Making Room

In anticipation for our new arrival, it became apparent to us that we needed to make some room.  Yes, a bigger house would've been nice, but we love our neighborhood, our yard, our location, and our school.  So, we looked at what we could do in lieu of moving.  

A bigger couch was one thing that was needed.  We looked on craigslist (bc I don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a piece of furniture while we still have small children) and found this sectional!  It fit the measurements that we needed exactly, was clean, only a few years old, and a neutral color and fabric.  Yes, it's huge (in our little living room).  But, now everyone has a seat (and then some!).

Next up, a new vehicle!  Our previous mini-van was a small mini-van.  And, although it had seat belts for seven people, it was not big enough for seven people and car seats.  It had been a good and reliable van for the most part, but was beginning to have problems and it was a good time to look for something bigger.  Enter our "new" 2005 8-seater Toyota Sienna!  This was the van I wanted 7 yrs ago (when we ended up buying the bare-bones Plymouth that we could afford).  Finding a used 8-seater Sienna within our budget wasn't easy (Cubby ended up driving down to Kansas City to buy it!) but it has been soooo wonderful to have!!  Our old van only had one sliding door and so I had to climb in to buckle everyone.  Not easy to do while extremely pregnant!  So, the addition of another sliding door has been life-changing for me!  We also love the automatic doors, locks, windows, bigger trunk, more interior room, and a CD player!  (Oh yes, the Plymouth only had a tape deck!  Ha!)  It goes without saying that you definitely appreciate those "little" things when you've been without them for so long!  This will also make the long drive to our family reunion next summer possible so for that, and so many other things, we are extremely grateful to have this "new" van :-).

Please Draw On the Wall!

A couple of months ago, I decided that it would be a great idea to paint an entire wall in black chalkboard paint.  Now, I've had a lot of "big" ideas, but more often than not, I end up changing my mind for something else.  Our kitchen, for instance.  I've gone from wanting to tear down a wall (the one that's now a chalkboard), to wanting to tear half of the wall down and add a breakfast bar, to now, wanting to tear it all down again...after we get sick of the chalkboard.  But, I digress.  Back to the chalkboard wall!  I bought the paint and had good intentions of painting it sooner, but, life happens and I got busy with other things!  Well, about mid week last week, I got the paint out to do a smaller chalkboard that I had for the kitchen, and then decided that while the little girls were napping...and since the paint was already out...I'd might as well just do the whole wall! I was brave, yes indeed.  

Soooo...The big kids came home from school and immediately, knew I'd done something.  (Perhaps the paint smell tipped them off?)  They were thrilled, even though I'd only got two coats done.  (It needed three, which I finished up a day or two later.)  Cubby came home, went about his normal routine of opening the mail, saying hi to the kids and, 10 minutes later, walked about the corner to the dining room and said, "Whoa...what did you do?"  My mom's reaction?  "Wow, that is a really black wall!"  Hmmm....not the most encouraging words.  But, once it was all done, Cubby said that the wall looks really cool (and, it does).  And, the kids LOVE it.  I mean, how often do you get to hear your mom say, "Kids, why don't you go draw on the walls for a while?" 

 I still need to get a big, overall picture of the wall(s).  (It goes over a doorway so it's on both sides, encompassing the whole south wall in our dining room.)  But, it's been a really fun thing to have in our house!  I mean, kids naturally make messes, why not encourage one once and a while?