Moving Time

Most people think this is frivolous, but for me it is, was, and will always be an absolute must - can you afford to hire movers? I have used them for my past 2 moves and will NEVER move my house on my own again! My stress level was significantly reduced and I didn't feel physically exhausted. This was BC - before children! I cannot imagine chasing two toddlers around with doors constantly open and trying to move furniture and boxes.

I know money is definitely tight when buying a new house, especially with closing costs and such but if you are in a position to hire movers I highly recommend it.

To help your kids with packing (and for you to easily identify their boxes) let them pick out sheets of stickers. For example, the 3 year old gets Thomas the Train stickers and the 5 year old gets Hot Wheels (or whatever they may like) and let them put a sticker on each of their boxes. It might even encourage them to help with packing - "When you help mommy finish packing a box, you get a sticker for the box and a treat for you!"

First of all good luck. Moving is sooo not fun. We feel your pain. Next, Go the the library and get a Moving book, if there is still time,lots of good advice from Home Depot's book. I just moved here to Ohio from Florida. My husband's suggestion to you would be 1)by boxes from U-haul or where ever because the uniform size helps in the packing of the truck. 2)Get the biggest truck you can afford to rent. There needs to be enough room for 2 men carrying a piece of furniture inside the truck -standing up not crouching over. Got the picture. And this helps with #3)Make one trip. Load, drive, Unload. All those trips back and forth wear everybody out. 4)Have plenty of drinks for your workers (in Florida we had a cooler full of gator-aide and water). 5)Your primary job,Mom, when the truck arrives at the new house is to Direct the Boxes; as the guys come down the plank tell them where the box goes. RED Dots go to the bedroom with the RED colored paper on it; Green dots go to the Green door; that goes to the kitchen...etc. A word of caution: if you are moving into a home with a pool just know the little ones are drawn to a pool like a magnet. Many drownings happen the day the family moves in, the parents are new pool owners and not prepared for the saftey issues that need to be in place before they get there. Also, keep track of you bills and papers by making a traveling office out of a backpack or book bag,anything. If it's going to be an all day affair, FEED the workers!

It is exciting to be moving to a new house! But remember it is on that top 5 list of most stressful life events.

What are they...-marriage - divorce - death in family - new job - moving... something like that.

Expecting a little stress can help reduce it's impact. Try to make it as fun as you can and just accept the fact that it will be really tiring. And the kids will also feel stress, but make sure they are not feeding off your stess to much.

Keep your eye on the long term. Remind yourself often how nice it will be once you are all settled in and life is moving on again!

This is wonderful news for u and ur family! Buying ur home that u will now become part of many memories to come! Oh i would try to be alittle more excited about it; as well as geting the children excited:D Well i hope u can get ur family(mother, siblings, friends etc.) to help the more the faster it will go. I have found labling the boxes really make the biggest diff. then as people take the boxs in they know what room to place it. Plus having ur husband or whomever is doing the heavy lifting ;in the big items and place them first where u want them to stay. Then next its the boxes to place away.
I think the kids could get involed by taking there boxes in there room after the main items r all set up and helping them place there things away will help them get settled and relaxed more with the new feeling.
I really do recommend family and friends so they can help those boxes unpack faster. You dont want to wear urself out..sounds like ur very busy with ur little ones anyways:D
I hope u can find some fun in this. Its a memories stone that will change alot for the better in ur familys lifes. I'd also wait a bit on hanging pictures and those losends till the boxes r all out. Ordering in or taking a break at a sitdown restrunt may give u a break during the work:)
Best of luck....let us know how it turns out:D

Another thing that I found really helpful when we moved last summer was letting my little one be as involved as possible. He helped to pack some of his own things. We also had a children's book about moving to a new house - though i don't recall the name of it off the top of my head....i think i may have been a barney book. Also - when you arrive you can help the kids feel more at home by having a couple of boxes of their favorite things to unpack right away...for us it was his curtains, wall stick-ups, and a few select toys that i could put up easily to make the room look like his own. I also let him help decide where to put the new furniture, etc. in his new room.

We just moved 8 mos ago. We were a family of 9 in a 1050sqft home - wonder why we were moving??? We looked at houses for 4 mos and took the kids to all the open houses and walk throughs. When they saw the much bigger homes, they were excited at the idea of getting a bigger house. When we were serious and had narrowed it down to 5 or 6 houses, we asked my mom to sit with the kids so we could make some adult decisions while viewing the homes again, to narrow the field. We took lots of pictures to keep the kids up to date, and explain why we ruled out some of the houses. When we decided on which to bid on, the kids recognized the pictures and features, and were as excited as we were to hear if we got it.
They all helped pack. They were each in charge of packing their toys, books and whatnot, and labeling the box as theirs. On moving day, the oldest 4 helped bring boxes out to the U-Haul, and the youngest three came with me to the new house to start cleaning and preparing food and snacks. It was a weekend event, but it went very smoothly. I didn't do as much as you would think on moving day because I had the baby and the 2 preschoolers to keep out of the way. All the boxes were marked where they were to go, so my husband and our brothers, and our 4 oldest sons had that under control. I entertained the little ones, cleaned, and offered water and snacks.
All of the kids adjusted beautifully, and I think it was because they were involved from beginning to end.

I bought my first house in jan of last year and moved my then 6, 5 and 3 year old. It was stressful, and hectic but the kids did great, I took them to the second walk though and showed them the house, let them pick out rooms and let them help me pack their stuff so that they knew everything was coming with us. and we talked about it constantly even the stuff they didn't understand like when i made the offer andthe 30 days after it was mine before we moved in i kept them informed so they knew what to expect. As for packing and trying to make the process as simple as possible start early, buy plenty of boxes and packing matterials, plan how you are getting everything to the new house, are you renting a van or taking it yourself and always underestimate, make sure to clearly make what rooms and what is in boxes so that you can find things those first few days, or if time allowspack up everything you can live without for a day or two, take it over, unpack it ove rthe next couple days while you still sleep and so forth at the old house and then take the last of teh essentials over that last day so that you aren't trying to unpack everything with the kids at night when all you want to do is make the beds and go to sleep. as nice as it can be to have a sitter in this situation i found that by including my kids in the process and letting them help unpack their stuff and set it up they were very comfortable from the very first day, and having them involved ove rthe course of a few days and letting them spend short amounts of time at the house before we actually stayed ehre was a great help as well. something else if there is any painting or cleaning or stuff like that that you want to get done immediantly and aren't planning on waiting to do, do it before you move it, it's easier to paint an empty room than that have to move stuff later. hope this helps, it sounds like your kids are ready and excited and you probally won't have any troubles with them. good luck.