Where do we put them all?

The realization that our family is booming is becoming more and more real to me as every morning I struggle to find something to wear that will cover my ever growing belly! I have finally unpacked all of my maternity clothes this past weekend - though it seems like I just packed them up a few month's ago - oh wait - I did just pack them up a few month's ago :-)

Anyway ... as everyone knows I always have to be planning SOMETHING and for the last few months while we were anxiously awaiting the confirmation on the sex of the babies I've been planning names. Earlier this week we finalized our baby names. Baby A is going to be Aidan Daniel Brown and Baby B will be Andrew Robert Brown. Daniel is my dad and Robert is Travis' dad as well as my grandfather on my mother's side. Andrew is the bigger baby and Aidan is the smaller one - though he isn't smaller in a concerned way - he is the exact size he is suppose to be. Andrew is the big boy! He is 2 weeks ahead of where I am pregnant - my friend's have nick named the twins "Bubba" and "Squirt" :-)

Now that we have finalized our baby names and given away our baby name book it time to move on to some other decisions/planning that need to be done. Though the planning part of our family function is always done by me and never - ever - encouraged by those in the family that need to help execute my plans ;-)

So now my next project is to figure out the plan for where to put all of these babies!!! Hence the title of my blog today.

When we moved into this house 7 years ago we thought this house was huge! It was our first house and we had moved from an apartment so we didn't even have enough furniture to make all of the rooms look lived in! Now 7 years later it seems like we are all bumping into things constantly!

We have a great kitchen w/a breakfast room - this area is perfect - could use a little bigger breakfast room and a little more cabinet space but it's a pretty roomy kitchen. We have a formal living room which we converted to an office, a dining room which has been converted to a playroom, a main living room, 2 1/2 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms. We also have a full basement that is waiting to be finished but in the mean time is being used as my craft room and massive storage space.

Currently, we have Ashleigh in the bigger bedroom over the garage, Adam is in the smaller bedroom and of course Travis & I have the master bedroom. Now I am thinking I might need to move the boys into the bigger room and Ash into Adam's room. This is what drives my husband crazy! Last year we completely re-did both rooms - it took about 5 full days to complete plus a few hundred dollars and now I want to change it again. On some points I can understand where he is coming from - it is a lot of work and we did spend a lot of time on doing the rooms last year. HOWEVER - it is going to be very crowed in the little room w/ 3 cribs, a rocker and a changing table - whereas - if we move the boys into the larger room it won't be as crowed, they will be closer to our room and Ashleigh gets a little more privacy being down at the end of the hall instead of right at the top of the stairs.

Finishing the basement would give us more space but really won't do us any good for a few years. We are very against putting a pre-teen/teenager 3 floors away from us with her own basement entrance to the outside world and the babies are too young to go down there to play by themselves or sleep so it doesn't make a lot of sense to spend the extra money to finish the basement right now. Though in a few years it will be a must! Not as much of a must as building a fence but it will be close. With 3 boys running wild I think we need to keep them fenced in as much as possible - if not for my own security for the sake of all of out neighbors :-)

So we are going to talk more about where to put everyone this weekend and then make a plan! Wish me luck!