So are you packed?

Since we’re leaving in the next few weeks, people keep asking me if I’m all packed.

The answer is not even close.

So far I've organized the girls clothes and my craft stuff. I've packed my summer clothes and we're eating the rest of our meager food storage. But that's it, because I much prefer a few days of crazy packing than weeks of living with boxes.

Oh, and I’m continuing The Great Purge—donating bags of anything that I don’t think is worthy of dragging across the country. With the date drawing closer, more and more things are making the cut. We’ve moved so many times since we’ve been married that you think I would have donated all of our unused items to Goodwill long ago, but I have packrat tendencies and, unless I’m in the right mood, have to talk myself through each and every parting.

Still, even with those small steps towards our relocation, mostly I’m busy inventing things to distract ourselves from our eminent move. So, Ellie and I started a Christmas countdown and made this door decoration for day 1:
We got out a beautiful nativity and a play nativity for today, day two (which I guess is UN-packing, so I’m definitely in the hole). Ellie spent nearly an hour this afternoon singing about Baby Jesus in his stable, eating hay for his birthday. I’m pretty sure she’ll write music for Deseret Book when she grows up, ‘cause it was inspirational stuff.

This week Moira has nurtured her maternal side by learning to rock her baby:

It’s very cute to see her cuddle her baby to her and sing in a high pitched whine to calm what must be a very fussy child.

Chris has been working on his Last Project Ever While A Nuclear Engineering Graduate Student.

And my friend Jessica came over to help me upholster the top of a cedar chest my dad made me, so now it's a cute bench at the foot of our bed: What do you think, Dad?

That's about it. I'm giving myself one more week to hang out with friends and enjoy Ohio before I stress about our move. And then I’ll start tearing my hair out.