The timing could have been better....

The timing we chose to build our forever home is probably the worst it could have been. It's go time. Its actually starting to feel real. Adam and I have 9000 decisions to make (I think that's the actual number). Store trips, meetings, construction site visits, internet research (looking at endless pictures on houzz.com - ok I do that anyway). Do I have time for this? Nope. But more importantly I don't even have the ability! Can you imagine taking 3 super energetic boys age 5 and under to a lighting store? We are going to have to get really creative to get this all done and it might involve 3 leashes! 

Here are some pictures that have served as inspiration for us for the fun stuff.  The majority of our family's members are little boys. Our house should reflect that! 

I haven't met with the playground designer yet but we have budgeted for an amazing play area. Pirate playscape plus 2 story playhouse with a zip line to connect them. Harrison has had an active role in planning this as you can imagine. He is type A just like his mommy!

Room themes! Gotta have room themes! The themes aren't changing, just upgrading. Henry adores animals (and babies, cake, and bacon). Obviously animals made the most sense for a theme out of those choices! I decided to turn Charlie's castle slide bed (which never really fit in) into the bed below. A hut in the middle of his safari room! It goes perfectly with his giant giraffe and animal paintings and 300 stuffed animals that he squeezes in bed with every night (my angel even tucks them in, kisses them, and gives them a sip of water). It will be an easy change to the bed and our builder/designer is all over it. And yes the slide will remain! 

Now isn't this the most amazing playroom you have ever seen?! It's fun, whimsical, more mature than a baby's playroom and most importantly, its MASCULINE! I am dead set on recreating this room with the exception of the chairs that look like they are growing some alien fungus. The faux fireplace is going to happen and I have already started hitting up antique stores for the perfect one. That carpet will be tough to find as its custom made (same with the tent) but I will find a way to at least stick to that color combo. The ceiling is easy and my builder says its inexpensive (but looks fancy!) And of course we will have the manly wood paneling. The place where the windows are will have Nana doors. These are floor to ceiling slider doors that open the room up to the outside. This room overlooks the pool. The pool will be the most childproofed pool on planet earth but I will talk about that later. There will be oodles of storage in this room and a built in twin bed. 

It's hard to top the playroom but I think the bunkhouse might end up being our favorite room. The bunkhouse is the pool house/guesthouse/former detached garage. It will have 2 sets of custom built in FULL SIZED bunks. Rock and wood everywhere. Fireplace. Indoor/outdoor bar also overlooking the pool. Full bathroom. It will be our cozy little getaway and multipurpose room! I am excited to give guests and even families a lovely place to stay. Now taking reservations! :)

Little Charlie loves cars and his favorite thing to do is line them up. So when I saw this it was a no brainer. I snagged a real working stoplight on a post at an antique store as well as a huge "GO" sign. It looks like a stop sign but green. Perfect for Charlie's personality. 

Harrison's room won't change much. He has a camping theme complete with tent, hammock, pretend campfire, and star projector. I have no pictures to share on the media room but I am equally excited about those plans. Adam and I are dreaming of bringing our little boys to the house they will grow up in! 

So I took a break, can you blame me?

