Phone Photo Friday

12/05/2014

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Phone Photo Friday

11/21/2014

I haven’t been able to get my act together to finish a post since Monday so I’m using Phone Photo Friday to share two Instagram posts from earlier this week from past of the #knittogetherbyadoption Photo-a-Day.

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#knittogetherbyadoption Day 16: Quote. I have a file with lots of favorite quotes and this one caught my eye today because we keep hearing so many ignorant comments now that we’re expecting “one of our own.” We’ve had the honor of being mom and dad to six children and each one has been loved as our own and as a full member of our family. When we adopted Alianna she forever and ever became ours, fully our daughter just as if I gave birth to her. I know people don’t mean to be offensive but they need to realize their choice of words disrespects our daughter and our family and diminishes her status as our daughter, our real daughter, our own daughter.

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#knittogetherbyadoption Day 17: If you really knew me… You would know that I would be just as excited about adopting again as I am about the baby in my belly. My excitement stems from the fact that we’re adding another permanent family member. And while I am enjoying my first pregnancy I also have a deep desire to adopt again. If you really knew me, you’d know that adoption wasn’t our back up plan. We chose to become foster parents as soon as God opened our eyes to the need and we made that our first path into parenthood. If you really knew me, you’d know that the temptation to step away from foster parenting is real. It would be easy to take a break, and we might. But the truth is, we don’t feel released yet. Just yesterday we heard of a child abuse incident that happened close to home and now I can’t fathom going off the call list. Until more people step up to take care of these kids in our community or until people stop hurting children, I just don’t know how I could walk away and still sleep at night.

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Phone Photo Friday

11/14/2014

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Home Tour: Guest Room

11/13/2014

In a matter of five minutes our Next Kid’s Room can be converted into a guest room by removing the portable crib, crib storage box, changing pad and diaper changing supply cart.

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This little night stand was bought at a yard sale and made over when I was putting together our first kids’ room back in 2011. I like this clock in here because it has a sleep timer with ocean sounds, rain or radio.

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I debated about leaving the rocking chair, but it could be moved out easily as well. (It’s currently only $78.25 on Amazon!)

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The black acoustic guitar was a gift from my parents on my 16th birthday. My professional guitarist husband thinks it’s trash but I say it’s sentimental. If any of our guests get inspired to bang out some tunes on a cheap old guitar with rusty strings, they can feel free. Otherwise, it’s art.

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This mid-century modern dresser was a vintage store score from our first kids’ room as well. I love it because it’s changing table height (which is why I moved it into this room) but also because it’s beautiful, sturdy, solid wood and in great condition. I picked up the bookshelf from a thrift store and gave it a new life with paint to match the nightstand and a stained plywood back.

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RELATED POSTS:

Home Tour: Next Kid’s (or Kids’) Room (this room with the baby elements added back in)

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God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

11/12/2014

Jason’s acoustic guitar album Christmas Classics has been on rotation in my iTunes for a couple weeks already. I haven’t decorated the house yet or taken a photo for our Christmas cards, but Christmas music? Yes. I started playing it in October. Jason’s album came out last October and this year he made a couple of videos to go along with it. Here’s the first one for the song “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

I love it so much! If you like it even just a little bit, we hope you’ll consider getting the whole album through JasonAhlbrandt.com or iTunes. And please share this video with everyone you know! 😉

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Phone Photo Friday

11/07/2014

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Home Tour: Next Kid’s (or Kids’) Room

11/04/2014

This room makeover is finally complete and ready for our next inhabitants—our next foster placement, baby Froggie due in April or overnight guests. The room includes the rocker I bought when baby Alianna arrived. We replaced the shower curtain we’ve been using in our foster kids’ room for the past 3 years with these textured green light-blocking curtains from Target.

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I stuck to my floor plan pretty closely but I decided that a footstool took up unnecessary space.

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The double bed is low and close enough to be used in place of a footstool.

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A second rug gives a fair amount of soft play space on the floor. The poster is by French Paper Co. and was a gift from my art school bestie, Renata, for our first kids room.

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I’m still a very big fan of this crib, which I nominated as The Ideal Crib for Foster Parents last year. It’s smaller than a typical crib and can easily be folded down to move into another room or store flat to about a 6″ depth. The poster and storage toy box are from IKEA.

