I finally am able to sit down and write. I am really proud to say that I did it!! All the shopping, all the cooking, all the cleaning. It was fun going to Costco to get a ton of fruits and veggies and we actually got a family picture in on Erev Yom Tov!
To take stock:
I cleaned the upstairs first, all the bedrooms and upstairs toys/clothes. The whole downstairs is kind of one big space so I had to just leave that till right before kashering the kitchen.
Then just made sure to toivel things and do last minute yom tov shopping for clothing, shoes, kitchen stuff. In the end it really came down to the last week before though. We finally decided to kasher the kitchen a few days before shabbos hagadol (the Shabbos before Pesach). So with a ton of help from my housekeeper, we cleaned the downstairs, section by section, delegated our outside porch to hold all of our chametz, and then turned the kitchen over. I got a new oven for Pesach also, which being that it's self cleaning, I think I'm going to keep for the rest of the year as well!
By Thursday before Shabbos, everything was basically turned over and I started cooking and freezing:
Froze: chicken soup, shnitzel, ratatouille, chicken burgers, banana ice cream, sweet potato kugel (with pineapple - yum!) .
Then Shabbos Hagadol came and went with not too much fan fare. Sunday was a big cooking day. I ended up working on Monday, erev yom tov and the truth is, it wasn't even that bad. It was kind of nice to be forced to take a break from standing in the kitchen. The night before I just made the charoses, and eggs and left the lettuce, marror, and zroa until the end. I also pre-boiled some beets and potatoes so I could put together some beet and potato salads easily.
I actually was able to get my nails done and get a massage on erev yom tov and take a shower like a normal person!!!!
Although Pesach isn't over, since the seders came and went already, I definitely can say that my first Pesach was a success! I'm going to do a separate post about the seders just because they were so special in their own right!