We moved! Sorta...

It's been a busy week here around the penthouse. But before I tell you about it, let me start off with some funnies:

On Christmas day, while we were at Aunt Lisa's, I offered Ben a mini sausage from the cheese and cracker appetizer plate by saying, "Hey, Benny, do you want a mini hot dog?" He looked at me in horror and replied, "I don't wanna eat Dodo!!" (i.e. Dodo, or Apollo, our dog!)

On the rare occasion (not so rare these days) when we stop at Wendy's (the only fast food I will allow my children - and that is simply because In n Out is not to be found in NY!) Emma always requests their Junior Bacon Cheeseburger and I always order a 5 piece Chicken Nuggets for Ben - sometimes he eats them, sometimes he doesn't. Today we were late coming home for lunch from an outing to Home Depot and Target so Wendy's it was for 2 hungry kiddos. As we were leaving the drive thru window, I handed off the eats to the babes and Emma said with all sincerity, "When Benny grows up, can he have a cheeseburger?" - as if little kids can only eat nuggets and big kids (like her) get the burger.

So, as you may deduce from the blog title, things are a-changing around the 'ole penthouse. Daddy and I had an awesome heart to heart on Tuesday, and as much as we are itching to buy a house, we have decided to stay put in the penthouse until Spring 2013. We have been able to save tons of money by living lean here and want to max out our emergency fund and have at least a 40% down payment on our next home. To do that means one more year at good 'ole Fairfield Falls (happy, Kim?) and that I delete the Redfin app on my iPhone to stop tempting myself with great local deals from Grandma's looking to head south.

It also means this Mommy needs to find some Mama space in the Penthouse where she can go and close the door and sit in a chair and decompress and fill her Mama bubble head with thoughts of non-Mama things so she can come back out the door when she is ready and be the great Mommy she was destined to be. You following me? I know the Mama-readers are...

Well, all of the above paragraph has been accomplished with BUNK BEDS!!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, bunk beds from my favorite store, BJs, for $299 plus two mattresses for $99 each. Now that Benny has outgrown his crib, and was easily ready to kiss the toddler bed goodbye, we felt it was a chance to get the kids bunk beds, move them into the smaller room, move Daddy and I into the master bedroom with all it's SPACE to give us parents more room, less clutter, and most importantly, the rocking chair that I have been neglecting for 18 months now, a real home and my butt a reunion with it's old pal - the chair I, funnily enough, nursed my kiddos in!

I also bought a can of paint and spruced up some walls that were looking a bit dingy after a year and a half and VOILA!! We feel like we have moved!  It has only been one night, but the kids SLEPT through the night last in their new beds - slept in until 7:30am this morning - certainly Divine intervention telling us we made the right provident choice! : )

Daddy and I can't even begin to tell you how nice it is that we don't feel cramped and cluttered and claustrophobic in the smaller room. Those of you who have seen the penthouse won't recognize the bedrooms. It really does give a whole new dynamic to our space and was exactly what I needed to remind myself of the bigger picture of why we are doing what we are doing. We sadly said goodbye to the crib that was home to both our babies for 4 1/2 years, but the sadness was fleeting when we saw the joy in the kiddos faces as they climbed up and down and up and down and slipped here and there and fell on their butts only to keep practicing climbing up and down and up and down perfecting their new "home" - our awesome bunk beds... (Did I mention they came with 2 GIGANTOUS drawers that store all the crap that wouldn't ever fit in drawers??? Tidying up even more clutter? - I LOVE THESE BEDS!)

As you can see from this picture, the whole Batter bunch loves 'em:

Even Dodo loves them!