Moving House: Involving your children on move day

Moving in T- 4 sleeps.  Actually moving day with the kids is not going to be too painful (she says giggling knowing she will be in work!).
Both boys are at school, unfortunately this means hubby will have to pick them up at  3 o'clock and they will be under feet after that time. So around about unpacking the van time unless we can find/ bribe someone to look after them

So just how do you cope with moving with little feet around?  Hopefully this guide will help whether you are going 10 minutes up the road like us and have them for half the day or whether you are going hundreds of miles with them in tow all day long.  If you can think of anything I've missed please mention it in the comments for others to see.

Move Day is drawing closer.....

After what seems like years the contracts were eventually signed yesterday and we get the keys to the new house on Thursday.  Typically it's this week that I have no chance what so ever of getting time off work so will have to trust the men to move everything .... a very scary thought.  However I have boxed or bagged pretty much everything to within an inch of my life so it should be easy enough for them,  I've also saved a huge box for dumping any last minute bits in on Wednesday night (after I get back from my bloggers night out... great timing eh!).

It's amazing just how much stuff you can hide in Attic eves and toy boxes, seriously who would have thought we would have sooo much stuff - and that's before you start taking the furniture to pieces.

And of course in the last week...........
.......... the kids have got orange paint over the upstairs playroom carpet
........... the husband has melted candle wax into the bedroom carpet.
............. the oven has broken down
...............I can't sleep!
................The job I've been waiting to be advertised finally has been.

Moving House: Packing

I've touched on this subject in other posts but it really deserves to have one all of it's own.... after all I'd say a good 70% of the things you have to do is pack.

Speaking from experience there is nothing worse then bad packing.  Last time we moved we thought "how hard can this moving thing be?!".  combine that with 2 small children, parents who work 7 days a week between them and no one on the scene to babysit and actually it becomes a pretty big challange.

We bought loads of those huge re-useable bags from Tesco, Hobbycraft and other various locations and, along with lots of nappy boxes basically stuffed them to the top with books.

Then we got loads of re-usable plastic crates and filled them with anything we could find as we went along.

There was no method to the 'packing', no consideration of where it'll go the other end (I labelled a couple of boxes) in fact there was no planning went into anything.

Clothes were pretty much left on  hangers and dumped in a corner to go.

lampshades, lights, and anything to big for a box well they landed in another pile.

Then hubby told me a week before we got the keys that he couldn't get the day off work to help me move house!  But it was ok because he had around 5 friends and our neighbours to help (one who had a van).

So on the day of the move (with no one in sight) I set off with the boys to get the keys ..... and wait for someone to come and help move.  (but anyway that's another story in itself)  Lets just say moving day (which turned into moving week) was a complete and utter disaster and had me crying in many many corners.   Had the packing been done properly it would have been a far smoother operation.

Top Tip for Moving #2: Load the tape gun correctly

Hubby (being the man) decided it was his job to load the tape gun for sealing the moving boxes.  Of course instructions were not required, this was a simple gadget and easy peesy to load....... so why did it not appear to work very smoothly?  The tape literally stuck to the rollers and surly not how this was supposed to put together.

Moving: Big Yellow Self Storage

I have to say the biggest thank you to these guys for assisting with my house move.  As we all know one of the perils of packing is ....... well ..... packing.  What boxes do you use?  How full do you fill them?  How many will you need? 
    And the ultimate test ........ will they withstand the move?!

Last time we moved we didn't exactly 'pack' we more threw things in anything we had available.  Noah was little and still in Nappies so the majority of our possessions were packed in Pampers/ Huggies boxes.  Which were really strong - but small.  They were great for moving smaller items like those cables you never use or books or socks but not really great for anything larger.  How did we overcome this?  We brought more boxes .... but not cardboard ones as hubby decided if we got lots of plastic ones we can put our stuff in them then re-use them at the new house.  Except  for one little flaw - the boxes almost all got damaged, either because they were overfull or due to being dropped/ bashed.

Camping Adventures ..... 2 kids, 2 adults .... no car - A packing checklist.

Please note this picture is
from a camping trip WITH a car!

Impossible I hear you cry.... and you know what that's pretty much the reaction I always receive when I mention it..... which is why I am even more determined to make it work lol.

I'm not mad or crazy, we're only planning 2 nights not a week but if we can go on a caravan holiday with a weeks worth (plus extras)  of clothes etc for 2 adults and 2 children (right from when they were babies) then I am pretty confident we can do 2 night camping.

We have the tent (bought last year on a really good offer) including airbeds (4) and sleeping bags (4).  over the last year tho the kids have got new sleeping bags (Spiderman!) which are smaller and lighter (bonus).

We made the decision to have a real 'basics' camping experience.  Personally I would have happily taken the tent up a fell (like when I was at uni) but apparently you aren't supposed to do that any more so I looked around for a 'real site'.  As we don't have electric hook up facilities we don't need an electric pitch (please don't die on me phone/ camera) and I wasn't paying for a cable just for phones and cameras, not to mention their weight.