Where we've been

I'm sure some of you in the blogworld have wondered if we've fallen off the face of the planet for the silence from this here blog, and in a way we have. We've been caught in a whirlwind of activity I guess some may call nesting. Our plan was to get a bunk bed for the kids, with a twin on the bottom and a full on top, using a mattress from our day bed and our bed and getting us a queen bed after thanksgiving. We even thought of shopping in Houston the day after thanksgiving to find some good deals- but after checking around town, we discovered the best deals were most likely under our noses. So we bit the bullet and got great beds! We are all so thrilled with it. Of course, it is especially nice to fall into nice comfy beds after the days we've been having. Brian had scoped out our finds weeks previously and I went to take a look Thurs. He ended up picking up both beds that day and we got them set up for our first delicious sleep in them. Seriously, I didn't know a bed could feel so nice. I worked all the next day to go through the kids' closets, all their clothes, get all the right sizes out and condense all their stuff in half to make it fit in the two closets that are in what is now the big kids' room. When Brian got home from work, he had the privilege of helping in the mayhem. Who would have known that two beds would make us redo half the house! Brian moved a total of 7 beds as we also got it set up for mom and dad's arrival in Dec. We went through 5 closets, a file cabinet was also gone through and moved. Brian rearranged his side of our room, hung shelves and pictures, decorations...

Sat. we still had tons to do and we were by this time quite exhausted and snappy. I'm afraid the kids weren't too well cared for that day as we kept telling them to go play and let us work. While they napped and some after, I painted this picture for under Ivan's top bunk. The only negative about the bunk is that it's so close to the lower bed and we had to put in a sheet of plywood, which made it a bit clausterphobic under there, so I painted a sort of mural on a sheet with which to cover the plywood and keep the roughness and blandness far from Dominique's bed. I really should have taken pictures after all their pictures were hung and shelves were up, because the pics with just them and the bed look bland, but it was exciting to us all.

So, we've been a bit out of the loop, rearranging the entire house and I haven't even gotten to the actual baby stuff yet or condensing toys, but this was all the first steps in preparing for baby's arrival and we're a month ahead of the game ;) I'm glad we didn't wait until next month now as I didn't know how draining all this would be. Of course if we had waited, we wouldn't have had to do it all in a weekend. We had to do it all now so that we could get the tools all back out of the house and have a safe and nice environment for the boys when I have them on Monday. If it had been like it was a couple of days ago, someone would have ended up hurt or frustrated or crying and overwhelmed and it may have been me!



Ivan took this picture of me and the painting, the fastest and largest piece I've ever done! The flowers at the bottom were based on some my sister drew with the kids on one of their visits. At the top it says: "sweet sleep" and if I'd known that Dominique's favorite part would be to spell out the words over and over, I would have put more words and letters in the picture. If you really want to see the details, you can click on it for a bigger view.