Home Tour, Part 5

We're moving on to the GIRLS bedroom today. This room is pretty small, so we have to keep it VERY organized or the stuff overwhelms the cute little girls who sleep there. :)

I showed you in this post how I was inspired by a Pottery Barn Kids catalog to paint the "house" on the wall of the girls' room. I'm still loving PBK but living on a thrift store budget. :)

On their very first "conversation" as sisters, (via skype while we were in China), Eliana allowed Johanna to choose which bed she preferred. She chose the top bunk, so Eliana gets the bottom now.

The little porta-crib is technically Gabbey's bed, but she really doesn't use it. She has an EXTREME fear of being in a crib by herself. We worked through some of it, and she was doing pretty good last summer, but the trip to China really set her back. It seems like she was left in her crib WAY too much or perhaps there was something tramautic happening at night? In any case, she sleeps with Ellie or with Brent and me. And she is happy as a lark as long as she can feel the safety of someone else sleeping nearby.

ANYWAY, the porta-crib works great when the older girls want to "watch" the babies. They will invite a baby to play in the crib and give them special toys to play with. The little one gets to be with the older girls, but doesn't have complete access to the older girls' things. Works for now!

Johanna's bed:

.....and Eliana's bed:

My dad took Eliana to dinner and shopping on her 10th birthday. She picked out this adorable butterfly bedding. I have a feeling I know what Johanna is going to choose on her birthday date with Grandad. :)

Shellbert, Ellie's pet turtle, makes his home on her dresser.

Moving to the right, we get to the girls' closet. The little girls use the left side of the closet, while the big girls use the right. Games go on the left, craft supplies on the right.

The bookshelf (Target) gives Johanna and Eliana some "personal space". They each have their spot for their special things....books, photo albums, girl treasures. :)

The girls are responsible for keeping their room clean and most of the time, they do a fabulous job! Once we convinced Johanna that nobody was going to steal her things (took about 6 months), we were able to organize everything so there is "shared" space and "personal" space. (Up to that point, everything Johanna owned--that wasn't clothing---was ON HER BED, with her. There was barely room for her little body at night. Seriously, I think I could have put her on the hoarder's show. But she was SO happy to have so many of her own things, and SO scared that someone was going to TAKE them, that we allowed her to be a hoarder for awhile. Thankfully, she's more relaxed about things now that she's had ownership of them for some time, and we can keep the girls' room looking sweet again.