Moved In

My oh my, it's been a busy week and a half. We've been making the move to NYC, which in a lot of ways took a lot longer than we expected. We're still not completely out of boxes, and Max's room is kind of a temporary catch-all for the stuff we can't deal with at the moment, but for the most part we've turned this little three bedroom into a home for Karol, Pat, Matt and I. I think I'll tell the story in pictures.

Patrick and Karol are playing in the courtyard of our Arlington apartment, waiting for Mimu and Grandpa Plomin to arrive last Friday. Matt & friends spent the whole day loading the U-Haul and I had my last day at work.

We got a late start and some hiccups in the plan for driving up Friday night, so we stayed at a hotel just south of Baltimore and woke up at 5 to drive up to NYC.

Here's our U-Haul and one of the moving guys we hired to help us unload, bright and early at 9:30am.

Here's our new apartment! No, not in the Sushi shop, four floors above it.

Working on unloading...

Matt has gotten a LOT of handyman experience. He built a bunch of new furniture (this is Karol & Pat's new bed), and hung shelving and pictures.

Our new kitchen table! It has leaves to fold out and we found it in the 'As Is' section of Ikea. I think it was a display model. We got lucky, because this table (that I'd already decided was 'the one') was discontinued, so you can't get it new anymore.

Karol and Patrick arrive on Monday! Here they are exploring their new bunk beds.

Patrick's on the bottom and Karol's on the top. Thomas the Tank Engine sheets for Pat and Disney Princess sheets for Karol.

First bath in the new - much smaller - bathroom. Mommy is not a fan of the faucet being in the middle.

Karol helped me unpack some of her clothes.

K & P 'sort' hair clips while I unpack stuff in our bedroom. They made a mess, but it occupied them for quite a while.

Patrick tested the new freedom of his big boy bed for a couple of nights, getting up and sneaking into bed with mom and dad at 3am. We were too tired to put him back! These boys were so adorable I just had to snap a picture.

We've spent quite a lot of time at Ikea and Home Depot. Here's K & P working on their math skills in the children's section of Ikea. Mmm, gotta love the Swedish Meatballs for lunch!

We spent a lot of mornings at a diner a few blocks away because it took us days to get the kitchen set up. Groceries in Manhattan are ridiculous (think $8 for a small box of cereal), luckily the day before Matt started work we were able to drive out to Ft. Hamilton (about 1 hr each way, in Brooklyn) to the commissary and stocked up. The money we saved was WELL worth the drive.

Here's Karol enjoying some eggs and pancakes.

The living room is very kid-centric. Matt built all these little white shelves and all of the kids' toys now have their own special places, which makes clean up MUCH easier. The kids are getting used to putting away Toy A before getting out Toy B.

So now it's time to test out our new system with Matt going to work and me (eek!) staying home. I'm fearful that I will lose my mind, or spend every minute entertaining the kids, or become TV mom and let them watch PBSKids all day. I'm striving to find balance. I guess we'll see how it goes!