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That blank spot above the dresser/changing table is begging for some artwork. Both rugs in this room are from IKEA. The vintage metal cart between the bookshelf and dresser holds diaper changing supplies, burp cloths, bibs and receiving blankets. It’s easy to move around as needed and is still stocked from Pumpkin.

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The bulletin board above the bookshelf is a collage of family photos, separated by “Who Lives Here” on the left side and photos of our former foster children on the right side. I have temporarily hanging here the first and so far only gift I have bought for our belly baby “Froggie.” It’s such a simple phrase to put on a bib but for foster and adoptive parents it’s always loaded… because we are not the only mom and dad in those cases. With baby Froggie, for the first time, we’re the only Mom and Dad. Our baby can wear this bib without anyone getting offended, feeling left out or jealous, and without raising any questions (unless we’re questioning his or her feelings about Jason and me, I suppose!).

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I’ll come back soon with a second part of this room tour when the room is converted into a guest room. I don’t think I mentioned in previous posts that this room is approximately 10′ x 12′. It can accommodate three people with a double bed and crib, night stand, dresser, bookshelf, rocking chair and standard size closet.

RELATED POSTS:

A Room for Baby… or Whoever Arrives Next (my current mood board and floor plan for this room)

A Room for Baby… or Whoever Arrives Next – Part 2 (progress photos)

Room to Grow: Making a Bedroom for Foster Kids (this room a year and a half ago before it was occupied by Buzz and then later Bee, Firefly and Pumpkin.)

Preparing a Bedroom for Foster Kids: Furniture & Decor (planning our first bedroom for foster children at our last house)

Preparing for Foster Kids: Bedroom Tour (photos of the above mentioned room that ended up generating a lot of interest on Apartment Therapy)

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Phone Photo Friday

10/31/2014

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Home Tour: Alianna’s Room

10/29/2014

Alianna’s room has made the full transition from a nursery to a big girl room. In the past couple weeks we moved the twin IKEA Kura bed into her room. Eventually we’ll flip it over so she can have a low loft bed, which I know she’ll love. For now, she has no idea it does that. She does LOVE to hang and swing off the bar at the end of the bed. With the addition of the bed, I swapped her nightstand out with the IKEA Ribba book ledges we’ve had for years. They’re positioned to work with the bed in either position. We’re all loving the new bed and she’s only fallen out once – yay! Her old dresser was a vintage find from a local antique store and was perfect size and height to use as a changing table. With baby Froggie on the way and since I took away Ali’s two drawer nightstand, it was time to get her a taller dresser. I went with the unfinished wood IKEA Tarva so I could customize the look for less money. I ended up building the whole thing myself (though Ali helped me with the drawers!) and doing all the painting and staining myself too. Usually when we do home projects Jason takes the lead. He’s more experienced and much more detail-oriented than me. He’s in a busy work season, though, so I’m pretty proud of myself for how this turned out. Ali was not crazy about the idea of a new dresser until the day she helped me build the drawers. Now that she’s personally invested, she’s very excited about it. In the upgrades to her room we also added a real curtain rod. When we moved in we bought a cheap tension rod to be used temporarily and almost two years later it kept falling down when she’d try to open the curtains. This room continues to be one of my favorites in our house.

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A few months ago I wrote about her Lottie dollhouse and the Barbie furniture my granny name for me.

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I bought a small digital clock to fit on her shallow shelves and it happened to have colored numbers. It’s actually been quite helpful in teaching her to read the time. We used to use a timer and light for “OK to come out of your room now” but we’ve been using a digital clock now that she can easily recognize numbers. With this clock it’s even easier to say, “You can get out of your bed when you see the green 8.”

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I love all the special touches: this name banner made by a friend after her adoption, the flower was an adoption day gift from another friend, the crocheted owl blanket was a gift from her Nana for her 3rd birthday.

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Here’s a before picture of the Tarva dresser, straight from the IKEA website.

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And after paint and stain.

 

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Fall Family Time

10/28/2014

My summer-loving family has been thoroughly enjoying fall this year. Friday evening we went to a fall family festival at a church down the street from us. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Ali jumped in the bouncy house and got her face painted. We did a cake walk until we won a pumpkin cake. I love the change of seasons in Tennessee.

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