Imported to Illinois

I just finished the cycle of getting all the kids down for nap/rest time, and as it goes, Meg woke up just as I breathed a deep sigh of relief at having a few minutes of quiet. No fighting, no yelling, no one-upping, no crying- just silence. My stubborn, strong-willed, loud daughter whom I am sure I will enjoy the pleasures of sharing many a shouting match with one day just sat in the chair opposite me in silence. In the quiet I opened the refrigerator, pulled out leftover nachos and chips, put them on the table, and we sat there not making any noise other than that of eating. At one point she dropped her nachos on the floor and looked at me like I would yell or even speak, but I didn't, I just picked it up and smiled, and she smiled back. It was lovely.

I am ever so anxious. I have many worries, but Pete says there isn't a whole lot I can do about it, and in time it will all work itself out. Of course, being me, I say- What if it doesn't? So without focusing on the stresses, here is a bit of our life in Illinois.

Our living room doesn't have a couch. It is pretty empty as you can tell. It does have a lovely large window though.

 Our couch is in the tv/kids room. This is totally fine because it is about the size of our whole downstairs at our last place, so we feel more comfortable sitting on top of each other.

 

One day we will have a couch in the living room, and we will be able to sit on it and enjoy this view, which is pretty awesome.

We decided, that in order to help the boys have a bit of fun in our new city, we would explore the Morton Arboretum, which is only like 10-15 minutes away. It turns out they were having a Cultural Festival that day so our time was accompanied by music, story-telling, and face painting. We spent the whole afternoon there and truly enjoyed it.

We have enjoyed our backyard. Having a backyard where the boys can run around without the police showing up to ask if I know that my boys are running around is a blessing. *Yes, the police showed up at our front door more than once in West Lafayette.

We found out that there is a really huge park area in town. It has the water park, basketball courts, tennis courts, frisbee golf, playground, baseball field, soccer field, dog park, and what Jack calls the cool rock with flags. While, I think we are all eager to make friends, none of us really wanted to just be surrounded by strangers, so we decided to go to the park quite early to avoid everyone. It was all ours and just as we were leaving the cars started pulling in. So perhaps, when we are ready to face the strangers we can go a bit later.

 

As I am writing this Meg is actually sitting in this location where she was sitting a few nights ago. I guess when there are no chairs, a toy box will do. 

Oh and since I have no pictures of Robbie on here I figure I should just throw one in. Not a great one- Sorry Robbie. He is really interested in his hands, he stares at them for minutes. He is just now starting to get interested in toys in front of him. He will grab at them and stare at them. He is still a super good baby. So chill and laid back.

 That is our life in Illinois so far. Just taking it one day at a time.