Thursday, April 10, 2014

Boys' New Bedroom - A Win-Win

I've been wanting to move the boys' out of their bedroom into two separate bedrooms for years.  We have four bedrooms upstairs.  We're in the master, the boys were in the next biggest room and that left the two little rooms as spare rooms.

Even though they're twins, I've always wanted to them to have separate identities, their own things, and their own space.

But they were not at all interested.  They wanted to stay together.  Here's a pic of their old room:


Well, in December, a brilliant idea just seemed to jump into my brain.  Since the 2 little rooms are basically mirror-image rooms that share a wall, why not open up that wall in between them and put in double pocket doors.  Then, they each get their own space but also get to share a room!?!  It's a win-win.

It turned out fantastic and tonight they finally get to sleep in their new room(s)!

Here's Ben's side:


And here's Daniel's side:


And here's a photo that shows the dividing wall between their rooms:


So right now, they are all tucked in to their new room(s) and loving it!  Here's Ben:


And here's Daniel:





It makes me a little sad.  They were in the other room for almost 6 whole years.  Feels like we're leaving baby-hood behind us.

Now let's just keep our fingers and toes crossed that they don't fall out of bed or get lost in the middle of the night!



Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Anyone out there?

Hello there strangers!  Anyone out there?  Anyone still reading?

I can't believe that I haven't blogged in a year and a half.  18 whole months.  I'm not sure what happened.  I got busy I guess.  I still read my favourite blogs and I *think* about blogging.  But I just never do it.

I'm not even sure where to begin.  Ben and Daniel are both doing fantastically.  They are now over half through Grade 1.  School has been amazing for them both.  They are both excelling academically, have lots of friends and love their teachers.

Ben's progress has been slow but steady.  I will have to dedicate a full post to that soon.  Actually, I have a ton of blog post ideas swirling around in my head right now.  So hopefully I can commit to blogging once or twice a week and get to all those blog posts.

We recently went on our first cruise.  It was a family cruise over March Break and we enjoyed 5 lovely and magical days on the Disney Wonder.  Here are a few pics of us:

First, Ben and Daniel loved to wrestle in the Mickey Pool.  We kept to an early-to-bed-early-to-rise schedule and often got to enjoy the pool all on our own for at least a half hour.  And even then, it wouldn't get actually busy for an hour or two.
 


                                         

And here's a family pic from our balcony.  I just love this pic so much.  We hardly ever manage to get one of all four of us (let's face it, I'm hardly ever in any pictures) and this one turned out so great. 


Back to Ben for a quick moment before I officially hit "publish".  When I left you 18 months ago, Ben was doing well - learning to walk with crutches and doing well with his walker.  He now walks tremendously with his crutches and uses them inside school.  He still uses his walker but that is limited to outdoors and gym class only.  He can now take independent steps but we are working on that being a functional way for him to get around.  I am confident we'll get there.

I just posted this video to Facebook this afternoon of him walking around our kitchen:












This is a huge deal!  My "dream" for Ben since he had SDR over 2 years ago was to get him to the point where he could walk independently indoors and used crutches for outdoors and uneven ground.  And we are close.  Oh so close.  Realistically, it could be 2 years before we're REALLY there.  But I KNOW we'll get there. 

Well.  There.  I did it.  Wrote an actual blog post.  Sorry it took so long!

(Please, please, please leave me a comment so I know that someone is still out there wanting to know how we're doing.  Oh...and if there is anything you'd particularly like to know about, then leave that in the comments too!)