.jpg?ssl=1)
- I talked about this tent before – but it’s been “officially” in Leander’s room long enough to make it into an Abby’s Saturday photo.
As a bit of background: Leander got this tent as a Christmas gift from my parents (but in the shuffle of Christmas Day, he missed opening it up, so it was hand-delivered to our house about 2 weeks later). As soon as he saw it, he and Braelynn set it up in the living room and were so excited. They played in it all day long. And as bedtime approached, they begged to sleep in it that night.
Thankfully – Leander’s bedroom is the largest of the three bedrooms in our house, so we were able to re-arrange his room a bit and it fit quite comfortably!
And thus began Leander’s indoor camping adventure.
The tent is still set up in Leander’s bedroom (obviously) and he’s slept in it every night since that first night. Braelynn has joined him for “sleepover camping trips” every weekend – and they just have the best time ever! It’s so fun to see them having so much fun! - Derrick’s parents are here!
After we completely ripped apart our dining room last week – Derrick’s Dad is here to put it back together this week! That includes new drywall, new ceiling, new flooring, and my new office (EEEK – what?!)
But, let’s back up just a minute:
Last Saturday, Derrick officially finished ripping the last of the dining room walls down. That included the fireplace and old “built-in” china cupboard (those were the very last things to get removed from the room). As he pulled the built-in china cupboard out, he discovered two things: a built-in bookcase (and a whole bunch of space) behind the china cupboard, PLUS a super old-school blender sitting on one of the shelves!
We were shocked. We had no idea that there was so much space behind that china cupboard! And that discovery instantly changed our whole plan for the dining room.
It also provided the answer to a question we’ve been puzzling over for ages —
(Backstory to the backstory): My office is currently tucked into a corner of our laundry room – which for the last 7 years has been fantastically functional. Our laundry room is right off of our living room, so that means my office is easily accessible. The kids can play anywhere on our first floor and I can see/hear them. So, while it’s not exactly “pretty” – it works!
However, we plan to renovate and add a first floor bathroom into our laundry room space (that project isn’t coming too too soon, but it is on the horizon – it will be our next “big” project).
When that happens, I lose my office space.
And so, we’ve puzzled over it a million times – where would my office go? I could move up to the third floor, where Derrick’s office is, but I would lose that easily-accessible-daily-life aspect of my current office. Which is why it’s ideal for it to be on the first floor. But up to last Saturday – we truly did not have any space for me to put it without disrupting our living room or dining room.
Enter us renovating our dining room and Derrick ripping out that old built-in china cupboard (that I honestly agonized over tearing out). I truly did love the “built-in” character that the old fireplace, mantel, and china cupboard brought to our dining room. It’s honestly one of the things that really drew me to this house when we first bought it. However, if we were going to renovate our dining room and make it really nice and new, I knew that it had to go (it truly wasn’t that great “quality” to begin with – the longer you sat and looked at it, the worse you realized it was).
So, we ripped it out, and behind that china cupboard we found all of this SPACE.
Okay, so it’s not really a “ton” of space – but it is a legitimate “nook”.
And it turns out to be the perfect size “nook” for my new office!
I’m going to have a built-in desk (we bought the wood, sanded it, stained it, and sealed it yesterday), a few shelves above my computer, a few shelves hidden in the side of the wall – it’s a whole work-in-progress!! I can’t WAIT to see how it all comes together (and it’s still very much in the “work-in-progress” stage!)
Stay tuned for a full update on how everything goes, as we work through this weekend, next week!
But, other than “my office” update – the room has been completely transformed from what it looked like last week! All of our drywall is up, it’s all spackled (and ready to be sanded down), our new flooring is down – the new ceiling will go up today (and we’ll see what else we accomplish this weekend!) - Tonight is Braelynn’s birthday party! Her birthday is next Wednesday – smack dab in the middle of the week – so it was either have her party the weekend early or the weekend late. Derrick’s parents could come this weekend – so the weekend early it is!
YES, my baby girl turns EIGHT YEARS OLD this coming week (and I am not okay with it). - They sang Happy Birthday to Braelynn at church on Wednesday night and you would have thought they crowned her queen for the day. She was literally floating on the clouds!
- My Mom introduced Leander (and Braelynn) to Bob the Builder last week and they have been SUPER obsessed ever since! Leander walks around singing the theme song constantly (and it’s legitimately the cutest thing I’ve ever heard). Needless to say: all of this “construction” going on at our house has been right up their alley – and they’ve been playing “Bob and Wendy” endlessly!
- I posted my TENTH annual “behind-the-scenes” blog post this week! There are photos of me photographing weddings in 2022 (the main purpose of the blog post), but I also include photos of Derrick and I working at amusement parks and recording our new YouTube show! Go check it out!
