Getting Ready for Our New Normal

After moving back into our house things kicked into high gear for getting ready for our little guy.  As our lists dwindled down and the day began to actually draw near for our departure to finally meet him, I began to feel a little weepy about how our lives were about to change in such an amazing way- the weight of the blessings being bestowed on our little family....I wanted to capture some of our "normal" during these final few weeks...savor the life we have now before it becomes even richer. So here are some glimpses of our "old" normal days  before we welcome our "new" normal with hearts wide open...

We love to visit friends.  This is my amazing friend Rebecca and her sweet little lion, Cillian.  I especially love this pic because while playing over there, Lily discovered some lip gloss that belongs to Rebecca's daughter and proceeded to apply it non-stop for about an hour.  

We like to work on projects together.  Lily's favorite projects right now always involve painting and stickers

She has a big girl bed, but still loves to sleep in her crib (which will be moving to brother's room) so I just wanted to capture a glimpse of her reading books in her crib on one of the last mornings...

One of the joys of having a big girl bed and the ability to get in and out of one's crib whenever you like, is discovering things like this after "nap time"...

We love going to the library...

For about the past year and a half Lily and I have helped out in the child care of our favorite Jazzercise center.  It was such a blast (most mornings) because both instructors for that class time have kiddos around Lily's age, so she has made some great friends and it was like a weekly play date for her. 

Then there are those sad days when bunny needs a bath... (yes, there are times when I stuff my machine to the gills!) 

We both went to the eye doctor together...

We spent a LOT of time getting brother's room ready for him...

While I cannot say its part of our regular routine, we attended a fancy, Spring Fling tea party (Lily's first) and it was so much fun!  She had a blast and our hostess was prepared to make Lily's experience one for the books.  Lily LOVED it.

...sipping her virgin mimosa....  

...this guy even made an appearance thanks to Lily's imagination....

...just a glimpse of my sweet girl being her cute self...

...we love to visit parks all around the city and play...

swinging is her absolute favorite...

We wrapped up our final visit of the school year with some shaving cream fun...

we love the Parents As Teachers program and especially Miss Cara!

Miss Cara brought some fun things to cut during her last visit as well.  Lily has really been getting good at using her scissors.  

These two girls are some of our favorites to play with...

we just happened to stop over on a day when they had a HUGE bounce house set up in their yard!  It was next to impossible to get them out of there- needless to say, bounce house = bliss for Lily

We have hosted some neighborhood get togethers.  We are really fortunate in that we have met 5-6 families who all have kiddos Lily's age who live right around us.  We have really enjoyed getting to know them better and look forward to many more fun times ahead. 

When the weather is nice and before it turns brutally hot, we love to have friends over to play some yard games in our backyard... Kubb (pronounced Koob) is the current fave... 

These two.... 

Our house is pretty busy these days...it seems like everywhere I turn, there is some new "project" or mess being created... I love it though.

...I guess I cannot complain too loudly, I made a great meal from scratch, but the clean up...wow.

We love to get together regularly with these cuties...it has been so much fun to watch them all grow up!

...pals....

On a typical day when I'm trying to make dinner, this is what it has been like underfoot for me.  We have been going through tubs of baby stuff and slowing pulling out baby toys etc for brother.  Lily has been making sure they are still up to snuff... non-stop!

We celebrated birthdays and Father's Day (a little early before we left)

of course, our normal trips to the grocery store....

We have loved going to the pool as much as possible.  This pic cracked me up because Lily found the little sunglasses from when she was a baby and strapped them on and did not want to take them off!  Hilarious! 

Art is a big thing and its really fun to see her creativity start to bloom...

her first face...

Our car was rear-ended, so we had to rent a van- Lily loved it!

Most Saturday mornings for the past couple of years, Joe and Lily have had their special time together.  This was taken at one of their most recent outings...to Union Station to see the trains.

Meanwhile...Mama indulged in one of my favorite things to do...breakfast with friends followed by some shopping for home interior stuff! 

we helped celebrate birthdays....

...ate ice cream...

and of course, always kept our eyes open for Luke clouds...our glimpse of heaven!

Where we Are...

We are waiting.  Our little guy was due two days ago on the 17th, but when his birth mother went into the doctor to be checked, she still had not started to dilate.  So, it is looking like he is pretty comfy in there.  The doctor said that he will induce next Tuesday if something does not happen on its own between now and then.  So we wait!  Counting down the minutes....and as Lily likes to say, "Only a few more sleeps!"

Our Kitchen!

