My mom shares my love of the place we call “the levee”. So, on the second night of her visit, we decided to go for a walk there. I had forgotten it was the night before the full moon, the so called “honeymoon” or “strawberry moon”. It was just as lovely the night before.

My mom really enjoyed hearing the frogs, seeing deer and fireflies. I love all of these things too, but living here and experiencing most of it so often, I forget how neat it is. We’re fortunate to live in a place with open space, green fields and abundant wildlife.

Silly dog, trying to chase down the moon.

I was going to share a two minute long video of frogs croaking with you, but it won’t share. Bummer, huh?
 

We’re still having movie night and I don’t see it stopping anytime soon. All 3 of my kids are way into it and tell everyone they see on Friday that it’s movie night! Reed told someone last week that “mama picks the movies and they’re more grown-up movies.” Ha! The truth is mama picks the movies and they have to be ones that mama can sit through.

So far we’ve watched: Nanny McPhee, Matilda, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and the Wizard of Oz.

I love this photo. Brothers and cousins. Gus is sitting right in front of Reed and those are my nephews on the right. The older boys are about 6mo apart, right now 7 and 6, but in another month they’ll both be 7. The younger two are 3mo apart and are both 3 right now. 4 hands in the popcorn bowl.

Any more movie suggestions?

We have two family reunions to go to this summer and the first was this weekend. It was a “first annual” reunion. A pretty small one with my mom’s side of the family– aunts, uncles and cousins.

It was at my aunt and uncle’s house, about an hour away. They have a property which is wonderful for adventure, with a treehouse and a pond. And a large house and patio for the adults.

There were 13 kids there. The littlest guy on the left, up to 14 years old.

One of my nephews caught a frog. And a snake. And who knows what else.

I don’t often think about what could have been in my kids’ future, but there is something really beautiful about seeing my kids surrounded by family. Family who has embraced them and loves them. My kids don’t give it one second thought and they shouldn’t. But, it overwhelms me to know how loved they are. And how fortunate we are to have a family who loves adoption as much as we do.

Left is cousins on the tire swing together. Right is cousins + 2 of my cousin’s girls on the tire swing together.

Lena made a friend, one of my cousin’s daughters. She is only 3. They were both dressed in all pink, but Lena had darker pink on the bottom and her new friend, C, had darker pink on the top. Too cute.

One of my nephews, 11 years old, announced that he loves family reunions. I think we’d all agree! We had a great weekend.

The only bittersweet part about the room changes were taking down Gus’s crib. I thought there would be more of a fight, more of a transition, but when I asked him if he wanted to sleep in his new bed instead, he said “YEAH!” and scooped up every stuffed animal he could find before plopping down in his new bed(Lena’s old bed).

We first met the crib when our friend Danae offered to give it to us. She originally thought they would adopt a younger child. We thought we were adopting an older child. We traded a car seat for a crib when both of our plans changed.

So, it came to live at our house. With a homemade quilt over the side, in our too-small room.

That very first night Gus came home we plopped him down in there and he was OUT.

That crib was well-loved and well-used.

We finally moved it out of our room and upstairs (to the room that is now the Lena’s room) last fall.

When Gus started climbing out, we had to take the front off, converting it into a toddler bed. And, when Andrei came to visit us over the winter, we moved it into Reed and Lena’s room.

Knowing the crib would soon be gone, I took some photos of him at naptime a couple of weeks before.

When I was taking these, he looked at me and calmly said “please stop”. Oh, okay, buddy… sure.

Last weekend, I took apart for one last time.

Of course, none of this is really about the crib. It’s really about this…

The little boy who used it well and just keeps on growing. Hard to believe it’s been almost two years.

Anticipating our host girl’s arrival, we had some room rearranging to do. I originally blogged about Reed and Lena’s room here and here. Very little had changed in the last 4 years. We’ve moved beds, swapped out some stuff to make it more appropriate as they’ve grown, but no major changes.

Here’s a recent photo:

But, it was time. Lena can’t share with her brothers forever. We liked the idea of Lena shared with our host girl, Big L, this summer and this was a great time to make the break without any struggle.

I was over the moon about decorating a room for girls. Especially my girl, who loves bright colors as much as I do. And, at the same time, I wanted to make some fun additions to the boys room, so they wouldn’t feel completely left out of the room remodel. Here’s what I did with their room:

No more crib.

And lots of new photos, as well as new super hero posters.

And… drumroll, please…. the girl’s room…


(The bible verse prints are available in the Moose Prints store!)

I’m really happy with how it turned out, especially because almost everything was repurposed from elsewhere in our house.

Lena knew she was getting a new room and would be sharing with Big L, but we had done all of the work to surprise her while she and Reed visited Aaron’s parents (and the changes in Reed’s room were a surprise to him, too!).

When we showed it to her, she said, “Wow. Awesome. I knew it was awesome.”