The Post About Moving...

In case any of you were losing sleep at night just wondering when I was going to post again in order to dish out all the fantastic details of moving from New Orleans to Mandeville... your sleepless nights are over!!

On the 22 of November we packed up 4800 square feet of house and put it into two 26' U hauls... of course when I say "we" I mean David, his mom and brother Pete, and about 10 seminarians/friends who hopped across the street from Notre Dame, and three others who drove FROM COVINGTON to help us, while I changed the Pandora station numerous times (in order to provide adequate moving music) and sipped on my peppermint mocha because I'm not suppose to lift anything. And when I say "packed up 4800 square feet of house", I really mean the big sun room (among a few sun rooms) that held 3/4 of our boxed up lives and all the other furniture that we actually used (as well as the contents of the kitchen, which when packing, releases THOUSANDS of souls from purgatory). And when I say "two 26' U hauls"... I really mean that. The lives of 6 Dawson's went into 2 giant moving trucks... except for the LEGO's that I promised one six year old little man that I would take good care of... oh and the vacuum cleaner. I hadn't vacuumed the new house yet.

The contents were emptied into our little 1900 square foot house at 204 Governors Court in Mandeville... (I know 1900 sq ft isn't little, but it is actually the smallest house we've had before).

And in the last week and a half, we've had family and sweet friends come and help get our life unpacked here. By "help" I mean Michael and Erin Franco and their three beautiful children joined us for the day and Mike and David did a house note's worth of hardware store purchases for house projects and Erin watched ALL 7 kids while I unpacked boxes and hung up pictures. My parents joined us for the weekend and my mom opened Pandora's boxes in order to organize the classroom (remember how in previous posts I mentioned that I could find ANY home school stuff? Well she found them all).

And I have officially opened the last box (that I could find) today! It was filled with children's books... phew! Good thing I found it because we were only up to our knees in children's books rather than our elbows. Now we can wade through them like we used to... ah home!

We've picked back up with homeschooling and I've joined the home school group here on the northshore... "Rachel" - R.C.H.A.L so we're going to join them for First Friday Mass and I picnic this week. We're excited ("we" meaning me).

And so far, the neighborhood's hospitality has brought me to tears: the next door neighbors gave us the entire crop from their satsuma tree, we were brought a chocolate cake and a card by another couple, I got some baby gear from another family, another neighbor brought by the neighborhood directory complete with a year's supply of pencils (which we need bc I found my electric pencil sharpener, so we're running that baby ALL DAY), and we met another family with 5 kids who joined us in a bike ride... is this for real?!?!?

So here's your reward for reading...

The classroom

 The students

 The Micah Man

 The Cul de Sac... basically the best thing that could have happened to this housewife.

 I let my kids play in the street... say somethin'

 That would be Micah playing in our neighbor's leaves who have purposefully left them un-raked for my children...

 I will lovingly refer to Mama Mary as "Our Lady of Sidewalk Chalk" from now on. Micah has adorned her with all the colors of the rainbow. She likes it!

 Obligatory front door pic

 The living room/kitchen which reveals that for the first 30 seconds of every video, all four children sit lovingly together on the couch... I'll take whatever peace I can get.

 And when you move to a town with no known babysitters, you're a team! So the kids helped me take care of my new license at the DMV

 And here is a captured moment of sheer grace. All my children at the grocery store (they're all always with me at the grocery store) all on the same cart, nobody turning grocery aisles into the running of the bulls, and nobody screaming. They're are actually saying "Ah." We were a hit. I actually got a positive response when I answered the daily question of "Are they all yours?" The man said, "Well, God bless you, they are just beautiful." Thank you Lord... I needed this one.

 Potty-training Mcghee having a satsuma (we found four potties when we moved... I'll take the hint).

 The easel is finally getting used! Isn't she the cutest?

 And some more cuteness for you...