Improvements

We've been busy busy bees lately.  While we do tend to have a lot of visitors we decided that the 2% of our total time they spend with us was not worth having a beautiful, large, empty room in the basement.  So... we rearranged.  Noah has taken residence in his very own room with a queen size bed in what used to be the office.  The office is now where the guest room used to be.  Everything in the basement has been rearranged and feels much more inviting.  I didn't take a completely finished picture, apparently, but you get the idea.  The walls shall be painted soon!



The office is in a cold place where it belongs (and near where the kids usually are which helps me out).  It's inviting and inspiring.  Josh and I do our painting and crafting in this room now.

Noah has his own space where he can escape the unrequited love of his minions.  We still have some painting and decorating to do, but he's already in love with his door (it shuts out brothers) and his new desk.

Brennan and Tristan love all their new space as well.  They both have little desks of their own now, and have turned underneath the bunk bed into a bunny cave.  Brennan has slept in his cave every night.  Tristan got upgraded to the top bunk, which made "losing" Noah a little easier on him, but he's having a tough time giving up his big brother.  He's getting there though.

We have also been hanging artwork, creating artwork, painting walls, finally putting up pictures.  We have been feeling quite motivated :)  Everything looks and feels fantastic!

We have "time" with Mommy now.  I remember my Mom doing something similar when I was little and I LOVED IT!  I was reading a book and Jeff Bridges was talking about how his Mom would spend one full hour with her kids, making them the most important thing above all else for that hour.  He said it always made him feel so loved and secure and important so I thought HECK YES!  Now, I haven't ironed out the details... last Sunday I did one hour back to back with all three boys and once I got to poor Noah I was so burnt out I felt he got a little cheated on the experience.  I'm trying different variations though (different days, less time at first) and am sure I will find one that works for all of us.  The boys love it already.  Eventually Josh will get in on the fun too.

We have also started a weekly family meeting on Monday's.  We each come up with a personal goal and help think of three steps we can take to achieve it.  Then we have a daily mantra (example: my goal was to have more patience and my mantra is "Today I will be more patient").  We encourage each other throughout the week and then end with an outpouring of gratitude for everything, coming up with as much as we can think of to feel grateful for in our lives over Sunday dinner.  This may also change a bit over time, but overall I am loving this.