New Holiday Memories in a New Home

Jack-o-lanterns that I previously carved with my kids

You may have noticed that I took a break from blogging about 3 months ago.  I was having tons of fun sharing some of my parenting adventures with you.  However, my schedule got extra busy and complicated, particularly because we were house hunting for our first home and preparing to move.

Searching for homes for sale, making appointments for house viewings, and finding the right house for our family proved to be a tedious and daunting task!  To be completely honest, I can't even remember how many realty ads we skimmed, home profiles we searched through, and potential homes we visited before the best house fell into our laps.

And then it was on to phase 2 of our home-buying saga: packing and moving...another difficult and frustrating chore.  After living in a house for about 5 years, you wouldn't believe the junk and clutter that accumulates!  I spent weeks going through boxes and closets, as well as the basement and attic, finding many things I had long forgotten.  I sifted and sorted, desperately trying to reduce the amount of stuff that we would be packing and taking with us as much as possible.  Coming from a long line of pack rats, believe you me, this was an emotional and stressful journey.

But here we are mostly moved into our new home and preparing to celebrate our first holiday as first-time homeowners: Halloween!  At the moment, I hope and pray that I never, ever, ever have to move again.  I can't even come close to expressing how taxing this move has been on my entire family, but I know that it will be a long time before I forget the hurdles and obstacles I had to overcome to move us into our new home.  Despite all of this, though, I have to admit that all the pain and suffering we endured pales in comparison to the excitement of holidays celebrated in a home that is warm, welcoming, and our very own!

With Halloween less than a week away and this being only the 3rd day in our new home, I doubt we'll get to decorate for Halloween this year.  Still, I can't help but be excited!  This Halloween represents so much more than a single holiday this year.  Rather, it symbolizes a lifetime of happy family memories shared in a place full of love and laughter, a place that my kids can always fall back on and go to to feel safe...something that I never felt I had as a child.

This Halloween will embody all that I wished to have as a child and everything I hope to give to my own children now and always.  I am determined more than ever to fill this new home with such amazing memories--holiday ones and everyday ones--that by the time my children are grown, it will be bursting at the seams.  Every inch of this house will remind us of what it truly means to be a family, making the good times sweeter and the hard times easier.  Yes, this Halloween is the beginning of something amazing for my family, and I'm more excited and giddy than I used to be every year on Christmas morning!  Don't you just love holiday magic?!