After Thanksgiving...

So Josh and I had a ROUGH drive home. We were talking about how nice it would be to just drive home for Christmas and then just stay. We had been talking about moving since July, but not sure when it was happening. We thought maybe November, and then we were able to get our lease pushed until December...and then if we wanted another extension we'd have to wait until March. Well, both of the job interviews that he had went pretty well and we were thinking the timeline for either job would be around January. So if we WAITED until Christmas then we'd not only have to drive to the Midwest AND back, but right back out again for the move. So we were toying with the idea of just doing it once...what would that look like, is it even possible. We also realized that we WOULD NOT have an answer before that. Or if we waiting until the week of Christmas, we'd have to move during Christmas...and then wouldn't have help (or at least happy help.) So then we thought about the week before Christmas...and then looking at the calendar realized that it was only TWO WEEKS away from that point where we were. WHAT??! After much prayer and a HUGE leap of faith, that is what we decided to do. Only a few of our friends out in PA even knew that we were moving in the next few months, but most of them had no idea. We had been waiting to tell most of them so we would have something to actually tell them...like, we're moving to ________ because Josh got a job _________. Instead we had to pack up our lives and tell them we were moving, but we still weren't sure where....craziness.
Everyone was so great and understanding and so helpful. We have the best friends ever. Everyone has been so supportive and so confirming of our decision that we really were following God's path for our lives.
Finally it's almost the end of January and I can finally breathe a little easier after the craziness that we just lived through. It is HARD moving...but it is REALLY hard to move twice in a few weeks and over Christmas, in the cold...and did I mention a few states away? Yeah. We made it work. And we are time and time again reminded that this is where God wants us. Just Sunday we visited a church and it made me tear up a little bit...I looked around and realized it is EXACTLY like what Storehouse (our home church in PA) is hoping to look like in the next few years. They are hoping to build or renovate a space. It was like they went to the very church we visited to take pictures. It's just more evidence that God is taking care of every single detail of this whole move.

In the meantime...here are some glimpses into our crazy lives in December...

Things like laundry got a little bit overlooked while packing up...

Sometimes I was even too busy to get Gabby dressed. (OK, not QUITE...but I just love this picture.)

The girls tried to have fun when the could with all the boxes that were everywhere. (Until we RAN OUT of boxes. And literally couldn't find any more anywhere.)

But speaking of boxes...we managed to score about 5 or 6 of these already broken down stacks of boxes outside of Family Dollar. It was AWESOME. 

  Gabby got into anything and everything while I was busy packing. Imagine how hard it is to keep a normal 10-month-old out of trouble but throw at her tons of enticing breakable and cluttered objects everywhere she looks. That was my December.

  including some remains of our boxes. Gabby found this star and choked on it pretty badly. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. She kept gagging, throwing up, gagging...until finally we saw this in her mouth. After that we made sure to check them very carefully before bringing them inside.

Gabby and Brooklynn spent a lot of time playing with each other since I had packed away most of their toys. 

We took the doors off our big cabinet to make it lighter and Brooklynn and Gabby both decided this was a fun place to sit in.

  most days there was a stack of boxes by the door waiting for Josh when he came home to stack in our garage.

Brooklynn was really excited when I cleaned out my closet....she found several new purses for her  collection.

Brooklynn worked very hard one of the mornings to pack up her desk. (Coloring books, markers, crayons, etc.) She even decorated the box. I kept telling her to pick some of her favorites and she put ALL of her stuff in that box. 

This is our garage....and sadly that is NOT all our stuff that we moved. There was plenty more.