home 360 days a year in the back of a closet, or cupboard, etc. So, for a long time no matter how much I packed the amount of "stuff" in the house didn't seem to diminish--in fact it just looked messier because it was all pulled out and there were piles of boxes to boot. But, we're now packing items that usually take up space in the house and I'm wondering why we had all of it to begin with. I'm hoping to be able to weed it out and not put it all back into the new house. And, conveniently, since we're upsizing even if it all moved in it shouldn't feel so full. But, I'd definitely like to be able reduce unused/unneeded items to a minimum.

Finally, for all those of you following along with this blog for the long haul, an update on how all my snoopy-little-old-ladies-across-the-street are doing with the move. (I know at least a couple of you were secretly wondering...) Well, in short. They. Are. Hilarious. They think they're so sneaky and unobtrusive, but if they can see us they should realize we can probably see them! We got a storage unit last week to contain the boxes so they're not all sitting in our living room for the next month. The official reason is because this house goes on the market in a week or so. The unofficial reason is that mommy was going crazy with a stack of boxes eating my livingroom. Take your pick. Anyway, back to the ladies. So, as we've been making trips over to the storage unit, one woman has seriously sat next to her patio window and watched every trip. She thinks she's sneaky, since she moved the chair back behind the frame, but she leans so far forward to get a good view, it's quite obvious! I've seen several others checking us out too. So far, no one has crossed the street to point blank ask us what's going on, but I'm sure they have their own theories circling around. :)

So, that's us. Not the most exciting stuff, but pretty all-consuming in our world right now. I'll add pictures to the post when I get a chance, but I hear my little princess calling to get up, so I need to go for now.