Step one of getting our house ready for international students

We are opening a new chapter in our lives: hosting international students! We have hosted them before for a short stay, but this year it looks like we're getting a teen-aged boy, 2 months younger than Sean, also in Grade 11 at Poppy. He's from Brazil, and his name is Lucas. There is a possibility that we will host a second boy, from Viet Nam, who is 14 and who will also attend Poppy.

The first step in getting ready for these boys is to move all the Littles upstairs to the room next to ours, where we can keep an eye on them : )

Today Don bought this great bunk bed from a couple who had posted it on Craigslist. Then we found a brand new double mattress for the bottom bunk, also advertised on Craigslist. We spent the better part of today getting their room together, including moving furnitre from other parts of the house into their room.

Here are some pictures:

Yes, it's about 4:00 in the afternoon here, but as soon as we got the bed all put together the kids got right in! The girls had their teeth brushed and jammies on by 7:00 tonight, they were so excited to sleep in their new beds...

I think I'm going to move the doll cribs...somewhere...they're too crammed in there.

Don moved the "home theater system" in so they could watch Cars while they laid in bed. It has since been removed. The armoir holds the girls clothes, their extra (millions of) blankets, and their school stuff.

This container holds Nick's clothes and diapers (which he wears only at night now!), books, and other special stuff.

Their doll wardrobe!

When we put the bed together we left the ladder down, because Patience can climb onto the top bunk without it and we figured (hoped) that without the ladder Nick would not be able to get up there. Yeah, right.