new rooms for the boys

While the kids all had their own rooms when we first moved into our house over 4 years ago, once Miss Ellie came along, we had to rearrange a bit and Nick moved in with Ben so that Ellie would have her own room.  Now that she's finally old enough to share a room with Lexie, we redid all of the boys' rooms and they each have their own.  They knew that we were redoing the rooms, but we did all of the work while they were in school (one room each week) and didn't let them see until their room was totally done.

Christopher's New Room

Christopher has always wanted a Spiderman room and while I didn't want to go all-out Spiderman (since I'm guessing as a high schooler he's not going to want Spiderman bedding 😉😉) I thought that he would love the Spiderman art.

Of course his room also had to have family pictures (most at Disneyland/World).

He was SOOOO excited when he walked in!

Christopher's room.

Nick's New Room

Nick moved into Christopher's old room and the entire room is space themed and orange (his absolute favorite color!).

He was equally excited for his new space (no pun intended!)!

Nick's room.

Benjamin's New Room

Ben kept his and Nick's old room and the theming of the room didn't really change, but there is so much more room for him to play with only one bed (and all of Nick's stuff gone).

Ben REALLLLLLY wanted a desk in his room so we made sure to get him a new desk.

Ben's room.

Like the other two, Ben was so excited to see his new room!  The first thing he did was jump onto his bed and snuggle with all of his Stitch's-- and then he jumped INTO bed to play on his laptop!

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new house- moving day!!

On July 10, the movers showed up at our house bright and early.  Ok, really it was around 9am because they were running late and didn't anticipate how long it would take to get through the gate to come on post.  But they did eventually arrive and quickly started loading our boxes and furniture.  We opted to pack the boxes ourselves and then hired the movers to actually move ALL of our stuff.

The kids were very excited and did surprisingly well considering it took all day and they didn't really have anything to play with.  Luckily, they were able to play DS and watch movies on their laptop and that helped to pass the time.  The movers had everything loaded by 3:45 and at 4 we had our move-out meeting to clear housing.  After a quick dinner at Chipotle we were on the road headed for Charlotte.

The first part of the drive was smooth sailing but at the halfway point we hit a MAJOR storm.  The lightning was striking all around the car, the thunder was instantaneous and the car shook with every strike.  The rain was coming down in sheets and flooding the roads fast.  We slowed down to a crawl and moved about 2 miles over the course of 20 minutes before moving out of the storm.

We stopped a bit later so that Miss Daisy could take a potty break and I got a chance to take pictures of corn fields.  There's just something about fields that I love- must be the perfect and organized lines.  :)

After our quick potty and photo break we were back in the car and headed to the hotel.  We figured it would be easiest to stay near the house since we had to be there for closing in the morning.  We checked into the hotel and got all the kids situated and it was time for bed!

We were up bright and early the next morning but received a phone call saying that closing would be pushed off a bit because all of the paperwork wasn't ready.  It ended up being a pretty stressful 6 hours before we actually ended up at the table signing mountains of paperwork.  But then it was done and we had our keys!!

We rushed over to the house to meet the movers (who were VERY understanding about needing to push our unloading off by seven hours).  They got started around 4 and didn't finish up until nearly 10 so it was a LATE night for everyone!

We had lots of water bottles since everyone was thirsty-- people and dogs alike!

There is a Pizza Hut near the house so we made a pizza run for dinner.  Our movers were VERY appreciative that we included them in our pizza party and I think they were even more careful with our stuff after that!

After the movers left we got everyone settled into their new rooms and headed to bed.  It was a LOOOONG but very exciting day!!

Home. Sweet. Home.

new house- pre-settlement walk through

We headed out to the house for our pre-settlement walk through the first week of July.  At this point in the process everything is supposed to be complete and ready to go for closing.  Luckily, we didn't find anything too big that needed to be fixed!  It was a super busy meeting and we received all of the instructions on how to run and take care of everything in the house.  The kids did great considering we were there for a few hours (and we bribed them with a trip to IKEA after)!!

Our house!!!  The lawn is going to get redone in Sept/Oct.  The sod was put in and then there was a week of triple digit temps which effectively killed most of it.

The stairs :)

Standing in the family room looking towards the dinette and kitchen

Standing in the kitchen looking towards the family room

Looking down the stairs from the upstairs hallway

new house- hardwoods and grass

We waited another week before driving out to the house again and it was worth the wait!!  When we pulled up we were so excited to see that our landscaping was in as well as some other goodies!!

Our maple tree out front

Hardwood floors are done-- don't you love them??

Hardwood stairs are starting to look finished.  Still need to paint the risers.

We pulled back the cardboard in the dining room to take a peek!

Our mailbox is in!!  LOOOOOVE that we have an actual mailbox!!

View from the street!!  Basically done at this point- just touchups and cleaning!!

Looking to the left of our house (down the hill)

And to the right of our house (up the hill)

new house- walk through and father's day

Over Father's Day weekend we drove out to check the progress on the house.  It had been a couple of weeks since we were there last and they made quite a bit of progress!  It's always exciting to see something new.

The kids were excited to wear hardhats even though no workers were actually present

Just waiting on the stove and the microwave door (apparently appliance theft is a big thing?)

Kitchen

Love this sink!!  Finally something big enough for all the big pots and pans we use.

SOOOO excited for all the cabinet space!!!

MORE cabinets!  And refrigerator space.

3/4 of the kids hanging out in the dinette

Front door painted black

Heading upstairs to check on the progress

Kids bathroom

Master bathroom shower

Master bathroom counters

All the Albaeck kids in the Bonus Room alcove

Coach lights on the garage

Home.  Sweet.  Home.

After checking out the house, we drove down to Birkdale Village in Huntersville to look around.  It totally reminded us of Southlands, a shopping center that we went to all the time in Colorado.  We ended up at Bad Daddy's Burger Bar for an early (and amazing!) Father's Day dinner.

Jacob with the Bad Ass Burger-- two 5oz ground beef and bacon patties with lettuce, tomato, buttermilk fried bacon, horseradish mayo and an artisanal white cheddar

new house- counters and more

The next step in the building process was counters!

Another angle of the kitchen

The kids' bathroom with ELECTRICITY!!

The bonus room looks great and has A LOT of room!