Living Spaces Changed and a Welcome Home!

I'm super behind with lots of blogging. But one request I've gotten a lot of is to post pictures of the girls' rooms.  When they were away last summer, my amazing friend, Jenni Bushman, helped me redecorate their room as a surprise.  I wish I could have taken pictures of what it looked like before.  It was basically a single bed in each room with some mismatched furniture and barely anything on the walls. 

XANTHE'S ROOM

Xanthe's room was a huge transformation because this bed is brand new.  We even got it for free from a friend who was going back to the states.  It's perfect for sleepovers because they have one almost every weekend and never had enough places for everyone to sleep.  Pretty much everything in this room is new, except for the green bedcover.  I was super busy during this time and Jenni just pretty much took over scouring and purging and decorating. She is so amazing.  And I can't forget Brittany who helped her with a ton of stuff too.

When I first had the vision for a picture wall, it was at the same time the girls started pointing out things online for rooms they liked. We had talked a lot before about doing something to their room but not ever doing anything about it.  They were constantly showing me things they liked and I would smile internally knowing what we were already planning.  My sister Heather had them stay with her for a week and would send me pictures, as well as my dad, which made it perfect for me to print a few out to hang on their wall, along with ones I had taken throughout the year.

I also had an idea for their rooms to have areas where they could spend doing things they like to do.  Makeup is one of them so in Xanthe's room we made a makeup station.  This is a huge hit and she absolutely  loved it!

Not sure why this next picture is blurry but you can see her desk.  All clean and organized.

This is her other wall.  Those canvases are for them to paint on.  We already had them and we thought it would be fun to give them a fun way to display their art.  Oh, and yes, that's wrapping paper mod-podged onto her dresser.  I wish you could see the side because Jenni stuck wallpaper on the top and down the sides.  It's the same blue paper in the picture above on the backing of the school desk.

A cute note for Xoe going into her room.  

XOE'S ROOM

The girls' single beds they had before were actually bunk beds we split apart.  We put them together for Xoe's room and now she has an extra bed for sleepovers.  

These girls are SOOOO into doing their nails.  I had this idea to make a nail station like they have at salons.  I've always thought spice racks at the grocery store looked like what they use to display nail polish. I found this awesome one and the whole thing just came together perfectly. I'm not joking when I say they do their nails almost every day.  It's no uncommon to find the girls and their friends up here doing all sorts of different nail colors and they now have about double these colors.  'twas a hit, for sure!

Xoe's dresser

Just a closeup so you could see the cool wallpaper I was talking about before.  What a great idea, huh?  the sucker bouquet sort of turned out to get things added to it at the last minute and weren't the suckers I was hoping for but I couldn't find what I really wanted.  It was still cute.

Xoe's canvases covered in paper.

So, the day the girls got home, I was able to snap a picture right as I picked them up. I was a little choked up to see them, and I've never thought of myself as a cryer. This picture is right after they called my name and brought me to the back.  I felt very exclusive.  haha.  Or a little like the doctor's office. :)

What they didn't know was I had worked it out with their two friends, Christine and Makayla to sleepover. I thought with the changing rooms, and two friends to hang out with it would help the transition to being back home (it's always emotional for them leaving their dad and all our family), as well as the jetlag they were going to start experiencing  (which is always made easier when you have something to take their mind off it). .  So we headed to their friends' houses to pick them up (which wasn't that close by but totally worth it).

While I was gone, Brittany and Jenni had made a cute welcome home sign.  Not sure about Xanthe's face. I think they were a little trashed.

Christine Arnold, Xoe, Xanthe and Makayla Brown

The day they came home was one off the hottest we had had all summer.  And it was funny because we had a very mild summer.  The weather was barely warm enough to call summer and definitely never sunny enough to go swimming. But the day they came home was perfect for what else!  Swimming!