long weekend

First, I'd like to share my appreciation for those we honor on Memorial day, those that have given their lives for this country. Despite the fact that there is a lot of confusion about the meaning of Memorial Day {versus the meaning of Veterans Day}, I love how there is a separate holiday to honor the service and sacrifice of the fallen. I think it is important to thank God for those men and women, and also their families. Anybody that knows someone who has served, knows the sacrifices that their families also have to make.

I hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend. We did. Though it wasn't relaxing. It wasn't restful. And it didn't involve a lake or a beach. It did, however, involve lots of boxes, lots of packing paper, a POD, and heat.

We made good strides in getting things packed up and stored. I told Joe that packing the POD was going to be a game of Tetris. {Didn't everybody love to play that?} He has risen to the challenge and so far as packed 1/4 of the unit using every nook and cranny possible. When we moved to Jesup, we rented the second-to-largest U-Haul (24'). This time we decided on a POD because it would allow the move to be a little less chaotic. {The Methodist Church sets a move day for all the pastors. One family moves in the other moves out. Typically the same day. This is crazy to me and obviously doesn't allow time for any work - like carpet cleaning - to be done. We plan on being out of the house in time for our church to have things ready for the new family moving in. Thankfully, the same thing is happening where we are going.} With the POD we can fill it over time, packing boxes and moving them out of the house. It's a much more organized and calm way of doing it, which is definitely my kind of thing.The only drawback to the unit is that the biggest one available is still smaller than what we moved here in, 400 cubic feet to be exact. Needless to say, space is at a premium and we are being strategic.

Other than going through things, getting rid of stuff, and packing, we've been:

standing on our heads {not sure what it is, but Hannah assumes this position dozens of times a day}...

laying on our tummies...

making cupcakes...

and showing off our head control.

Some of us sleep while the work's being done.

...and some of us help.

Grandma came and helped too. I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed about all we had to do, but I'm feeling much better now thanks to the progress we made. Monday night we even got to take a break and visit friends for dinner.

As for those videos I promised. Hannah has started singing her ABCs. She gets lost somewhere around H, meanders a little bit and picks back up at "el-lem-in-oh" then sings some unidentifiable sounds and ta-da! she's done. I haven't been real successful in getting her to sing for the camera, but this is the best I've got:

Same night, Joe tells her to come tell me dinner's ready. She hasn't said those words before, but sure enough she found me: "Momma!! Dinnah ready!" After we finished eating this was our entertainment: