The State of the Living Room

For our family, the appearance of the living room has shown the exact stage in life for us.  It has been interesting and pretty funny to watch it transform so dramatically over time.

Pre-children!  Nice, neat, organized and there are plants in there!

Lia comes along...I couldn't find any living room pictures from when Lia was a baby, but I remember having a swing in that blank spot by the entertainment center.  Notice, plants are gone, toys are added!

Here come Erin and Halle!  The first day they were home, we were freaked and fenced them in.

OMG - look how small they were!

Our next attempt at baby safety and to save room in the living room amounted to this:

Then, we got smart and created this set up, which stayed the same for several months.

As Lia got a bit older, we trusted her to not poke her sister's eyes out or tip the swing over, so the gate was removed.  Once we figured out the babies would sleep through the night in the swings, we borrowed a swing from a friend and tried it out.  The hope was that after 3-4 days of straight through the night, that we would get those big bulky swings out of the living room and move them upstairs.

Mission accomplished!  The swings were upstairs in the babies' rooms for about a month and then were packed up and sent out!

Happily, we added the bouncers (one is ours and one we borrowed from a friend)

And this is what the living room looks like today.  Both the babies are pulling up, so we got the activity table down and the fireplace is covered with a blanket for extra padding.  Lia's rocking chair moved upstairs after one to many baby pull up attempts failed.  I need to filter through the toys and get rid of the rattles and other things they longer find interesting.

I'm excited for when the bouncers are gone b/c they (like the swings) are big and bulky but the benefit is that they provide a safe and secure place for the babies when I'm putting Lia down for a nap, etc.  So, I have a feeling they will be around for awhile.

I would also like to point out that against all odds, Lia's fish is still alive.  :)

Also, the decor on the mantle is the exact same throughout - I think maybe the clock changed toward the end and that's it.  ha