Ch-Ch-Changes!

 I think that word sums up the past few months for our family. Changes of all kinds. For the good, though! Changes like...

• Different curtains in our living room (Gray Ikea ones to replace our taupe ones). I think our living room looks SO much better than it did a year ago. I MUCH prefer the Shaker Beige to the old Dorset Gold colour. It looks a little greener in the picture than it is in real life, in my opinion. It is one of my favourite "beiges". We also have different couches here since our first set had issues and needed to be refunded a year after we bought them. They were under warranty, though, and I am kind of glad of the problem with the first set because our current set is a lot comfier :-) The walls are a little bare still, but I'm still waiting to find the right artwork...

Here's what the living room looked like about a year ago. Oy. Can't stand that dorset gold now! Notice what else is "missing" in the above picture? The t.v. Yep, missing on purpose. We got rid of our upstairs tv many months ago, and it is one of the best decisions we ever made. Don't miss it one bit. The space is just so much more relaxing to me. Constant background tv noise is a pet peeve of mine, and I used to find myself 'always' turning the tv on if I sat down for a rest. It was just too convenient. Now, if I really want to watch tv or put a dvd on for the kids, we still have one downstairs. We likely will never go back to having a tv in the living room.

And here's what it looked like with the horrid purple verticals that came with the house. Wasn't sorry to see those go, either.

• Nathanael crawling (a bit of a belly crawl, but a definite crawl nonetheless. That boy can MOVE!

• Nathanael starting "real" food (and loving the rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and carrots so far)

• A different church fellowship (For reasons I won't go into on this blog, it was time to move on from our former church family.) We temporarily home churched for several weeks but through various circumstances the Lord heard our prayers and led us to another fellowship where we've been growing and have been meeting people for the past couple months. It's a bit of a drive, but we have not minded so far. We have been enjoying such wonderful Christian fellowship with like-minded believers. This church does not have a head pastor but is rather elder-led with different men in the church gifted in preaching taking turns. 

• Elianna drawing pictures that actually resemble things...she draws people (with arms & legs to boot!), oceans, and kites. So cute!

• A new family member joining the family soon (no, I'm not pregnant!!). My brother got engaged to a very sweet girl! SO excited for their wedding in a few weeks!

• A new dining room table (we got a GREAT deal on Canada Day weekend). I am SUPER pleased with it (kind of a modern cottage look??) other than the fact that the butterfly leaf doesn't work properly and we have to get it fixed...grrr. I tell ya, after doing this kitchen reno, I've sure realized that things are build SO poorly these days. We had to send back TWO stoves before we got the 3rd one that wasn't all scratched up on the cook top. We've also had our fair share of issues with the lights, too. Crooked semi-flush mounts, anyone?. Thankfully, my hubby is a bit of a creative genius when it comes to fixing things and shimmed it so that you can't even tell, so that I didn't have to send back the light that I waited like 2 months to get. Yes, that was a night that I pretty much cried in frustration for over an hour until we came up with a genius solution. Then I was laughing. Literally. 

• A new exercise routine. I am finally facing the facts that if I have any hope of dropping the last 10 lbs of baby weight, I'm going to have to get serious about exercising. I'm still not super on board or committed to the idea, but it's the cold hard truth. I started jogging on the treadmill again during the kids naps. I miss my nap time but alas it's a proven fact exercise increases energy, so I'm holding onto that hope. Now to stick with it... Sigh....

Yes, pictures of the kitchen reno to come...we just need to get up the dining room light and we are done. Decided to nix the back splash for now. Don't really need it/miss it, and I like a simple look anyway. Many pictures of kitchens I like do not have a back splash.