making the kids their own space with wall decals

Renting means we can't paint personalize the kids' rooms with paint. Well, let me rephrase that, I don't want to paint it only to repaint it when we move out in a year. But the girls are wanting their own space like they used to have in our old house. It is especially important now that they are sharing a room. 

With a little research I found that RoomMates had tons of removable wall decals. Big M actually had Star Wars in his old room, I just wasn't aware that they had so many other choices. Averaging about $10 each pack, I bought a few from Amazon. The girls love them! They are removable without any sticky residue so  we can take them with us when we move out. The girls had princesses before too, but we were in such a rush to move out of our house that I didn't have to patience to stick each decal back to their paper backing. 

Little M is currently into trains so I chose Thomas for him. He is very excited by them. Big M chose Star Wars again, but he didn't put them on right away so I don't have a picture.

The bottom left is on the upstairs hallway. Poor Daddy wasn't fast enough to get his own banana.

Our new gathering place

Little M's room has become a new hangout for us in the house. Little M could play without getting into choking hazards and the older 3 kids just love playing on the inflatable bed on the floor.

But while the 3 horse around, Little M tries to sneak out.

Little M's first time in his own room

During the week of the 4th of July, after family left, we went ahead and moved Little M to his own room. Note that the room has some girly murals that were done by the previous owner of the house. We decided to leave it as it is and only paint the room when Little M is a bit older.

Little M loved the fact that he could run around, but didn't like the fact that he couldn't leave the room when he wanted to. After a day, he also figured out how to expertly open the doors (no thanks to the lever-kind door knobs we have). The room provides a great place for him to play and not get into his big brother's Lego or his sisters little toys. It also allows me to take a nap (on the inflatable on the floor) when he doesn't want to. The problem with this is he gets to do doing naughty things like stick his fingers up my nostrils or tap my forehead over and over again. 

The great thing is that it only took him one night to adjust. He now sleeps through the night. Halleluiah!



Oh yeah, on another day I tried to catch up on sleep in his room I saw this when I opened my eyes. My 15-month old baby using a chair to open the door so he could escape. We are wondering how long it'll take him before he figures out to move the chair out of the way.

reading the pictures

Every night, after we read him bedtime stories, this little boy goes to his bed, turns on his flashlight and "reads" in the dark. He looks through all the pages of the books and inspects all of the pictures. Some of his favorite books are by Richard Scarry - books that include trains, cars, and airplanes. In the last 6 months, we've gone through about 4 different flashlights and many many AA batteries. I've been working with him on reading simple words, but we haven't been seriously doing it. And his preschool class is working on letter sounds and writing, but no concentration on reading just yet.

This boy is so ready to read. I will need to get some tools and resources to help him out soon. I've been researching Hooked on Phonics and already know that he is beyond his age level. This boy is a smart one! He will definitely surpass his Daddy's collection of books. Sadly, he'll probably be as blind as a bat by the time he gets to his 20's just like his Mama.

The background music is the same music he's been listening since he was born. We have a few different CD's but Daddy and I could only tolerate a few when he was co-sleeping with us. This music plays on a loop non-stop. Aside from going through flashlights and batteries, we'll probably go through many CD players.

Incidentally, the above flashlight may have died tonight. I changed the batteries and not 30 minutes later, I hear a scream about the flashlight being broken.

Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back, so we're still Ahead

Matty has been sleeping in his bedroom since we moved him there some time in November. We progressed so well and so fast, it amazed us. But then the twins got sick and Matty regressed. I didn't make the connection at the time, but the hubby did. He theorized that since we were paying so much attention to the twins, he was feeling left out and wanted to sleep back in our room.

When the hubby was in the hospital, not only did Matty sleep back in our room, he slept with me on our bed. So to avoid frustration in everyone's part, I set up a sleeping back on the floor in our bedroom and let Matty sleep there.

Wait a minute. Weren't we in this exact same situation many moons ago? Not only did we take steps back, but it seemed we went back as far as the beginning. This wouldn't do. I made a deal wth Matty that he is to sleep in his bedroom in the beginning of the night. Whenever he wakes up, he is allowed to run to our bedroom and sleep on the flor.

It worked out yesterday, but this boy is just way too smart. Not 5 minutes after I said goodnight and gone downstairs, I heard running. I go upstairs to check on Matty and he was lying down on the floor in our bedroom.

I asked him why he was there, and he said, "I woke up, Mommy! Now I sleep in Mommy's floor." I rolled my eyes and said goodnight.

When Daddy came up and saw Matty on the floor, Matty said, "Mommy say to me I can sleep on Mommy's floor!"

Oh well. He DID start out in his bedroom.

The Castle Bed is Here!

The Castle bed is finally here! It took a frustrating hour and a half to get it assembled (someone wanted to pound on everything with a rubber mallet and fit anything with a dowel to anything with a hole). Matty is very happy, even if the castle post and the hand rail for the ladder is yet to be delivered.

He loves the area underneath. It's perfect for hiding!

And of course, I just have to get a shot in of my lowly little set up on the floor. Ever since we moved Matty to his new room, I have been sleeping everywhere but my cozy king size bed. But I'm sure Daddy is enjoying it enough for the both of us. I spend a total of about 5 hours in the floor in Matty's room, and about an hour in my bed and awake and walking around in between. When I'm about to sink in into that deep sweet sweet slumber is when I usually get waken up with, "Mommy!! Mom! Come here and sleep with me on the floor!"

Big Boy Room

The day Matty went back to school (Jan. 2nd), Daddy and I started cracking on his big boy room. We ordered him a castle bed 4 weeks ago and it's going to be delivered any day now. We donated the bed suite to Salvation Army and now it's empty. Time to paint! (I will put more pictures as we make progress in decorating the room.)

Daddy got this Cars fan that he said MUST go in the room, so this was the first to go up and it's the inspiration for the color.
Here's the empty room after I put tape. Daddy was in the store picking up some painting supplies.

Two hours later, here it is. I put the blue paint (oooh, fancy! an accent wall!) and Daddy took on the gray on the other 3 walls. I must say this is the fastest we've ever tackled a painting project!

Here's what the room looked like yesterday. We took a couple of rest days to run other errands and let the paint dry. We just love the color scheme! Though we need to put another light source because the fan light is just isn't enough.

This is late last night putting the crib up for the girls because they are getting too big for the bassinet. I must say that Daddy showed great restraint with his little "helper", until Matty decided to shred the stryrofoam from the packaging. Then all I heard was "Put that down! I'm going to count! I said put that down NOW!"