Life Update: We Moved!

Hi everyone!!! To say I've been absent from the blog for awhile seems like an understatement! We recently moved and life has been a whirlwind- especially for the past month. We bought a new house, got a buyer for our old house, painted, packed, and loaded our stuff into a U-Haul on June 7th! We moved about 5 minutes away from our old house, but as anyone who has moved knows... anytime you have to pack up all of your belongings, it doesn't matter how far you go. It's still an enormous process! We love where we live here in southern Illinois and could've stayed in our old home for quite some time, but with our growing family, we were keeping our eyes out for someplace larger that would give us more room to grow. When we stumbled upon the perfect location- we knew we couldn't wait long! And while it's not exactly easy to do a lot of the things moving requires while pregnant, we figured it'd be great to go ahead and get settled in before Miss Belle arrives in September! As a whole, things have gone very smoothly... with the exception of our internet hookup (I'll explain). So here's a little journal from the past few weeks :) If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen some pictures already, but I do plan to put out some videos soon to give a more "complete" look at some of this house stuff! ♥
We closed on the new home at the end of May, so the first week of June was a flurry of activity. Basically, once we had the keys in our hands, we scheduled a painter to come in and paint several rooms of the new place... we are SO THANKFUL for Guido with Bernstein Decorative Finishes - not only for his professionalism and talent, but for working with our schedule and finishing ALL the painting the Friday before we moved! We figured it'd be easier on everyone to paint empty rooms :) I plan to show before & afters of the rooms we had done in an upcoming vlog, but in short, the rooms we had painted were the nursery, guest bedroom, guest bathroom, makeup room, some foyer columns, and a neat little side room we're referring to as "the fireplace room".

While Guido and his posse were painting during the day, Tyler and I would come over to the house when he got off work to do some assembly projects in rooms that weren't being painted. Tyler has been a total assembly MASTER. From wardrobes to makeup storage to entertainment centers, patio stuff, desks... you name it- he built it! And let me tell you, there were a TON of makeup-storage pieces to assemble. Props to Bub for his skills and for being totally sweet despite the long days he put in.

Another one of the first things we did was learn about the pool! This house has a fabulous pool but we were both a little intimidated by it... not the floating around on a raft part, but the maintenance. The previous owners actually met with us and showed us everything we needed to know. There's this cool little self-cleaning robot type thing that they named "Oscar"- and he just moseys around the pool from the floor to the surface and does an amazing job keeping it clean. I had no idea something like that could do so much, so effectively! Tyler also seems to get a kick out of monitoring the chlorine levels and adjusting stuff accordingly. After the initial clean-up on our first weekend owning the home, it's been crystal clear and surprisingly easy to maintain. I actually LOVE to swim and did it all throughout my childhood- so this has been such a great way for me to get some safe exercise during pregnancy. Words can't even describe how good it feels to float around on a raft and feel "weightless" for awhile!

June 7th was the actual MOVING DAY! We are so thankful for the help our parents provided-- from packing to cleaning to heavy lifting... and constantly reminding me: "don't lift that!" One time Tyler basically placed me in a chair, pulled out the foot rest, and demanded that I sit still! It was frustrating because I really wanted to make myself useful... but this is what you run into when you're a pregnant lady on moving day! That Saturday seemed to go on FOREVER. There were times that I didn't think the makeup room was ever going to get emptied out. Props to my dad, who had the task of toting most of my makeup out of this house and up a flight of stairs into the new house... he was so careful and from what I can tell- nothing broke! :)

This is the last item to leave the house... my Vanity Girl makeup mirror- strapped in the backseat with a seatbelt. This is actually a very effective way to travel with one of these bad boys! But I must say, I cried like a baby seeing that empty pink room. So many memories there! I always called it "my happy place". I was so grateful to move into that house and have a space that I could devote to my passion. Seriously, every time I set foot into that room, I felt a rush of positivity. It's almost kind of strange! Anytime you leave somewhere you love, just remind yourself that there is always room for more happy places in your life.

Here's a snapshot of my new makeup room! Still pink- but a new shade :) I actually never got tired of that bright pink room, but thought I'd embrace this opportunity to try something different. My overall theme in this room is pink, black, white, and gold. I'm absolutely loving the way it's all coming together. While there are some similarities to the set-up of my old room, there are also some major differences, including completely different makeup storage. I'll be shooting a new room tour and collection video soon! Thanks so much for sharing in my excitement about this special place in the house!

Here are just a few random peeks elsewhere in the house- the main entrance, a kitchen table nook, and the fireplace room. We are just in love with this house. There are so many interesting little features and details, and I love that it doesn't have a cookie-cutter look inside or out. While we have a lot of things done, we're still putting together a guest bedroom, the nursery, Tyler's office, a big basement entertainment area, and some finishing touches in our bedroom. Make sure to subscribe to my BeautyVlogcast channel for any update videos that pertain to the house! :)

And who could forget about Cupcake? It was so fun to watch her get acclimated to her new surroundings. She loves to explore, and while it took her a couple days to adjust to the new location of her litter box (I won't gross you out with the details), I think she's starting to feel right at home. She loves the places where she can get up high and look down on "her people", and she's got some great windows to gaze out of. We have a lot of trees in the backyard, and we've spotted a couple of groundhogs already, and even a few deer! So as far as the life of a house-cat goes, it's been a pretty exciting time for Cupcake.

And here's what I'm looking like these days! This picture was from last week... actually, as of today, I'm 27 weeks along! I've been feeling really good and it just fascinates me to think little Belle has been with us for every step of this journey! Thank you for all the kind thoughts and prayers. You have all been so sweet, helpful, and supportive and I wish I could just give you a big hug. Thank you for thinking of me! :) ♥
Oh- the internet! TODAY is the first day I've had an actual internet connection!! Talk about a reality check of how much I love what I do... it pained me to break my streak of 5-day a week videos on Beauty Broadcast Express, which I'd had going since September 2013! I also had about a week-long gap on my main channel, not to mention a couple weeks away from Beauty Broadcast Live! Ugh! Internet definitely rules my world. I worked ahead a little bit, and assumed that after moving day, we'd be connected by mid-week and everything would be all good. Well, first Mediacom had to "assess" whether our house was connectable (which they pushed back a week), and then another person had to come out 4 days later to install. That was supposed to be this past Saturday... but the guy said he couldn't do it because of something that wasn't done during the assessment! You can imagine my outrage. I know, it's not life & death. But come on now! This 5-foot ball of pregnant woman was definitely getting feisty by this point. I really wanted to start getting some videos up this week! So Tyler got the bright idea to enable my iPhone as a WIFI hotspot, so I could have some form of internet to work with. So far anything that's gone up this week has uploaded through that connection, and I've tried to make sure that was my only internet usage, because it takes from my data plan and Verizon no longer allows that to be unlimited. So I'm sorry for my lack of interaction beyond the videos. But to make a long story slightly less long, this morning we got another internet provider to come out, and we are good to go! I'm working with an actual wired internet connection!!! Woohoo!!! I'm glad to no longer have to be a bulldog with customer service personnel. Thanks for being patient with me! :) ♥
Thanks for taking time to read this super long post! I do plan to do Beauty Broadcast LIVE tomorrow at 9am CST as usual! (I do that on my beautyvlogcast channel) :) I hope everyone is having a good week, and keep an eye out for a new Beauty Broadcast Express video later today! Love you! ♥ Emily