Making Room for Ellie

Some pictures of our evolving life ....

Yesterday Maggie and Julia made cupcakes for the "welcome home" dinner and I worked on some floor pillows for the girls' room. 

As we were snapping pictures I thought "Oh wow!  I always wanted one of those blog posts that looked like this!" 

 

You know the ones where people post all of the amazing things they make out of stuff from their recycing bin?  I was being very impressed with my idea of taking the pillows from the guest bed (it is no more, but that is not a hint) and using them as snuggling, reading, climbing pillows for Julia and Ellie's room.  After I had finished two of the covers, I discovered that they were actually too small for the pillows that I had.  No problem - I will just make the pillows smaller (sort of Depret-Guillaume size them - which is the opposite of super-sizing).  This was easier to do with the fiber fill pillow than the three down ones.  Frankly, it looks like we butchered chickens again in the backyard, but they are done!

We are collecting a lot of duplicates ...

 

I have been praying that while we are making all of these physical adjustments, our hearts are making room for Ellie.  I feel like James and Serge have a head start on that compared to us.

We had our last conversation with Serge and James this morning - until they are back with us in person.  Tonight they will begin their very, very long journey home.  Leaving their hotel at 8:30am their time to arrive home at what will feel like 11:30 am the following day.  Twenty-seven hours of traveling is a long trip - even if you weren't bringing a toddler.

 

This was from today's conversation.  Serge wasn't looking that bad until he started talking about how many hours Steve had been working for him these past 2 weeks.  I had been avoiding answering his questions about how busy they had been in his absence.  This is what he looked like when I told him how many people Steve had been seeing each day.

We expect them to land at the airport at 10:40p.m.  I was hoping it would be earlier in the day and we could have a party there.  You are still welcome to come and see them, but I realize most of our friends are in bed by that time.