Does your home reflect who you are?

This question was asked of us when we were getting ready for a walk thru of our home during the homestudy process of our domestic adoption.  As I pondered this question and looked around our home I realized it represented very little of us as a family. 

From the moment of signing our names on the dotted line March 16, 2007 we became the owners of a work in progress.  We saw beyond the dirt, grime, nasty wall to wall country blue carpet and hideous wallpaper that graced at least one wall of each room.  We owned 1800 square feet of potential.  It's been a LONG almost 5 years now and this house has slowly become our home and in the last several months I've been able to transform our home into something that reflects us as a family. 

Today's Home Highlight feature will be the new mural in our hallway.  I admit I'm addicted to Pinterest, but in my defense I'm not just pinning, I'm doing too!  In my world THAT makes all the difference!  Self Disclaimer:  Notice to the right you can click and follow me on Pinterest or Pin something to one of your boards from my blog....if I did it right!  Anyhoo, back on track!  Here is a picture of my family tree mural.

Due to the placement of the tree in our hallway it's hard to get a good angle to photograph it, but you get the jist of it.  I started out by drawing a tree freehand on the wall and when I stepped back I was pretty pleased with my tree.  The nice thing about tree's is that no two are alike and there's not a straight line on any of them!  I filled in my sketch with paint and decided that it looked a little bare and I then added the curly-que's to give it a little more of a whimsical touch.  We decided this tree will not be a typical "family" tree with limbs/branches representing a single line but of our family as a whole.  It's the people before us who helped root us.  The center picture is of the three of us as a family and wedding pictures of our parents and grandparents surround us.  The frames are some we had and I spray painted them satin black and if a matting was used, I only used white to make the picture pop.  I'm still waiting on pictures of the great-grands to add to our tree.  Once the final photos are added I might add some silvery sage & misty blue leaves as fillers if needed. 

I love our new family tree mural.  It's one of the 1st things someone who enters thru the front door will see as they look across the room.  And as a true representation of who we are as a family there is always at least one picture hanging slightly crooked!  We're a little crazy like that....it has nothing to do with it being a narrow hallway! 

Here's another view coming out of Jonner's bedroom.

The inside of our home is a place I welcome people rather than meet them at the door out of shame because the house is a dump.  The once dump has been transformed into a place that I can proudly say gives us happy memory's to draw back on, brings us joy and laughter daily, warmth and comfort fills this home.  This is where we dwell, this IS our home and this is WHO we are.  Sticky floors and all!

 

Gruzed spelled backwards...

Is desserts.  I have to look at today as a day filled with desserts, just not the edible kind.  I had a great 2 day visit with my parents, I have a loving husband who works hard to support our family and I have my little blue eyed man who makes me laugh, cry and is the sweetest treat in my life.  And today his big blue eyes looked into mine as I was buckling him into his carseat after school and said "Mommy you forgot my dezurg in my lunch box".  I guess in his new classroom all the cool kids have a dezurg of chocolate in their lunch boxes and lil' man just wants to fit in!  Lucky for him I was able to hook him up with a Dove Chocolate heart I had hidden away to make Peanut Butter Loves (Kisses/Blossoms) cookies. 

Jonner is adjusting to his new classroom wonderfully.  He's made several new friends and he and another little boy have been inseperatable since Jonner's 1st day.  Some of his bad behaviors have stuck with him, but it's still early and I'm hopeful that with him being away from the children in his old class he'll be back to himself. 

Yesterday Eric gave me some *adoption* news that hurt my feelings and to be honest made me a little bit angry.  There is a girl that works in his building and it was brought to our attention several months ago that she was pregnant and wanted to let us adopt her child.  She approached someone with concerns of working and seeing Eric and feeling uncomfortable.  I understood the concerns and left it at that.  At Christmas we found out that she was moving into base houseing and we assumed she had decided to keep her baby.  She herself told me when she was due, and spoke generally about the pregnancy.  I guess my assumption was wrong.  Eric offered to give her our bassenett and she told him she was placing the baby for adoption but would ask if "they" wanted it.  When he told me I felt like it was a slap in the face.  Honestly my feelings initially were anger;  "if we're not good enough to parent your baby maybe our bassenett isn't good enough either", then the hurt set in.  The anger is now gone but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hurt.  I wasn't happy when I thought she was going to parent her child, but I wished her well.  A lot of single parents raise children and do it well.  I knew it would be difficult for her but I'm sure she could have done it.  Now I'm just sad.  Sad that our wait continues.  I'm sure that the family she's chosen wants this baby as much as we do. 

Meanwhile I've asked Eric to approach her and ask if she'd reconsider placing her child with us and explaining to her that he'll be deploying and when he returns moving to a new office.  I know placing her child is not a small, easy decission and I would love to have her reconsider us now that she won't be seeing Eric on a day to day basis.  All we can do is ask. 

One of my girlfriends once told me "one of the greatest gifts you can give your child is a sibling". I pray that sometime soon we can give Jonner and a new little someone the wonderful gift of each other.