It is finally beginning to sink in that it's a reality...this moving thing. Our dining room is full of filled boxes. The kitchen is beginning to be empty. The basement is mostly packed up and the linens and sheets are boxed away as well. Our house is turning into a storage unit but we're still trying to keep some semblance of order so as not to freak out the boys too much.

I must admit...it's a little daunting all of a sudden. We're a week away from moving and my extreme tendency towards nostalgia very quickly takes over when I look around and see things like the empty china closet in our dining room: I remember so well filling it with my great-grandmother's china the week after we returned from our honeymoon with the china closet (we found it at an antique dealer and rented a U-Haul trailer so it could come home with us).

When I was pregnant with Sawyer, my mom cross-stitched a great picture of two boys walking away, sharing the task of carrying a bucket. It's hung above Rowan's bed in their room. Most nights, Rowan points it out to Kenny and I as we tuck him into bed and exclaims, "Rowan..and that's Sawyer!" Today, I took down the pictures on the upstairs walls and put them in a box. When we were putting him to bed, he pointed to the wall and said, "Where'd Rowan and Sawyer go?" I told him that it was packed away to be hung in his new room. He didn't like that answer, so he asked again, "Where'd Rowan and Sawyer go?" So I went to get the picture, and rehung it on his wall and he smiled and told me, "Rowan..and that's Sawyer." Kenny smiled and said, "This is going to be one of the last things we pack."

I'm finding a lot of things that I'd like to leave in its place until the last possible minute. Things that will allow me to hang onto this home until the last possible moment.