You have heard a lot about it, and finally here are some photos of our practically brand new kitchen!  Tackling this two month project at this point in our lives was not on our agenda, but looking back now, it seems there was a divine plan at work beyond what we could see or imagine and we love how it turned out! 

We upgraded our countertops to a granite stone called Black Pearl and bumped out our countertop on the peninsula so that (eventually) we can get some counter-height chairs and people can just pull up a chair to the counter.  It is the main gathering place in our house, so we figured people might as well be comfortable while hanging out with us!  Plus we figured that with that large of a flat surface, we would get a TON of use out of that space with projects and homework and cooking etc. 

Glad I captured the crock pot action for Lily's family birthday party for you!  But the honest truth is that our kitchen is never this sparkly clean unless we are hosting some kind of gathering, so I figured I should snap some photos while I could- and while the birthday girl was napping! 

We changed painted our cabinets Simply White by Benjamin Moore and changed out all of the hardware and hinges.  

We kept our same sink that we had before.  It is pretty non-traditional to have a "top mount" sink with granite countertops, but we are super glad we stuck to our guns.  We upgraded our sink last spring and really love it, so getting rid of it was not really something we were wanting do do despite all of the advice and encouragement from our contractors.  We love this sink and are really happy with the charm it adds to our kitchen.

Thanks to all of the water damage, we got brand new hardwood floors in our kitchen.  We deepened to stain color and really like the depth it adds to the room.  I admit, it shows a little bit more dirt and advertises when I do not sweep, but we are SO glad we changed the stain color.  We also sanded down and stained our front hall to match this color which ties the spaces together nicely.  This is also a pretty good glimpse of the spindle(s) we added with the counter bump out.  

As part of the recovery process, our insurance included a fresh coat of paint for our walls in both our laundry room and the kitchen.  We could not believe our good fortune, so we decided to lighten up our kitchen paint color.  We decided to go with Repose by (I think) Benjamin Moore. It is shocking how much changing this paint color along with the cabinet color has done to change the entire feel of the room.  Everything feels so much brighter, happier and just more like "us."  We kept our laundry room the same color (Tiffany Blue) but we were also given new flooring for that room due to water damage, so we got a black and white checkerboard pattern.  It looks super cute and pretty much completed my "dream" for that room.  I don't have a photo of it, but it looks cute and cheerful.

We were also allotted an allowance for carpet replacement for our family room thanks to water damage.  I do not have any pics of it for this post, but we picked an oatmeal based color that looks great with the dark flooring.  It is amazing how soft and fluffy new carpet feels under your feet.  It makes me want to re-carpet our entire upstairs as I now appreciate how much we need new carpet now that I have something to compare it to! Wow!

I do not have a photo of our new dishwasher, but we are excited about that as well! There are still several smaller kitchen projects we would eventually like to tackle...things like lighting, back splash, curtains...but for now, we are super happy with where we are.  

It was a lot of fun getting to pull all of this together.  Crazy, sometimes stressful but also a lot of fun and a great distractor for us while we were waiting to be matched with a baby.  It is shocking how many choices there are along this path- floor stains, carpet swatches, types, loops, paint colors, shades of white, hinges- on and on.  You just pick what you like and hope it all works well together.  It helped that I love this kind of thing and had an idea of what I would love and so it was just a matter of  getting Joe's approval and then casting the vision for our contractors.  We are thrilled with how it turned out and absolutely view it as evidence of God's blessing over our lives. 

BEFORE

AFTER

It's All Over But the Waiting...

After weeks of work, errands, preparations and to-do lists, Lily and I finally finished everything we could at home, and made our escape to the mountains to await baby brother's arrival at the cabin.  Joe stayed behind to continue working as long as possible and will catch the first flight west once THE call comes in.  Baby brother is due to arrive only four days from now, (FOUR!!!) but something in my heart tells me our wait may be a little bit longer than that, so counting down the days and minutes seemed a little bit easier to handle while breathing mountain air.  But then again, doesn't everything?

It is freeing to be as "ready" as you possibly can be in this sort of situation. Bags are packed, car snacks ready, playlists made for the car, car toys ready for Lily, baby gear clean, packed, organized and in working order... it is all over but the waiting.  So while we wait, we are going for walks, playing games, watching movies, eating pancakes, swimming, swinging, doing puzzles and trying to rest up for the big adventure ahead.  I'm savoring these last few sweet "Mommy-Lily Days" as we affectionately call them.  Our lives will never be this simple again...In a crazy way, my life feels like it is slowing down...in such a beautiful way. 

I am lifting my eyes to the hills....