Thankful Thursday

Thankful for beautiful babes with beautiful curls and bright eyes to take it all in with....

(click on the picture for some up close babyness)

Thankful for our House of Love

and all the comments that particular post got.

Christine wanted to know more of what I was thinking about...

I guess I was thinking about our start.

I'm thankful we started out small.

Before we were married, Tom bought a little old home, over 100 years old,

and lived alone,

in a pretty empty house

til the evening we married.

When we started making it a home.

We did daycare in that home and painted it all throughout.

We installed new windows and painted the outside blue.

We planted flowers and a garden.

Then, we moved to a little bit newer home (less things to worry about)

it had a big yard,

but we ended up outgrowing that home,

with 3 girls and 1 boy in one bedroom

and one bathroom for all and

wall to wall "stuff".

We then, moved to our current home, where we now have

4 girls in one bedroom,

1 boy in his own room,

we have 4 bathrooms (which personally I feel is too many)

and room to grow, but

with any growing family,

there needs to be some adjusting, changing of rooms, furniture and that "stuff"

that we all accumulate.

My husband and I have these plans in the 5 year future to add on a bedroom on the main floor for us, so at least 2 of the girls can move into our old room,

and remodel our kitchen to make it bigger,

especially the dining room, where

we hope to someday accommodate our kiddos' spouses and families.

House of Love,

Room to grow.

The above picture is our old diaper changing area.

I have bins next to the changing table

that have Sweetie Pie's clothes.

Now we bought dressers a couple years ago,

knowing we would need one for the new baby.

One dresser was a long one with a mirror, for Ballerina Rosie,

who moved to basement bedroom, which we fixed up, painted purple,

got all new bedding and curtains....but that only lasted

2 months, til the bugs and spiders came out in the spring time.

In which she moved back upstairs with the others.

(I actually don't blame her. I hate spiders and there are a lot down there, even though it's fixed up--we live in MN, basements are not meant to be lived in--my personal opinion)

Since then, that beautiful dresser with the mirror has been empty in the basement.

SO

in an act of my constant decluttering

we moved the beautiful dresser with the mirror upstairs for the girls to use,

They love mirrors.

What little girl doesn't?

We moved the dresser that was up there, down to the main floor in place of the diaper changing table and filled the drawers with diapers and all that goes with that,

and finally Sweetie Pie's clothes.

No more bins,

No more messy diaper changing table.

Now, those perpetual laundry baskets....can't do anything about those.

See?

Much neater.

And the girls room?

It now looks much bigger.

You can see the bunk bed in the mirror,

with a full size bed on the bottom, we

easily fit 4 girls in this room.

Thankful for our Artillery bag and

how it has me thinking about

what we can and need to add to it.

Lent is the perfect time to do that.

Thankful lent is coming to renew our souls.

Thankful for this constant yearning God has put in my heart

for Jesus in Adoration, for praying the rosary,

for daily Mass, for Confession.

As hard as it is to not always have the time to fulfill this yearning,

it brings me to tears just

typing this,

I know my place is here,

where my soul can continue to yearn and grow in love for Him.

Thankful for this faith of mine.

Oh, and Thankful for POPCORN!!