Settling In

We are finally settling in to our new home. A good many of our boxes have been unpacked and our house is starting to look like we live here. The girls are starting to get used to sharing a room, although we've temporarily set up Chloe's pack and play in our bedroom closet because it's the only place dark enough at naptime for her to even consider taking a nap. (That sounds awful - putting my baby in the closet. We do keep the door open!) We're going to have to invest in some blackout shades, I think. The girls and I took my cousin Kelly and made a run to Ikea the other day to find some, and although they were out of the size we needed, we did find some fabulous glass jars for our flour and sugar and whatnot.

The stairs are Caleb and Camille's number one source of entertainment these days. They like to race down them (or race objects down them), despite their mother's frequent pleading to please be careful. Their little sister has learned well. This morning I caught Chloe racing down the stairs on her belly (feet first, fortunately!) instead of crawling down carefully. I think we need to invest in a soft rug for the bottom of the stairs. It's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.

Chloe's favorite past time is getting into things in the kitchen. This kitchen is much more accessible to little people. The counters are a little lower and there are no handles on the cabinets so next on the agenda is finding the cabinet locks so I can keep the baby out! She has been dragging her little chair over to the counters and busying herself by "organizing" the contents of the drawers and cabinets. She's very helpful. Watching her today I solved the mystery of why there were more dishes to wash than I had thought should be dirty...she took clean silverware and tossed them into the sink for me. She's very helpful. Now if someone will just explain the laundry mystery to me...

We moved in on Saturday, a week ago. On Tuesday I did several loads of laundry. Today, only four days later, I did another six loads. Where did all of this laundry come from? Each of us only wears one set of clothes a day and pajamas are usually worn at least twice in our house. Yet there were tons of dirty clothes. I'm going to pretend that sometime during the course of the week I unpacked a large box of dirty clothes. As awful as that sounds, it sounds much better than having my family actually dirty six loads of laundry in four days!

Our washer and dryer are downstairs in the basement. That is one of the most glorious features of our new place. It is so nice to have a place to store Christmas stuff, Rob's tools, out of season kids' clothes, etc. somewhere that's not my closet! We put some shelves down there for our kitchen gadgets (our kitchen is sorely lacking in cabinet space) and food storage. Chloe's favorite thing to do in the basement is to play with the food on the shelf. Today she grabbed a can of tomato paste and was all but insisting I open it for her. She loves tomatoes and I guess she thought that's what was inside because of the picture on the can. Somehow I think she would have been less than satisfied with the contents if I had opened it for her.

Caleb is getting settled in his new school. He loves it! The teachers and kids are all really friendly, and he has made some friends already. There are two other red heads in his class (a big deal since there were only a handful of red heads in his old school). I am really excited that he is transitioning well and feeling at home here already.