On Making Dreams Real

Sometimes, parents must do or make happen things for their children that they themselves did not do or have in their childhood.

This, coupled with the need for new furniture in our house, was the catalyst for our weekend's activities.

We have three children, and all of them had some sort of makeshift sleeping situation. Kira was sleeping on an old frame futon on a stack of futon mattresses (at least one of which went to Pennsic with us a few times), Wren was sleeping on a short stack of futon mattresses on the floor in her room, and Noah had a crummy cheap old mattress and box spring.

With our home refinance this year, we had set aside some money to rectify this situation. I've moved far enough beyond the years of pregnancy and childbearing and infancy so that I could now turn my attention to actually decorating my house. The kids' rooms are tops on the list. So, we considered a number of options, and then found what we thought would be fantastic choices for all of the kids at IKEA. I love IKEA. Some people think their furniture and stuff is cheap and falls apart, but I have not found this to be true. The prices are great, the design is innovative and beautiful, and they just have cool stuff.

So, after 200 miles driven, many boxes hauled into the house, many MANY little pieces of hardware inserted into the correct locations on various wood surfaces, we have this:

and we have this:
and this:
aaaand this:
Ta-DA! Three new beds and two new TV-watching chairs.

Two parents: totally exhausted.

Kids: totally thrilled.

Travis, especially, is happy that he was able to buy the kids new furniture for their rooms that did not previously belong to anyone else. This is a big deal for someone who grew up as he did.