Staunton, VA

A few weeks ago we took a little Labor Day excursion with some good friends ours, the Church's, to Staunton, Virginia. Staunton is near Shenandoah Valley. We were excited to find a place that seemed to be perfect for two families to stay-- a two bedroom suite with a combined living room. Little did we know this place was run by the Baron and Baroness Bomburst.

I'll explain. When we reserved the room we put we had four adults. I called ahead and asked if it was kid-friendly and the replied yes. So we show up have a good evening there and go down to breakfast the next morning. The kids were really good and one guest even came up and said how well behaved all the kids were. While Dane was walking Beck outside and the "Baroness" shushed little Beck! The "Baron" approached Eric as we were leaving and told him he was confused at how many people we had in our party. He said we don't normally allow kids here and you guys should be paying for the additional guests. $15/night/child. That would be an extra $120. I just couldn't imagine how my 3 month old and two year old could really use $60 worth of ammenities. So Eric said no way but offered to pay for their breakfast. They then asked us to not bring our children down the next morning. We were so bugged that we were ready to head to another hotel. Until we realized that would be a huge pain to pack it all up for one more night. Needless to say, we felt uncomfortable the rest of our stay and felt like the child-catcher was looming in the corners.

"Come here kiddie-winkies!" 

Other than our hotel, the trip was really fun. We went to a nice park that had a miniature motorized train that the kids loved, drove through Shanendoh Valley and had a picnic, strolled downtown while they had some kind of festival and went to the Luray Caves.

Everyone asked if Finn and Quinn were twins. A "no" wasn't too convincing when they have rhyming names.





I wonder if it is still Jessica's dream to have twins...



Shenandoh Valley.

 








 
Aren't these two cute? We're hoping they'll get married one day.

The Luray Caves.

 

A Day in the Life

6:30- Wake up to feed Finn.

7:00- Finn is screaming trying to poop (he's been constipated for three days).

7:01- Lily wakes up.

7:02- Lily pees the bed.

7:30- Make Lily breakfast.

7:31- Lily spills mushy Fruity Pebbles all over carpet.

8:00- Finn starts screaming, finally gets poop out.

8:15- This.









And this is all before 9 am.

Should I mention that just four hours later Lily comes down to tell me that she pooped on the carpet, but "don't worry, I threw it in the garbage"?

Adaptation

With mostly homemade items and about $75 I was able to change "Lily's Room" to "Lily and Finn's Room". Here is the room before:







and here is the after:







It's a little more crowded, but I think it works for not being too boy or too girl. I pretty much just took out everything that was pink and swapped it out for blue. I made a ton of stuff myself.

I made five pillows:



a mobile:




and just swapped some pictures:



I also swapped out the fabric in the embroidery hoops, spray painted the mirror and the lamp, and sewed new fabric in the crib skirt. I wish I could have done a lot more things, and it obviously looked better before with less stuff, but this works for now. All that's left to do is figure out when the new roommate should move in. Anyone else have kids share a room? When did you have them move in?

Painterly

As I've mentioned before, Lily loves anything artistic. She loves to draw, color, playdough, and now her newest medium-painting. I was a little nervous to buy her paints, but seeing how much she loves painting whenever she paints at the children's museum I didn't want to limit her creativity. And it kept her pretty entertained during that hurricane we had a few weeks ago.



Plus it was the only distraction that could pull her away from "her phone".



My mom must have known she'd have an artist in the family one day. She bought that painter's smock back when we lived in Japan. (I went to high school in Japan, that's how long ago that was).







Addendum:
In case you were wondering, Lily's paints are Crayola Washable Paints. They came in a 12 pack and wash out of everything really easily.