All the things you need to do when moving house

We're moving house! So it's a busy time at the moment with lots of things to sort out. There are so many things to do - organise a removal company, cancel television and phone subscriptions, sort out council tax, arrange redirection of post, not to mention changing our address everywhere. Luckily my husband is very good at sorting these things out and we've already made a good start.

Our last move was from a flat to this house, before children. We used a removal company, but we packed everything ourselves, and although it was hard work it wasn't too bad and I assumed that we'd do the same this time. But then we looked around and saw just how much more stuff we have now. We got a quote for the company to pack for us, and it wasn't as bad as we thought. So we've decided to pay a little bit more to have it done for us, and this has taken some of the stress out of the move.

Even with the packing being taken care of, and the admin tasks being sorted, there are still so many other things to do. They include:

• Eating up everything in the freezer. We can keep things from the fridge in a coolbag or just in the garage at this time of year, but the freezer will have to be turned off a day or two before the move. So the little ones will have to make do with shop bought food for a while rather than the healthy nutritious homemade food that they usually eat (!) because I can't batch cook any more. It's a good opportunity to get rid of all the out of date and mysterious items at the bottom, and give it all a good clean!

• Likewise I will be going through the food cupboards in the kitchen to make sure that we're not going to the effort of moving expired food. I think that I'll be doing a lot of baking the next couple of weeks to try and use up some of my flour and sugar.

• I will be sorting through all the paperwork to find the things relevant to the house that need to stay with it e.g. instruction leaflets for the burglar alarm and boiler. I also need to put aside spare parts and extras for things being left behind e.g. spare tiles for the bathroom, so that they don't end up at the new house.

• The main thing is that we will be trying to declutter so that we don't end up opening boxes at the other end full of things that we don't need anymore. I'm also going around collecting small things into boxes so that they don't get lost and muddled up.

It's great that we're going to be starting the New Year in a new house and I'm getting really excited about the move. We'll have plenty of time to get ourselves sorted before I go back to work in the summer. I'm a little bit sad though too. We wouldn't have decorated Mia's bedroom if we thought we were moving, and I love Harry's little bedroom which we've decorated with painted hills and a sky with clouds and a sun in it. With a bit of luck this should be our last move though (until we move into our retirement bungalow!)