The Kitchen

Well, the pictures are slow in coming...that's because I've been slow at getting things orderly enough to want to take a picture!! But here is one of the kitchen (please ignore the dishes drying in the sink!).

We are thoroughly enjoying a MUCH larger kitchen. The one in our last place left much - space - to be desired...no pantry, very little cabinet space, small fridge, single sink, etc. So we are loving all of this counter space and cabinet space and the double-door pantry, too! I'm just having to get used to walking more than a step or two to grab what I'm looking for...but I can live with that! ;-)

I also love the corner cabinet with the glass door. I finally have a place for my teacups again. Most of them (aside from a few I acquired recently) haven't seen the light of day in the nearly two years since we started packing to leave New Hampshire. It's so nice to see them peeking through the glass, prettying up the kitchen! See?

They serve as reminders to me of people who gave them to me...of grandmothers and great-grandmothers to whom they belonged once...of mothers who share my love of tea-things...and of my hopes to pass them onto my own little girl one day! I wonder how old Cupcake will be when we have our very first tea party together...

Some pics coming soon...

Well, we are moved in. Whew! It seems like it was a long process, but it's finally done. I don't think that we have any belongings anywhere other than here in this house. Everything from Dad's shed in PA has arrived. My piano is in my living room now! All boxes and furniture have been moved here from our old place. All our "stuff" is here.

And boy, does it seem like we have a lot of stuff! I'm finding things I forgot we had. Going from a house down to apartment living for a few years forced us to put a lot of stuff into storage. Even once we moved into a townhouse that had more space, we still kept much of our stuff in storage since we didn't know how long we'd be staying. Now that we're back into a house with a garage and basement and more space than we've ever had before, all of that stuff is going to have to find a home. So unpacking will be a long process too. But we're not going anywhere, so what's the hurry?

The kitchen is in order. We have food in the pantry and fridge. We have beds that are made up. And as of today, we have internet and cable. The rest will happen in time.

Boo-Boo's Masterpiece

Ok, maybe I'm being a really biased mom here, but I happen to think that this is a pretty good drawing for a two year old! Yeah, a two year old. Well, two-and-a-half. But still...

I rather doubt that he was trying to draw a rabbit, but after he took a look at what he'd drawn, he said something like, "Let's give the rabbit an eye." And he proceeded to put his eye right where it belonged! I was astounded.

Now, some of my astonishment may have something to do with the fact that my five-year-old Mr. Blue-Eyes probably still couldn't draw this rabbit. Boo-Boo's drawing is at least as advanced as Mr. Blue-Eyes' drawing was a year ago (at four).

So maybe this is totally normal for a two year old and I'm over-reacting. Or maybe I'm just hopeful that we have a budding artist on our hands!!

Home Owners

Last Thursday, we became home owners again! It's been almost exactly seven years since we purchased our first house. And it has been just a little over four years since we sold that house in Arizona and moved east for school. So it feels good to go from being renters to being home owners again.

Of course, there is plenty of work to be done getting the house ready to live in. It was a foreclosure/bank-owned property, and it's pretty dirty. I don't happen to think that I'm an extraordinarily clean housekeeper, but I'm finding that I must be above average, at least! Whoever lived in this house previously must have rarely cleaned the carpets and never dusted a baseboard! Yuck.

So this week and next week will be devoted to painting (yes, the walls were in sore need of painting!) and cleaning in addition to packing up the rest of our stuff for moving. Over the weekend, my mom helped - ok, she basically took charge and did most of the work - painting the family room and office. Today I gave the boys' room a coat of paint and hope to finish it tomorrow. Then, onto Cupcake's room (as she is now being called), and maybe our bedroom too. I've got "before" pics saved and will make sure to take some "after" pics too for posting.

Thanks to a little inspiration from my aunt, the boys are going to have an animal-themed room. Mr. Blue-Eyes especially loves animals, and we already have a tiger lamp and a cheetah picture. So we'll round it out a little with some tiger throw-rugs (for Christmas...shhhh!) for on their beds and a few more safari/jungle pictures on the walls. If you happen to run across any fun safari animal accessories in your shopping, let me know!