Big Changes!

Spring has sprung 'round our house and as it does every year, it's made us itch for some changes.  Closets get cleaned out, things get re-organized and there's some pretty satisfying deep cleaning.  I LOVE SPRING!!

This spring is also bringing a look at our family - where we are now, and where we would like to be in a year or so.  Yeah, you guessed it - I'm talking about adoption.  We're starting to get that itch again, and we're excited to be part of another miracle.

BUT, our house isn't huge, and our car is TINY.  Luckily, tax returns are amazing things that can help in situations like this!  :O)  For over a year, we've been thinking of ways that we can comfortably fit another child {or 2, I keep dreaming about twins... we'll see on that one, eh?  LOL} in our home.  We've come up with a few ideas {aside from serious purging!}.  So, on that note, we went from this:

To THIS!

And this!

The girls are so stinkin' funny with their new bed.  They go up and down the ladder constantly, bouncing around and laughing hysterically.  They even came up with this game: one lays on the bottom bunk and sucks on a doll pacifier while the other one says, "Goodnight baby!  I'll see you in a bit!" and climbs the ladder.  Once the "Mom" is "upstairs", the "baby" starts crying, bringing the "Mom" back down to check on her, "Oh, baby!  Don't cry!  Mama's here!  It's ok!"  Then it repeats itself a few times, and they switch roles.  Too cute!  Maelee isn't sleeping on the bottom bunk quite yet, she's too light a sleeper still.  Since she still hasn't figured out that she could probably climb out of the crib {she climbs everything else!  SO surprised that she hasn't attempted that one yet, but yet she manages to get up on the counter!}, we're still letting her sleep there for now.  I'm giving myself until school starts in August to make the full transition.  At least it's ready for when we'll need to have both girls in there, and probably with more than enough time for them to totally adjust to sleeping in the same room again.  {FINGERS CROSSED!!!}

I loved my car {note the "d"!!}. 

It got GREAT gas mileage {hybrid, gotta love it!}, was pretty comfy and has been awesome to have for the past 2 years.  BUT, it was TEENY-TINY.  If one of Madi's friends rode with us somewhere, they could BARELY fit between the car seat and booster - so there was NO WAY we could squeeze another car seat in that backseat.  Not without some serious plastic bending and possible damage to the vehicle doors...  So for over a year now we have been looking at a possible upgrade.  We... ok, I have researched virtually every SUV of every size - put waaaay too much time into this whole thing.  BUT, it has all been for a good cause because a few weeks ago we bought THIS!!!:

Oh, my laws.  We LOVE our Sequoia!  When we were driving home the first time in it, Madi would point at every car we passed and say, "Ha ha!  Bet you wish YOU had a Sequoia Tuh-oy-ya!  Our Sequoia is faster than YOU little blue car!  And we're faster than YOU little red truck!"  We were dying laughing!  We scored BIG TIME with it: it's an '04, 84k miles, leather interior, moon roof {Madison was adamant that we bought one with a moon roof because the first one we test drove had one and she thought it was the coolest thing ever!}, tow package and is the EXACT color we wanted.  I love that it's not brand new so we're not overly paranoid about the girls climbing all over inside, ya know?  I love that it's not a huge, full-size SUV.  I love that it seats 8 people!  I love that the backseat is comfortable.  I love that even with the 3rd row seat up, there is a TON of cargo room.  I love the 6 CD disc changer.  I love that it has a storage thing for my sunglasses.  I love that it has 10 over-sized cup holders.  And I love that we found exactly what we wanted, within the mileage we wanted, within the year range we wanted, with the upgrades we wanted for the price we wanted to pay.  AND, I'm so excited to finally have the car that we're going to "raise" our family in.  To not have to worry about what we're going to do about our tiny car if our next adoption happens as quickly as Maelee's went.  We absolutely LOVE this SUV!  We can't wait to take it camping this summer.  Literally.  In fact, we're taking it camping this weekend to test it out... anyone up for a camp out?!?