After!!!






Up next, master bedroom.

Simple.  Bright.  Clean.

That's my favorite theme for a room...bedroom, kitchen, really any space. I started the house refreshing in Oliver's room because it was far and beyond the most hideous space here.  For whatever reason the walls and ceilings are all painted the same color, and that color isn't white.  Oliver's room was some dark tan/light brown cave with black blinds.  It just looked dirty and yucky despite being immaculately clean.  









                                            

Paint does amazing things!

In theory his room is simple enough with so few things that he should be able to keep it clean himself.  "Should" being the key word.  Is there any boy/man on the planet capable of shutting all their dresser drawers?

It has becoming clear that it's time to talk to one of our children about sex and babies and that whole world...well, not the whole thing, but the age appropriate 7 year old version of all of that. 
Nervous?  Yes.  Amazon!  Help!  

I ordered a few (4) books to back me up.  After having all the books in my hands and skimming through them I decided that "It's so Amazing" was going to be my best age appropriate choice for our almost 8 year old.  The other books I ordered look good too, but I'm going to hold on to them until he's a bit further down this path.

Now, our kid is a great reader, but I'm not just going to drop a book and run.  I want this to be an open dialogue, so if I start it off that way hopefully it will continue.  One night I muster up my bravery and just come in and say we are starting a new book tonight, it's a book about how babies are made, grown, and born.  And he just says okay.  Okay.  Here we go. 

For the most part the book is great and I read about 95% of the words on the pages without skipping over much.  The only parts I brushed over were some bits at the beginning that said "you might be embarrassed about this" and another bit that said "you might be tempted to research this on the computer"  No.  And you know what, I think I got him early enough because he doesn't know that this is something that many people are embarrassed to talk about.  We just talked about it all and went through the book 5-10 pages a night.  He laughed at somethings, he asked a few questions, and overall it was a success.

The book does a great job of covering ALL the basics.  They even have a few pages dedicated to different types of adoptions and at one point he said, "this whole paragraph here is like my story." It's actually really neat to have an adopted kid and a bio kid, we have good chats about their differences.

Maybe you've already has this conversation with your 7/8 year old, and if so, why didn't you tell me!?  But if you haven't,  I'd recommend it as a jumping off point.

Other books in this series, I haven't ordered these yet, but probably will.

It's Not the Stork!   ages 4+

It's Perfectly Normal ages 10+

When we moved out here we joked it was going to be our two year Southern California vacation. Believe me, I lived like I was on vacation.  Sure I did the obligatory things like took my kids to school and got a job, but mostly we just played...I made a point to go to the beach at least once a month since we've been here.  I said it was going to be a two year vacation, but then you get used to it.  You find your favorite beach, church, neighbors, friends, orange grove, rock climbing gym, thai place, grocery store, hiking path, gymnastics gym, preschool, sledding mountain, master your in-n-out order, and you think this is good, we can stay. 



Then you get the call.  Oh the call.  The, “we have a new job for you, we’ll let you know in two weeks where it is” call.  Two weeks to know you’re probably going to be moving, but not know where.  Two weeks to consider the nine places it could be.  Two weeks to make two lists
1. I’ll live here 2. Please no 

Then you wait.



Two weeks, and a day, later.



The call came this morning.  


We’re moving.  



Denver.



I assume it will shake out like the all the previous moves (this will be #4, if you’ve lost track), Jim apparently only gets new jobs in March/April, so I’ve played this game before. This particular position starts March 1, that’s basically tomorrow.   He’ll head out to snowy Denver while I keep living the dream here, but it’s gonna get a whole lot less dreamy.  Home repairs, home listing and selling, home packing (not me, the movers) and then road tripping with the kids to Denver, then of course run away to Boston for some part of the summer. 

We told the kids this evening, trying to approach it from the most positive angle possible.  Not the we’re leaving the beach behind for snow covered mountains angle.  Not the you're gonna need more than shorts and sandals angle. Rather the, they have big mountains and moose and buffalo and hiking trails and plenty fun to explore, angle.  Then I mentioned it was right next to Kansas which is what won Oliver over.  “Oh, I need to call Joel and Melissa right now and show them the map!” “I’m going to need to tell my friend Robert.”  “I’m going to pick my new bedroom and paint it blue again”  “I want my room pink!” I showed Oliver the map and the different routes we could take on our drive out, “Oh, we’ve got to stop in Las Vegas to play in that pool again!”  That’s. My. Boy. He’s got his priorities straight. 

Six years.  Six!  I can’t believe it.  I remember the day so clearly.  It started so slowly, breakfast at the hotel, driving around town collecting necessary papers, and then back to the hotel for lunch.  All I wanted was to hop in the car and make the three hour drive through the sprawling, fridged, snow covered, Siberian countryside to the orphanage, but Oliver had a schedule to follow and pick up was set to be after his nap time.  Orphanage doesn’t care your mama is coming for you…they’ve got a schedule to uphold!  


No judging improper car seat usage...this is Russia.  I was just lucky my driver had a car seat.

