Day 1

As I type this, Q is sitting next to me playing on his ipod. It is so weird to have a sidekick! He's easy peasy though. He has a really good attention span. Once he gets on something, he'll do it for a good 30 minutes sometimes. Of course, he's got to be next to me right now which is fine and also understandable. If I go in the other room, he's right behind. But it is really nice that I can get work done (and this done) and he'll just play on his ipod.

Cliff's got the other sidekick. He's a little more active than his brother. He LOVES to go outside and play basketball or just go outside. He likes going for walks with his scooter. His attention span is much more sporadic. Sometimes he'll play something for awhile and other times he's switching from activity to activity every five minutes. He's also super attached to Dad. Dad left yesterday to go to the store and every five or so minutes D was at the door looking for him or swearing he saw his car or heard the car. Q is a little more attached to me but he mostly attaches to both of us equally. D will give me hugs and do things with me but I can already tell that he's more attached to Dad.

We're mostly going with the flow over here. I'm trying to start a routine as far as when they eat, shower and go to bed but during the day we're *trying* to just do what they want to do.

Q lost a tooth yesterday! When we picked them up at the airport, he was showing me he could wiggle it, then a couple hours later he just pulled it out! I was so proud of him! Then he took his stuffed rabbit into the bath with him and got it all soapy, I was not so proud of him at that point! I ended up calling my mom (thank goodness for my mom!) to find out how to wash it in the washing machine. It came out fine, thank goodness and I've learned my first mom lesson!

The days are punctuated with A LOT of "good jobs". What else do you say when they say "i beat this level" "i did such and such". They are very polite and say "thank you" for everything!! They'll randomly give hugs.

It is definitely an adjustment. I got up at 6:45, thinking that was early enough and they were already up when I got downstairs! They didn't go to bed til after 9!

While I was typing this, D came in and gave me a hug. He just wanted to know where Q and I were.

And now I've got to go because Q wants to go outside with everyone else.  See, he gave me about 30 mins!

I'll update when I can.

xoxo
nikki

Finally Settling In

We've been in this house almost two years and I finally have finished decorating the kitchen!

It all started two days (yes, 2) before the boys were coming for their visit. See our kitchen had wallpaper (ick) and we had picked out a color, oh about 6 months earlier. (We like to stretch projects out around here). Well, the problem was that I had painted a small section of the wallpaper to see if the color would 1) look good and 2) cover the wallpaper so I wouldn't have to remove it. So, now I had 3 problems: 1) I didn't like the color (it was coral), 2) it didn't cover the wallpaper, 3) the boys caseworker was dropping them off and we didn't want her seeing our kitchen with part of it painted.

So for the next 12 hours, I patiently peeled wallpaper off our kitchen walls. Yes, I did realize the irony that I have the patience to peel wallpaper but don't have the patience to wait for the boys paperwork.

Would it surprise you if I said I had before pics? Yeah, it'd surprise me too! Here's a pic from before the house was ours:

It doesn't look like wallpaper but see the "tan-colored" wall, yeah, that's super tacky wallpaper:

Now here's the wall after 12 hours of wallpaper removal:

And after it was painted:

You can't see very well, but it's a blue-gray more blue than gray.

We got all that done before the boys vist (phew!) but it was just a blank wall. It took me another 2 months to figure out how to decorate it but I JUST finished!

Starting left to right:

These cute canvas prints I painted:

More canvas art by me:

Love this for the kitchen also by me:

And our family rules, which you can actually (if you have good eyesight) read from the front door! And done by me!

Finally, the words over each window:

Yes, I taped and painted each individual letter. Yes, it was time consuming. Yes, it was a lot of work. Yes, WE LOVE IT!

Oops, almost forgot:

The clock over the fireplace that CLIFF MADE!! We know now what time it is when we're sitting in the living room!

So the kitchen is FINALLY finished being decorated! I love living in a house with color and decor on the wall, especially decor I made!

The living room is in progress but currently has one wall done:

I loved the cute idea I found here: http://www.itsoverflowing.com/2013/04/diy-frame/

We tweaked it a little bit because I order 4x6's EVERY TIME Shutterfly has their 101 free prints and I wanted somewhere to hang them that was easy to change out. 

There you have it! Besides work, this has been keeping me busy but I'm thankful we got it all done before the boys get here! 13 MORE DAYS!!!

xoxo

nikki