what's up (weekly-ish, at this point).

I have two weeks to fill you in on, and it has been a full couple of weeks.

The weekend before last, we took a trip down to Columbia, and Rocco turned five months old.

Penelope started complaining of a sore throat on that Monday.  By Tuesday it was so bad, she wouldn't even swallow her own spit; she just kept spitting into the toilet.  I took her to urgent care, where they swabbed her throat and were able to see immediately that the culture was positive.  They prescribed amoxicillin, which was the first time Penelope had ever received an antibiotic (or any prescription medication, for that matter.  She kept asking, "Why do I have to take new medicine?  We already have tea tree oil."  #stuffhippiekidssay).  While we waited for the pharmacy to fill it, we headed over to stock up on probiotics for her to take at strategic times between doses of the antibiotic.  And I do mean STOCK UP.  I think you can safely assume from this photo that I DON'T MESS AROUND WHEN IT COMES TO GUT FLORA.

Todd brought home popsicles for ladycakes since her throat had hurt too badly all day to eat anything.

On Wednesday, Finneas helped me make breakfast, and I think this picture makes it obvious that the day started out on an epic foot.

On Friday, we had a visit from Todd's parents!  They've been living in Arizona all winter, so we hadn't seen them since shortly after Rocco was born.  It was great to see them, and everyone had a blast.

We had a dance party, and as per usual, the kids took it very seriously.  We were all in stitches watching Finneas specifically, who has the coolest moves of all the moves, and Laurelai, who is an incredibly aggressive dancer.

On Sunday, I finally got serious about this whole 'move' shenanigan we're trying to pull, and I started packing.  The girls have helped me label some boxes.  Moving is NO. JOKE.  I will take all the help I can get.

On Tuesday, Penelope started getting some small spots on her neck... then her torso... then her face... then her arms and legs.  I called the nurse, who determined it was an allergic reaction to her amoxicillin.  By dinner time, her whole face had swelled up and she was complaining of a sore throat (one of the warning signs of a more serious allergic reaction) so I drove her to the E.R.  Her airways were clear, so they prescribed a course of steroids and sent us home.

By Wednesday morning, she had hives from the top of her head, to inside her ears, to the literal bottoms of her feet - she couldn't walk without pain.  The poor lady has had a rough few weeks, but she's making it through and has had a great attitude.  We're still pumping the probiotics, and praying that she goes back to her typical, healthy self soon!

And those were the highlights from our last two weeks.  Rocco would like to wish you a very happy Tax Deadline Day from his new favorite way to sit in his old favorite seat.

Happy Friday!

house tour: our bedroom.

For the next peek into some of the ways our home has changed since we've lived here, I thought I'd show you our bedroom.  Please keep in mind that this room only got about half done before we decided to move.  It still needs a big old honkin' piece of art on one wall, a gallery wall on a different wall, a new nightstand, some roman shades between the drapes, etc. etc.  But.  The walls are pretty, the sheets are pretty, and it smells okay when the oil warmer is on, so it's a step up from any other master bedroom we've ever had, even in its half-finished state.

When we bought the house, this room had been working hard as an office.

For a while, we had the two (and then three) biggest kids in here, so their toys and play space could be near me during the day, on the main floor.  But it was a smaaaall space for so many bodies. (The room itself is only 9x11, smaller than the footprint of our living room rug!)

When we found out we were pregnant with Rocco, I needed to brainstorm a new set-up.  We ended up putting the three big kids in the large master bedroom upstairs, and Laurelai across the hall from them, thinking that eventually we'd move her in with them and put Rocco in the nursery by himself.  Meanwhile, we took this downstairs bedroom for ourselves, which ended up being a blessing to us.  Our bedroom has always been the last to get decorated in any house we've lived in, since no one but us ever sees it.  But since this room is on the main floor, right next to the bathroom, it gave me the nudge I needed to finally make our room prettier.

Just imagine a black roman shade hung from high up between those curtains, and some big, pretty art on that right side of the window, like this piece I had been thinking about from Minted.

I'm not sold on the stuff hung above the bed; it was probably set to come down once the big art got hung, and I wanted a grey and white faux-fur blanket for the foot of the bed, and eventually I was hoping to replace the Ikea side table with an actual night stand.  Ahhhh, the things this room could have achieved.

And this gratuitous close-up shot, not because it helps you envision our room at all, but just because it's pretty and it just so happens to be in our room.

