Five Bathrooms, Vera Wang, and Setting the Table

Guys go to Home Depot.  Girls go to Walmart...

and Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and Kohl's, and JCPenney...I know it looks like a ton of stuff, but my mom and I got some GREAT deals yesterday on towels and other things for our bathrooms.  Our new home is well-equipped in the potty category.  We needed some trash cans and bath mats and shower curtains along with the towels, and we also found some great curtains for the living room as well as for our bedroom.  We came across  some very colorful curtains for Michaela's room, too. 

And did we ever laugh.  And it only took us 4 7 10 hours to accomplish all of our tomfoolery.  I tell you what, we were acting as silly as fools by the time we got home and crashed. We showed Michaela her curtains today and she liked them very much.  So much, in fact, that she wanted to wear them...

She is creative, no?  My mom said she may be the next Vera Wang.  The girl has many talents.

Eliana discovered that unpacking is quite fun, and kept herself very busy for hours today.  Ok, it wasn't hours, but it was a long time and she had a grand afternoon with the plastic cups and metal tins she found.  She placed everything on the table leaf that was sitting on the dining room floor.  I guess we can't really say,"Don't sit on the table!  Keep your feet off the table!" when it's so low to the ground, just asking to be played upon...

Christian had to get in on this action; he joined her little party and the two of them played happily together for a little bit.

Mike was watching them and commented on how Eliana was learning to play with others.  It's fun to see them grow as brother and sisters.  Eliana is interesting-she's very independent in many ways.  Maybe it's because she has a brother and sister to observe, imitate, follow.  She wants to do things herself, and in her own way.  This is funny because she also gets a lot of attention; someone is almost always around to entertain her, distract her, help her.  She gets the best of both worlds.  I'm not sure what worlds that would be...but you know what I mean.

Today is also the day my parents left.  It's always hard when someone comes to visit, and then leaves again, especially someone like Grandma and Grandpa.  They've stayed with us in two different houses, and helped us pack, move boxes, transfer furniture, run errands, put things away.  It was a crazy, crazy week, and so much fun.  We were sad that they had to go.  We always say, the days before the end of a visit,"I miss you already!"  Well, I miss them still!

I must say, it's late.  We have a long way to go...there is still so much over at the old house, and things are still all over the place here.  In keeping with the unfinished, wacky condition of our house right now I will not properly

An Empty House, Part I

The kids and I mosied on over to the house today with the camera and I got lots of pictures. 

Here, I am standing outside of the front door and you can see through to the back of the house on the left there (it is one of the bedrooms).  Christian is on the landing that meets the steps (you can't see to his left) which go down to the kitchen.  The steps go up to the second floor on his right.

This is the living room, which is left of the entry...

When you go through the living room you find yourself in a den/study which is quite large.  The door right behind Christian goes to the living room; the other door goes to a hallway.

The master bedroom is next...

It has a nice, big closet...

There is another bedroom downstairs with its own bathroom...

An extra bathroom below the stairs, in the hallway...it's cute.

Now, the kitchen is kind of hard to explain, but it's an "L" shaped room.  This is a picture of the small part of the "L".

It is the very back of the kitchen/house.  I am in the corner of the kitchen, where the side of the house and the back of the house meet, taking the picture of the washer/dryer; the pantry is the door on the left.  Below is the kitchen from the back of the room looking toward the front of the house.

There is room on the other side of the fridge for a smallish table, or something.  The door on that far end leads to the dining room.  You can see the pantry shelves on the right side of the photo.

This is the dining room, from the front corner of the house; I am looking into the entry way with the kitchen door on the right.

One bedroom upstairs from inside its closet...

Same room, other side...

Second bedroom upstairs...

and its closet...

This bedroom has its own bathroom...

This is the third bedroom upstairs which has a nice closet and its own bathroom which also connects to the hallway.

That last picture is from the hallway.

This is the stairway, with the platform which I mentioned in a previous post...the one Christian noticed right away.  OFF LIMITS!

Finally this is the entry and the dining room, with me standing in the living room.  It's a big space.  Plenty of room for all of our shoes (which we don't wear in the house)! 

We are so blessed to be able to live here.  I'll share some images of us making this house our home in the next few weeks.

Going Into the Closet

The other day I got inspired in light of our upcoming move and decided to clean a little in our schoolroom/playroom.  I needed to clear some things out, clean up in general, and try to get some order for packing and moving purposes.  I pretty much trashed the place.  I like to bank on the truth of the axiom,"It always gets worse before it gets better."  And I figure the worse it gets the better it will get.  Right? 

One area I dug into was the closet in that room.  It stored coats, boxes of pictures, frames, the kids clothes, unused rugs, wrapping paper, more kids clothes, a dishpan, a lamp, a tripod, and if you can think of some other weird stuff that might be in a closet and add it to this list, then it probably was in there.  Mike cleaned some of it out while the rest of us were still in Florida, and I got busy on what was left.  By the time I was done, there was a lot of empty space in the bottom of the closet, the hanging clothes were more organized, and I even wiped the floor up with a cleaning cloth.

Not too long after that, though, something happened.  It doesn't take much time around here for an empty space to get filled up with something.  Our mail, some clean clothes, papers from school, groceries, dishes, shoes...this list could go on.  And on.  And on. 

But this time the kids turned that closet into a fort!  And in the time it took for me to get Eliana to sleep they had transformed this little spot into a fun, animal-friendly, artsy, cozy party area. 

Everything was there, from a box of tissues to a basket full of stuffed animals.  There is an extra bag and a balloon.  Scissors, yarn, markers, a horse and a giraffe.  There is even a blanket. 

Their imaginations continue to amaze me...such a tiny nook but a limitless horizon. 

At the End of the Day

Order

in the midst of chaos...

Indeed, at the end of the day, it is what we all want. 

Post-Wreckage

That makes me feel a little more sane.  Now do I get some cake?