Monday, February 14, 2011

our little nest

according to my husband's facebo0k post last night...

"nesting is for the birds!!!"

i couldn't disagree more!! i had quite a productive weekend and accomplished several things from my "to do" lists, with many more still left to tackle. ryan was busy on saturday reffing a wrestling tournament so i had the house to myself and took advantage of my alone time to check some things off my list.

following a 7:30 a.m. wake up so i could go to my oldest niece's basketball game, i came back home and got to work!

my first item to tackle was filing away papers and putting together the beginnings of our tax documents to send to the CPA once we get home with greer. i had ryan move our heavy filing cabinet to the living room on friday night so i could do this and catch up on a few tv programs. ahhh, multi-tasking! i got this done in under an hour and am happy to report that i suffered no paper cuts while doing so :)

feeling good that i could cross something off my list, i moved on to my next task - reorganizing our cabinet of sippy cups and bottles. this was a scary undertaking! for the last 3+ months, i have avoided even opening this cabinet for fear that everything would fall out and i would just cry. knowing that this cabinet is soon going to be getting a lot of use {which means that i have to be able to open it}, i decided it was time to face the music. i pulled all the sippy cups, bottles, various bottle nipples, snack cups, bowls and spoons out and placed them all in the sink for a good washing. we also received some new bottles and sippy cups from our baby showers, so i added those to the mix too. i boiled all the nipples and washed everything by hand. my sink looked like a sippy cup/bottle graveyard!


after lots of washing, rinsing and putting things out to dry, this was the result left on my counter top:


2 bottle dry racks and 2 towels covered in various baby things, and i was done cleaning everything! i let them sit and then i came back later in the day to organize them back into the cabinet neatly. as i did, i grabbed out the things that i knew we'd need for ethiopia and set them aside so it would be easier when i went to pack later. here's what my cabinet looks like for now:


yippee! no more wearing helmets when trying to take things out of the cabinet :)

after finishing up my cabinet project, i decided it was time to finish washing and putting away clothes for greer and charlotte. i am so grateful for a friend of my sister allowing me to go through A TON of her awesome kids' clothes for greer and charlotte last weekend. she was going to take everything to an upcoming consignment sale but instead let me go through things first to see if there was anything i wanted or needed. to save her the hassle of having to tag everything, she let me buy the clothes for next to nothing and we're all set now! i think i ended up buying around 5 or 6 garbage bags of clothes {mostly for charlotte because my sister's friend has a little princess with clothing sizes in the same seasons we needed}. i was blown away with how many cute things she had, a lot still with tags on them!!

it took me A LOT of time to sort, wash and put away clothes, but several loads and many hangers later...i am done! both greer and charlotte's closets are full to the brim and ready to clothe our sweet babes for many months to come. here's greer boy's closet:



and here's little charley's closet:



after peeking in the closets, i think ryan has decided that he wants to have me committed. he just does not see the value in my sorting the clothes based on size, season and style, but one day he'll come around :)

since i was on a roll with the kids' closets, i moved right along to our hall linen closet. it was in BAD shape and needed a good face lift and that's what it got! i re-folded all the towels, blankets, sheets, etc that have gotten out of order over the last 3 years that we've lived in our house. now i can no longer fret over opening the hall closet in front of guests to grab a blanket or extra set of sheets.


after finishing up the closets, i had to take a break from my cleaning/nesting endeavors because we had big plans saturday night! we attended the hopeful hearts foundation's annual benefit dinner. more on that later, but it was lots of fun and a good break!

sunday, the nesting continued...this time with the help of my uncooperative excited husband. while i did some basic cleaning and laundry, he hung the wall art in greer's room. this may not sound like much, but for a man who loathes hanging pictures, it was definitely a labor of love!! my requests weren't very straightforward either, so i appreciate his hard work and the time it took him to get it right. i love everything and can't wait to show you how his room is unfolding! {hopefully, one of these days i'll find our camera so i don't have to take all my pictures on my iphone...}

while ryan was finishing up the pictures, i also decided to go ahead and pack little greer man's suitcase for our trip back to ethiopia. i loved picking out his outfits, shoes, bibs, etc. although it was kind of difficult not knowing what size clothes he's currently in. i am almost finished packing his bag, although there are a few more little things that i need to still add in. i'm sure as the days go by there will be more things that i think of but at least the basics are ready to go. here's his suitcase already stuffed to the brim with diapers, formula, medicine, and all that good stuff:


after another t@rget run, we finished the day with getting the high chair and car seat out of the garage and cleaned up for action. i've surprisingly missed these things and can't wait until our cutie patootie is sitting in them both :)


despite all the projects that are still ahead of us, i'm feeling pretty good about where we are right now and would gladly hop on a plane to ethiopia this evening if asked!! we appreciate all your prayers and encouragement as we wait out this last bit of the process. i'm still hopeful that we'll hear this week and be on a plane ASAP, so i'd appreciate your continued prayers!!!!!

with love from our nest to yours!

4 comments:

Amber said...

AWWWW! You and I would make bestest friends! LOL I like 'nesting' even when I'm not pregnant! LOL

This is all so exciting to watch unfold!! I don't think I've ever been quite this excited for strangers before! ha ha ha

Hugs and Prayers
AmberK

Oh! And the hubby will SO appreciate all of this hard work once the babies get home and things get very busy for the two of you! :) Organization in the midst of wonderful chaos= sanity! LOL

jody said...

Lesli - I got tired reading this blog. You are the bomb!! I can't wait to meet these little ones!

Jana said...

Seeing the closets full of neatly organized clothes brings back so many wonderful memories for me. That was my favorite part of the "nesting" stage! So fun to imagine your babes wearing them:) Enjoy every minute, and trust me, you will be giving yourself big pats on the back when those babies are here and your free time is non-existent!

Sabrina said...

I felt tired reading about this! I would have done the sippy cups and bottle and felt accomplished! Way to go!