You will probably notice that around the time the twins were entering toddler age, the posts came to a halt! Funny how that happens! I have been punishing myself internally for not blogging but I have to cut myself some slack. 3 mouths to feed, 3 bodies to clean, non stop refereeing...the hubby and I don't get a lot of "me" time, that is for sure. But I want to record our memories, even if they may seem mundane now. I will enjoy reading them later and I know the boys will too! So first things first, I should sum up the past few years I guess! Harrison started a preschool a few days a week at age 3.5. It wasn't a good fit unfortunately and well he pretty much hated it. It broke my heart. At age 4 he was accepted to Ace Academy and its been a dream come true for us. He is challenged, learning at an amazing rate and LOVES school. The kids are sweet and brilliant and the teachers are loving but keep them in line. Every day is different. Classes include science, yoga, EI (emotional intelligence) where they discuss bullying and really anything that's bothering them, Spanish, art, music, and PE. These are all different teachers who specialize in these subjects! He takes piano twice a week and swimming on Saturdays. His writing has improved so much and he is now reading. He can do addition up to 15 (wow!). He has accomplished amazing things this year and formed great friendships. He just finished his first year. He will get to have the same teacher next year. His class is made up of 4-6 year olds. We have decided to stick with private school for the long haul and feel the is the absolute best option for our kids. His 5th birthday party was last weekend and was a blast with about 55 people in attendance! Guests included his grandparents, the Kimbles, the The Bowns, the Peeples, the Youngs and about 8 of his classmates and families. We held it at Pump it Up which is a bouncy house party place. The kids had a great time. Harrison told me over and over "I can't believe this is my birthday party". He was truly in awe, as he is every year. It brings me great joy to awe him every year. I guess my love language is parties! Ha! :) We are already planning #6! The only not so fun thing to report is he is having a little vision trouble. His vision is 20/20 but his binocular vision is poor because of weak eye muscles, making reading a struggle. The optometrists were extremely impressed with his reading seeing as he had this challenge! I had suspected there might be a problem for awhile because reading was harder than I expected. One day he told us that the words on the page were moving and vibrating so I immediately took him in for a checkup. But the good news is this is fixable. The eye muscles can be strengthened just like any other and I think life for him is going to get a lot easier once we work on this! Other than that, Adam and I are amazed by Harrison as we always have been. He is handsome, hilarious, and brilliant. He is kind to others but super sensitive. This causes his self esteem to plummet on a daily basis but we remind him daily how awesome he is. He loves his brothers (well sometimes its love/hate) but they really are best friends. He is as cuddly as he is always been and I hate to think about that changing. I will force my cuddles on him if so. He is interested in acting and is going to do an acting camp at Zach Scott this summer. He makes up plays and loves to direct them. He teaches me yoga poses and voice exercises. I could ramble about my first born all day obviously but I better not. :) And of course there is Henry and Charlie, with as much personality as their big bro. Where to begin....I am exhausted just thinking about it! Having 3 boys within a 2 year age range is not for the faint of heart. Our kids have pushed us past every physical, mental and emotional limit that we have! They are worth it, don't get me wrong. But the past 2 years have been a doozy. So much fighting with boys, so much rough housing! They may have shared a womb but they are as different as they could be. Henry is literally the sweetest little boy on the planet. He gives kisses and hugs like crazy and loves animals and babies. There is a purity and innocence in his heart that is rare. On the flip side, if you mess with him, he will clobber you. Slap your face, pinch you, kick you, whack you with a blunt object. It's kind of hard to explain that to someone, but that's Henry! He was not an early talker like Harrison but he hit all the other milestones at the same time (ABC's, numbers etc). He loves the alphabet, probably his greatest love of all. He also loves Ghostbusters, books, dressing up as Super Why (his favorite reading super hero), and cake. He is smart, has the most precious face, killer dance moves, and to know him is to adore him. Charlie is something else. I predict he will be a CEO at a major company. He will be some sort of a boss! He is so driven, so determined, so competitive! He is so cute and has these puppy dog eyes. He uses these to his advantage daily. But he is super sweet and very loving and sensitive. He picks things up quick and he has amazing motor skills. He tells silly jokes and loves to follow Harrison around the house playing detective. He is a daddy's boy but still needs his mommy too. He also can sing! He loves playing with my makeup and accessorizing. He often goes to sleep wearing a fedora, mittens, or sunglasses. His favorite thing to play with is his cars. And they all share a love of dressing up and sword fighting. They make our house a fun place to be. Chaotic, but fun. Adam is going on year 8 as a lawyer. We can't believe that! He made the Texas Monthly Rising Stars list for the past 3 years and everything is going better than we could have ever dreamed with his firm. The only other thing that has consumed my time lately, other than the boys, is that we are building our dream home! We decided to sell our house and move closer to the schools that we liked. We are renting a house almost next door to Harrison's school while we tear down and remodel our new house. I will definitely have future posts about this big event in our lives!