The signs of a former orphanage life have left him.  Signs of attachment issues from loosing his first family and then the orphanage family, signs of neglect from 17 months of living in an institution, signs of malnourishment, signs of a vitamin D deficiency, and signs of terror when faced with water (over corrected), they have all melted away.  The goal isn’t to forget about adoption, the goal isn’t to ignore your first 20 months and just focus on the 6 years, the goal is to live your awesome life despite the cards you were originally dealt.  





That’s who Oliver is.  He loves his family, he adores his friends, he loves to travel (his current favorite place is the Blue Lagoon in Iceland),  he enjoys learning new things, he works hard at school and is rewarded with good grades, he is an amazing reader, a great artist, and a prefect big brother (it’s a delicate balance between “Lydia let’s go play, and Lydia leave me alone”) and he’s mastered it.  

20 months was a lot of months for him to be in limbo and 20 months was a lot of months for us to miss, but it’s all part of our family story, and we love it.  



Cheers to six years as a family man.

Two months ago Lydia and I decided to start demo on the kid's bathroom.  I'm not one to start with a plan, I'm one who comes up with the plan as we go along.  Here is the bathroom I fixed downstairs.  Now on to this project

Before -too huge of a mirror -leaky sink -toilet that uses too much water -strange vanity top -horrid paint color -unnecessary ugly medicine cabinet  -lame peel and stick flooring etc...

Now on to demo with my trusty assistant.


I considered keeping the cabinet and getting a new top, but the vanity was an odd size and a custom top was too spendy.  Once the bathroom was all cleared out if was off to Lowe's to order a tile install. Simply ordered the same tile as we did downstairs. Then off to Home Depot to get a new dual flush toilet.

After the tile and toilet were installed I took on baseboard and toe kick (or quarter round, whatever you like to call it). I hadn't installed baseboard before, but with my new table saw and my nail gun I was ready to tackle the job, especially in such a small place.  One thing I didn't have that was essential was a miter saw.  My neighbor has a miter saw but he doesn't let me use it, he will do the cuts for me which is awesome but hard to schedule since besides remodeling I also run a small in home circus (kids, I have kids).  I bought a little miter box and a hand saw.  Next I turned to YouTube and my boy Trevor here taught me how to use my miter box...or mitre box has he calls it, Irishmen.


I started on one side and worked my way around the room.  Measure, cut, find the studs, nail, repeat.  Looks terrible at first, just know caulk is your friend, your best friend, caulk covers a multitude of sins errr not perfectly matched joints.

I mentioned above that I don't really fully advance plan, but rather take it one step at a time.  After the baseboard the choice was to either repair the wall from the vanity rip out or come up with another plan.  Yeah, I hung beadboard so I didn't need to repair the wall. It is sold in 4ft X 8ft sheets, I had Home Depot cut them in half and then I wedged them into my car along with a bunch of adhesive, I picked the Loctite brand or all purpose construction adhesive.  I watched a couple YouTube videos to get an idea of what to do next but really it's pretty straight forward.  Measure, cut, check, apply adhesive, place on the wall, nail, fill nail holes with joint compound, repeat, caulk all the seems.  Pick a style of chair rail, the piece that goes on top and follow the same steps.

added towel hooks

One reason the process took two months was because it took forever for me to pick a vanity.  I looked at the normal stores, amazon, overstock, etc.  In the end I decide that a vanity made of actual wood was what I wanted, no MDF. Plus it fits perfectly with my plain white style. 

my pipes didn't fit with the vanity so the plumbers helped me out with that

When you install beadboard or some other wall treatment you also have to adjust the outlet so it sits flush with the cover and isn't all wonky, or wonkady as Oliver would say.  I ordered these spacers from amazon. Kill the power, unscrew the outlet, fold a few spacers together (3 was my magic number), place them between the box and the switch or outlet, screw back in, add face place. 

Put all those steps together with some finishing touches and boom, new fresh bathroom.








Few more links
-faucet
-towels
-free printable flamingo, side note...she has a million free printables, search at your own risk, it's a huge time suck
-mirror and shower curtain can be found at Target
-priceless watercolor art was made by Lydia
-frames, shelf, bathmat can be found at Ikea
-paint, dovetail grey by sherwin williams

Sweet Lydia.  Oh my goodness.  Our sweet girl started preschool today! We visited in the spring, we mentioned it on and off all summer, and we always got the same reaction "I not going there"  "I not going to do dat."  Errr.  We visited Monday morning for a meet the teacher and see your classroom time.  She wasn't too interested, but actually came around toward the end and said "Now I know that preschool is fun"  That was Monday.  Today is Wednesday, this morning she forgot that she thought preschool was fun.  "I only like it when mommy stays with me."  Yeah.  We got ready, and took our picture outside and loaded into the car and headed off.  She hung her bag, signed it, went to her class, hug/kiss/picture, and I pointed out the toys she liked on Monday and she got them out and said "I okay, bye mom" When I picked her up at noon I asked her what she did, expecting she would say she didn't know, but she mentioned singing and dancing, painting her hand, and playing with a friend named Chloe...impressive.