So that's our itty-bitty-pretty bedroom!  We're going to miss you, Bedroom - you were the first bedroom we ever called 'ours' that didn't make us feel like we were just passed-out white trash every time we fell asleep.

the kids' first trip to Columbia.

A little over a week ago, we drove down to Columbia to see our new house in person.  This time, we took all the kids, so this is how we started the day, because we're nothing if not realists:

Once we got to town, we dropped (most of) the kids off with a friend so we could go and see the house on our own.

Rocco wasn't so sure about what he saw, but he has impossible standards, so it was no surprise.

After checking it out, we went and picked up the kids, and by that point it was dinner time.  So we headed to Chipotle, then stopped at a local grocery store to grab some food for the next day's breakfast, then we went 'home'.  

When we've gone to Columbia, we've gotten the privilege of staying in this humongous house that is owned by some kind of Baptist missions organization, for the purpose of giving missionaries a place to live when they're in the States on furlough.  No one is living in it now, so they've graciously allowed Anthem to use it when we go down there.  It was so late when we arrived, and we'd had such a long day, that Laurelai conked out before we even got there.  And when I say 'conked,' I mean passed-clean-out.  

The kids got to sleep in pairs on queen-sized mattresses - Penelope and Atticus in one big bed, and Laurelai and Finneas on a big mattress on the floor right next to the big bed.  They had a BLAST.  I forgot to bring toys of any kind with us (what am I, new?!?), but they didn't really seem to mind.  They just kept parkouring all evening until Todd and I got fed up and made them go to sleep.

The next morning, the kids got up and had breakfast (yogurt, precooked bacon, and bananas - no cooking involved, and everything served on Chick-Fil-A dishware) then we dinked around for a while.  Laurelai had fun wearing Penelope's glasses, and the kids got a rare opportunity to play games on the Kindle.

We headed out late in the morning, and stopped on our way out of town to visit with an Anthem family who had just moved into their Columbia house that week.  Then we stopped at Wal-Mart to stock up on lunch and dinner items for the road, and headed home.

It was a really, really long two days, but it was fun to see the house for the first time in real life, and it was great getting to show the kids their new town.  They're all getting really excited (for the most part) to get down there and settle in, and I think this trip made it a little more real for them.

rocco's modern life: five months.

My tiny boy is growing!  He turned five months old last week, and is killing it.  He pulls himself to a sitting position when I'm cradling him in my arms.  He loves being held while he stands up.  He grabs at things and tries to put them in his mouth.  He can roll from his back to his tummy, and vice versa.  And he got his first tooth the other day!

When he's tired, he sucks his pointer finger on one hand, and rubs his ear with the other.  He's still not in an entirely predictable sleep pattern, but for the most part he wakes up once in the middle of the night to eat, then sleeps until sometime between 6:30 and 7:30 (though sometimes as late as 9:00!).  If it's on the earlier end of the morning, I nurse him in my bed in an attempt to get him to fall back to sleep, though this has happened less and less often lately.  This is a huge bummer for two reasons: 1) I have to get up earlier.  Waaa waaaa. and 2) I don't get sleepy snuggle time with him.  He's the first baby I've ever done any form of co-sleeping with, and even though it's only for an hour or two a few days a week, I just love it.  (Also, though, I love that he also has his own bed for most of the night.  Best of both worlds.)

Penelope sat him on a 'throne' and 'crowned' him the King of Cute Town.  He looks like the rightful heir to that throne, don't you think?

He's getting stronger and stronger, and I'm starting to be able to carry him on my hip.  He loves to get the chance to look around from up high like that, but it also makes him puke on an apocalyptic scale, so he doesn't get to do it as often as he'd like.  He is still so incredibly barfy.  I've been strictly dairy-free for a little over a week now in an effort to see if that will help his belly settle down... no good news yet, but I'm going to give it six weeks or so before making a final call on whether or not it seems to be helping.

He got all dolled up for Easter.

He laughed his first social laugh this month - I was leaning down to kiss his cheek as I laid him down for nap, and I whispered in his ear and kind of laughed, and he laughed in response.  It was so, so wonderful.

Rocco's response to seeing our Columbia house in-person for the first time.  From the look on his face, I'm not sure what he thought of it.

He spent LOTS of time in the car, riding back and forth from Columbia with us.  He was a super champ about it.

