an unconventional home
Last year, our daughter received a play kitchen for Christmas. This is still one of our kids’ favorite things, and it’s played with every single day by our 2-year-old AND our 7-year-old.
There are tons of play kitchens available. But if you are like me, you want it to look good. If the kitchen is going to take up valuable real estate in your home, you want it to fit in with the decor you’ve chosen instead of sticking out like a sore thumb. (I’m looking at you, plastic play kitchen.)
It’s that (most wonderful) time of the year again. When everywhere you look, you’re greeted by the evidence that the holidays are right around the corner.
The radios are playing carols.
The stores are stuffed to the gills with gifts and decor.
The coffee shops have replaced pumpkin with peppermint everything.
In less than a month, my little girl will turn two. So I figure it’s the perfect time to share the photos from her first birthday – a pumpkin patch party for our sweet little lady.
I don’t know if there is a respectable time frame for posting photos after a party, but I’m sure it’s not 11 months. But there are a few TOTALLY VALID reasons that this is so late.
I spilled water on my computer while uploading party photos last October, which ended up meaning I didn’t actually get many photos and had to buy a new computer soon after. I was VERY displeased. I had just deleted the photos from my camera, which meant I couldn’t recover them.
I sometimes wonder if anyone really wants to see photos of actual, real-life kid parties anymore. There are so many perfectly coiffed photos out there.
I’m a little lazy.
See. Totally valid reasons. Moving on.
As Owen is settling into his new room, we also needed to create a joint space that works well for Henry and Lucy.
In truth, our bedrooms are not large.
Each bedroom is less than 10×10. Which makes a shared bedroom a bit of a challenge. But in the end, we created a good space for sleeping. The kids are doing well in it – better than we even expected given their age difference. Henry has wanted to share a room since Lucy was born, so it was a dream come true for him.
Henry is a baseball fiend, so we agreed on a baseball theme for his room. Originally, this space was going to be an eventual room for the boys.
Our house has been looking a little different the past few weeks. And not just decor-related changes. We have a new member of the family – Owen Frederick was born on July 7 and has been adjusting to life in our tribe.
He’s tiny and sweet with very strong vocal chords. He makes himself known, even though he’s our littlest. (Photos of Owen by Giraffe Photography)
Knowing that a new baby was on his way, we focused our attention on bedrooms over the past few months.
When we built our home, we built only three bedrooms. (Knowing we had a basement and the barn apartment for guests/extra space.) So when we decided to expand our family, we knew it would mean some sleeping adjustments.
We originally planned to have the boys share a bedroom down the line and keep Owen in our room for the time being. But a few folks on Instagram shared their own experiences and made us rethink that plan.
Dudes. Owning a home isn’t all sunshine and roses. It’s also not all just the fun and exciting parts of decorating and coming up with big, grand plans and ideas. It’s not all Pinterest boards and paint colors. (Although this is how I would prefer it.)
Unfortunately, once you live in a place for a certain amount of time, you are required to do certain things to keep it hospitable. Things like cleaning and maintaining everything.
Bleh.
It can feel like a full time job at times. Because all I WANT to do is come up with new and exciting projects. All my brain WANTS to do is make lists of all the things we can still do to make the house even better. But all my house wants is for me to dust the baseboards and pull the weeds and change the furnace filters and mow the lawn (again).
