Re-Arranging

I swear that this baby #2 is causing more shifting and re-arranging than the first time around. Or maybe I was so on top of things with baby #1 (everything was ready over 6 months before we needed it to be) and we have kind of waited until the last minute to even THINK about getting ready for baby #2.

It was really simple to prepare for Malachi's arrival as we had plenty of room in our house for everything. Well, I think the walls must be shrinking around here, because it is becoming a challenge to find room for everything.

This week we conquered step 1 of preparation. Malachi and all of his Christmas toys are quickly outgrowing our living room so we are pushing the kid's playroom into the formal dining room (that never had a table in it to begin with) that is right next to the living room. It is hardwood and Malachi is known to fall quite a bit so we decided to put some of those foam alphabet letter down on the floor. We had some rearranging of furniture. Peter thought it would be a bad idea to leave my China hutch in a room that a toddler boy would be playing in, so we had to find space for that in another room. Now we have moved most of the toys into that room and have set the baby playpen up in there so we have a safe place downstairs to put baby in and not have to worry about Malachi being able to reach in :) Eventually the baby swing and vibrating chair will make their way into that room too. The only thing that I really have left for that room is to get a toybox to pick up some of Mal's smaller toys that are all over the place right now.

The next project we have is to get our bedroom organized and shifted. I really didn't see the point in buying a bassinet and since I wanted the playpen downstairs to put the baby in, we decided for the time being to set the crib up in our bedroom. We just need to get the crib and mattress ordered and we will be all set in there!

The last little project that will be taking place over the next several months is to get the spare bedroom ready to be Malachi's Big Boy room. We debated about whether or not to room the two kiddo's together. The first challenge we found was trying to fit two cribs in that room and then I started worrying about them waking each other up, so for now it will be best to give them separate rooms. Since the baby will be in our room until s/he is sleeping through the night, we have time to make that transition with Malachi.

This is a BIG project as all of our stuff/junk is stored in this spare bedroom. We need to go through it and organize and get rid of a lot. Then we have some fun ideas for painting and decorating before we finally make that big switch for Malachi. There is a lot of stuff in that room, but fortunately we have time to get this project done.

I feel better knowing we are at least starting to check things off of our list. I have a list of all the little things we need to go get for a newborn baby that we didn't need for Malachi. We still need to get a dresser for the new baby and I need to wash all that tiny newborn stuff! I have started a list of things that I need to pack for the hospital, but then I also remembered that I need to pack a bag for Malachi and make sure that the dogs are taken care of, plus I want to make sure that Peter has snacks at the hospital and he really wants to take the Wii for entertainment and then it just feels like there is so much to pack! Fortunately I still have plenty of time to get all that ready. 8 more weeks until my due date, 5 more until we are "full term"!

Okay, in much cuter and exciting news. Today is Malachi's very first Ethiopian Christmas! We were given the opportunity to go to a very cool Ethiopian Christmas Party but with Malachi being so young still we decided to hold off on that. Someday I may even make some traditional Ethiopian food at home, but this year we aren't doing too much. We did however, pull out one of Malachi's Traditional Ethiopian outfits for him to wear.

He is just too cute!