I love this kid, and I love these days.  I'm by no means a 'baby' person in general, but I just adore my babies, and who can blame me?!  He's so cute and squishy and cuddly and happy.  I genuinely love my life and who I get to share it with.

house tour: living room and dining room.

Now that we're getting ready to box stuff up to move it to our new house, I thought I'd show you around one last time.  I'm trying not to cry even as I type this post.  I have loved this house.  I still love this house.  I wish I could just pick it up and stick it on a truck and move it to Missouri with us.  I wish I could adopt it as my child.

When we were trying to arrange everything in the move to Cedar Falls, we had been house hunting, to no avail.  We had looked at nearly 30 houses, and everything was just the worst.  I cried over more than one house.  And then This House came.  I really think God brought us this house.  It was adorable.  It was clean.  It was well-maintained.

I loved it as soon as I walked in the door, so these aren't really "Before" and "Afters," in the sense that I thought "the 'befores' were totally the worst, and thank God for the 'afters.'" This House has always been This House - cute and awesome and perfect.  We just got the privilege of putting our stamp on it for a while.

With that, here is what our living room looked like:

And here is what it looks like now:

I love everything about our living room - it's so sunny and open and snuggly and pretty.  I'm going to miss you, Living Room.  You've been good to me.

From the couch, you can see the dining room.  This is what it looked like before:

And here's what it looks like now:

The kids spend so much time in this sunny room, eating, doing schoolwork, and coloring.  It's a room we all love to be in.  I'm going to miss you, Dining Room.  You've been good to us.

I'll do a couple more House Tour posts - this week I'll show you the entryway and our bedroom.  And in the meantime, I'll just live in denial about the fact that we're not going to live here until we die.

missing these girls already.

We have been blessed with THE. BEST. babysitters here in Cedar Falls.  We have a small group of really great college girls who hang out with the kids so that we can go to Connection Group each week, and we even get to go on an occasional date night.  While we don't have photos with all the girls who occasionally babysit for us, I thought I'd introduce you to Ellie and Bethany, who watch the kids pretty much every week while we're at CG.

I think you can see the kids adore these ladies.

Not only do the kids love them, but Todd and I love them too.  We love getting to chat with them over dinner before we leave, and once we get home from group.  We're all going to miss you ladies SO MUCH when we move!  (You're welcome to come with us to Columbia and solve this problem... just sayin'.)

'what's up' weekly.

This week has been weird.  It was the first week in the last month that I didn't have something scheduled every day, which was really, really nice.  However, the inspection on our Cedar Falls house is happening tomorrow, so I've been spending the week busting my butt, trying to get everything ready for that.  Plus, I turned thirty and we bought a house.  So there's that.

But let's back up:  I turned thirty.  I'm not one who has always dreaded the big 3-0.  I didn't have a list of stuff I was trying to accomplish by now, and my life is better than I could have ever imagined or hoped for at this point, so I'm not living with any kind of regrets or wishful thinking.  Thirty never scared me.  But... it was a bit of a somber day, nonetheless.  I've just felt old for a while... having a bunch of kids ages you.  But at least before, people would hear I was still in my twenties and say something about how young I was (at least for having that many kids).  Now I'm thirty, and I feel old, and everyone agrees with me.  Plus, I spent my birthday grocery shopping like a chump, which didn't help anything.

BUT.  It's all good.  Todd likes to remind me that there are only two options in life: I'm either getting older, or I'm dead; there are no alternatives.  So I'm actually in a pretty good boat considering my other option.  And I spent a lot of time thinking about and praying for so many of the amazing people God has given me so far in my life.  This was by far the best part of my birthday.  So, here's to thirty years of being loved and cared for by some awesome people.

Okay, moving on.  We put in the offer on the house on Saturday as well.  (We offered on our Story City house on Valentine's Day of 2011; Todd likes to buy me houses as special holiday gifts, apparently.)  Everything was locked down the following day.

Speaking of the following day, Sunday was Easter, and we all got dolled up to head to church...

... then we came home to act like weirdos.

Also, I would like to show you this photo to document how nicely my hair-teasing efforts turned out that morning.  Because I was sporting a noteworthy poof.

Monday, we fired up the grill for the first time this season.  It was awesome.  We also had a neighborhood family over for dinner for the first time since we've lived here.  We're nothing if not procrastinators.

And then the rest of the week was spent cleaning and freaking out about our impending inspection.  Please be praying it goes well!

So, that was our week.  How was yours?