Five on Friday

1. We've made some improvements around the house this week.  Bit by bit, we're chipping away at the last tasks to be settled.  Some of it involves unpacking, and some involves decorating, all of it feels great to accomplish. :)

First up, we have some pictures in the kids' bathroom.  I saw an idea on Pinterest to take a photo of your child right after a bath and then display that in the bathroom.  So we wrapped the kids up cozy in their towels after a bath and started snapping away. AR was a little easier to capture than crazy man Asa. :)  We had one shot with a so-so smile of him, but we ended up choosing this one--which displays a LOT of personality--instead. :)

2. Next, we are SOO close to finishing unpacking the garage.  I thought we were a lot closer than we ended up being... because several boxes I sorted and labeled are too big to fit through our attic access door (oops!).  THAT was a big disappointment.  But we rounded up some alternate boxes and "all" I need to do is divide the contents of the big boxes and repack them (and adjust my inventory sheet accordingly).  The GOOD news is that I have sorted through our Christmas boxes.  That means all I have left is to sort our few other holiday boxes (Valentine's Day, Easter, etc.) and we're DONE DONE DONE.  We EVEN have EMPTY shelf space in the garage at the moment!  It's almost 2 cars in the garage time!  AND, I have to admit, a very satisfying part of clearing out the garage has been ripping off moving inventory stickers.  OH it feels so good. :) SO LONG!  SEE YA!  DON'T WAIT AROUND! :)

3.  Thursday morning we ran by a few craft stores to check out fall garland. For some reason I had in my mind that we had fall garland.... but it's nowhere to be found. I must be recalling incorrectly.  SO, I bought some cheaper garland from JoAnn's (with a giftcard--woo hoo) and then some stems of leaves and blooms at Dollar Tree to fill them in a bit more.  One is on the lower rail of the stairs--the part you can see from the living room.  And the other garland is on the banister of the foyer overlook just outside our bedroom.  Every time Anna Reaghan sees the upstairs garland she exclaims, "FALL!!!" :)  I am thankful to add some fall decor to the house, and I'm looking forward to adding a little more after we unpack a few more boxes here and there (they have to take priority--boo). :)  I am excited to decorate the mantle and add a few other touches here and there.  I am tentatively planning to decorate for fall then Thanksgiving and then Christmas "early" so we can enjoy each stage while putting each (especially Christmas) away in a "timely"/early-for-us manner so the house can be back to "normal" the beginning of January before Lila should arrive.  So we're trying to live it up now! :)

4.  Unfortunately, our day on Thursday took an unexpected turn when Asa came down with a stomach flu. :( :( :(  I am supremely thankful that it's either milder (not really based on what I'm hearing from others with a bug going around) or Asa's body is fighting it off MUCH more successfully than the SERIES of stomach bugs he succumbed to last year.  Those lasted all.day.long on and on with the upset stomach (it was so pitiful :( ), and he'd catch them every round.  We're still keeping everything calm and bland for him, but he's sleeping extra and was actually perky for most of the day except for 2 brief interludes of illness.  We are praying he is fully on the mend and that the rest of us don't catch this.  I don't know how many times I washed my hands today. :)  Hopefully enough!!

5.  I tidied the laundry room this week.  Nothing drastic.  I don't know if I'll want to paint in there one day, but I do know I want some wall art at some point.  I just have no idea what I want to hang yet. :)  In the meantime, I stocked the shelves (with rails for hanging clothes) with spare child and adult hangers so I can *take things straight from the dryer and hang them!*  Pause to reflect on the wonderfulness of this arrangement. :)  I also mentally made sections for Anna Reaghan's clothes, Asa's clothes, mine, Matt's, hang drying clothes, and a basket for ironing.  Now I just grab each person's section of hanging clothes and put them away.  OH the convenience.  OH how wonderful a large, organized, fully functional laundry room is to a mom with young children. :) :)