If we can't buy a new house...we'll just add on to ours:)

For the last three years, we have looked and prayed and looked some more for the perfect house with a bit of acreage in the perfect setting, in the right area for our family. No luck. We've put offers on 4 different houses. Each offer ended at different stages in the home purchasing process, but they all have ended with us not owning a new home. The last couple of months, it has become glaringly clear that the kids needed their own rooms. Our lovely 130 year old home has only two bedrooms upstairs. Which was fine for the first 10 years that we have lived here. So, if we can't move, we'll make the house work for us until that perfect house is found.

We have our Gathering room available to us, it's a large open area at the top of the stairs that I rehabbed several years ago (You can see it Here). We have been using using it as a glorified hallway for the most part. Oh, and also it's that place where things go. For things that don't really fit anywhere else but you can't get rid of yet:) It has purpose now! It is now Gavin's room/nook and our "Library Hall."

Here is where we started...

After a lot of this...

and this...

and this...

We have Gavin's room!

And the "Library Hall" as Gavin calls it. I also have a huge linen closet now. Oh how I love storage:)

I still have some decorating, sorting and touch up to do, but it looks fabulous and it makes our house work for us. It's a bit strange to open my bedroom door and see this instead of a largely empty room. It's lovely and it functions well. We are good to go:)

The Mystery of the Lost Tooth

Actually, there is no mystery:) Gavin lost his first tooth last evening while supposedly waiting for sleep to claim him. He tromped down the stairs about an hour after his bedtime proudly holding his new treasure in his hand, a small and bloody tooth. 

We grabbed Kyla from her warm bed and made the necessary hoopla including skyping grandparents and sending picture texts. (Times have changed a bit from when Kyla lost her first tooth, we just called using cell phones) 

Please notice the adult tooth lurking in the background. That sucker has been there for about a month, just getting bigger and bigger. Making me worry more and more:) I see another trip to the orthodontist looming in our future.

Now the toothfairy has never come to our house for a couple of reasons. Chad doesn't believe in telling the kids an untruth. The second factor, and maybe the most important, is that Kyla will NOT let me have her teeth:) That girl is a hoarder in the making. She has all of her teeth safely tucked away in a little tooth bag that Grandma Lynne made her once we noticed her tooth hoarding tendency. All that to say, Gav was excited to find a special treat under his pillow this morning...from a toothfairy that doesn't exist. He's okay with playing pretend as long as there is a reward:) You would think that I would have something prepared to slip under his pillow once he succumbed to dreamland, but alas, I did not. With Kyla's reluctance to give up her teeth and our son's very rational and down to earth thought process, this toothfairy was not prepared to come out of the dusty bin of make believe. We were saved by Chad's own hoarding tendency, a golden dollar coin  to slip under Gavin's pillow. 

His smile this morning as he unearthed his golden treasure was totally worth the couple of minutes of frantic thinking and digging. He told me on the way to the bus that even though he knows that the toothfairy isn't real, he just can't figure out how we put that coin under his pillow without him knowing. It must be magic:)