thankful thursday

I'm so thankful -- this week especially -- for my motivated and hard-working husband. On Saturday we had a pretty open day with not much going on . . . wait, let me back up::

We moved into this house more than 12 years ago. Just the 2 of us. We have 4 bedrooms: a big one and a teeny-tiny one upstairs {our house is a 1-1/2 story} and another 2 {pretty normal sized} on the main floor. Since Kirbs and I were the house's only inhabitants when we moved in, we took the big upstairs room. It seemed a pretty logical choice. When we found out baby #1 was on the way the teeny-tiny upstairs room right next to ours seemed to be the logical nursery choice.

Fast forward 11 years and nearly 5 kids later and things have changed. Mostly little changes here and there. The first, more major change came last summer. We had decided 5 kiddos seemed to be a good fit for our family and we weren't planning to have anymore {I am reminded of Proverbs 16.9} so we moved to one of the downstairs bedrooms and the 2 older girls took over the big upstairs room. The boys continued to share the other downstairs bedroom and Anna was in the nursery. Well, fast forward again and we decided that having the newborn in the "nursery" upstairs and the momma downstairs {as opposed to right next door} wasn't the best set-up. So we tried to figure out how best to re-distribute people in bedrooms.

Now, back to last Saturday . . . I don't remember there being any intentional decision {or even discussion of such} toward a major whole-house overhaul, but alas, somehow, it happened. A crib, set up more than 11 years ago in a sweet upstairs nursery, was disassembled. Countless pieces of furniture were moved, vacuumed under {YIKES!} and rearranged. Drawers were emptied and their contents moved to a new room. Toys and clothes were sorted through and there was lots of purging! {Whoo Hoo!}. By bedtime on Saturday Anna was going to bed in a "big girl bed"{my white iron-framed big girl bed from my childhood, to be exact} in the big upstairs room where all 3 girls now reside. Jacob {finally} had his own {little} room and was arranging and re-arranging his things to make it just right. {He's back where he started his life . . . in the "nursery" that he moved out of 9 years ago to make way for his little sister -- who is now bigger than he is}. Joey now has the downstairs room to himself until the little bundle arrives in October to occupy the crib that was re-assembled on the west end of his bedroom {under the tree with the bats . . . hope they don't scare the wee babe!}.

Kirb did the vast majority of the work, while I sorted through stuff and got rid of bunches of stuff that we didn't need cluttering up our house . . . and our life! He did all the major lifting, moving, vacuuming, disassembling, reassembling and hauling. Also, he provided the motivation when his tired, burnt out, pregnant wife plopped down on the couch with a book!

We're not 100% settled yet. Some clothes are still in the wrong places {heck, some of my clothes are still in the closet upstairs and we moved downstairs nearly a year ago!} and some re-organizing still needs to be done. But, a transition that I hoped to finish by the end of the summer is very nearly done before we even flipped the calendar to July. Isn't that great?

Had I known when she got out of her crib on Saturday morning, that Anna wouldn't ever get back in it, I would have been pretty bummed and spent much of the day grieving, but doing things this way -- without a plan, I didn't have time for any of that. She is still learning {it's only been 5 nights!} to stay in her bed when we put here there, but she's been sleeping all night in her big girl bed . . . once we finally get her to fall asleep, that is! Tuesday night she only got out twice before falling asleep. She was really, really tired though, which helped. Gotta love summer days {and no more naps -- at least lately} for completely wearing a 2-year-old out!

Here are a few pictures of the transformation of the Stoll house. Enjoy::

Anna sleeping in one little corner of her new bed on Sunday morning::

We'll work on staying at the "head" of the bed later, maybe . . . along with using your pillow and actually covering up with something {although it is summer!}

Jacob's new pre-teen pad::

Joe's room {he now sleeps on the top and can play underneath, where he used to sleep}::

Crib ready for baby #6 {these 3-or-so months will be the first break this crib has seen in over a decade. For nearly 11 and a half years someone has slept in it every night. It's been worth every penny of what we paid for it in 1999 . . . and then some!}::

Amazing how clean everything is in these pictures. If only it would stay that way . . .

Oh, and . . . Happy July!!