The boys' room

Cooper and Hudson's room was in real need of a major overhaul again. Re-organizing, cleaning, all that stuff. We had been putting it off because we were trying to decide whether we were going to actually split the space into two, giving them both their own rooms. We had mentioned this to Cooper back at the beginning of December, thinking that he would be thrilled at the idea. He surprised us both by, instead, being very upset by the idea. We have discovered that Cooper really doesn't accept change very well and his room is a place that he spends a lot of time. More than any of the other kids. Hudson, on the other hand, really loved the idea initially, but over the last few weeks has slowly begun to change his mind.
The whole thing has really been very interesting, as the reactions of both of them were actually much different than we expected them to be. I've come to the understanding that maybe they need each other more than they both realize.
So, a couple days ago, the cleaning and purging began. Just as I excepted, Hudson was quite willing to get rid of a lot of stuff and Cooper wasn't too happy to get rid of anything. He threw away some ripped up old Lego building instructions and thought he was doing great.
We did decide to split the room a little more evenly, giving them both their own shelves and also thought they each needed a work space.
So that brought on a trip to Ikea.
Yesterday afternoon, the three boys and I headed off on our adventure. Reagan had two birthday parties to go to, so Tony stayed behind to be her chauffeur and hopefully get a little work done.
(Side note#1: As we got closer to Ikea, Hudson spotted it from the freeway.
Hudson: I see it! We're almost there!
Taggart: Where?
Hudson: Right there. That huge blue building with the yellow letters.
Taggart: Ikea is a building? I thought it was a town.....like Langley.
He really didn't want to go with us. No wonder.....he had no idea where we were headed. Not sure if a building was a step up from a town, or a step down.)
So our trip was successful. We found two desks, two chairs, and two little cabinets with some drawers for storage. They got to pick out their own lamps and they both picked the same ones. :)
After we were done, we were all tired (or at least, I was) and starving, so we drove down the street to find somewhere to eat. I spotted Cactus Club and took my three boys out to dinner.
After we all enjoyed our little feast we headed home. The three of them sang to the songs on the iPod all the way home.

We all spent the rest of the evening continuing to clean out the room and getting all the furniture set up. I think it was about 11:00 before we were done. Taggart and Reagan 'helped' all the way to the end, as it was a bit hard for them to sleep right across the hall of all that activity.
Today, they both already spent some time up there and I think are both really thrilled to have this new space. I heard Hudson say to Cooper: "I'm glad we decided not to split the room and just get these new desks instead."



Hudson building some Lego while whistling a little tune and Cooper reading a book.
(Side note #2: Cooper's pre-shower hair is scaring me a little in that second photo. On the other hand, tony is starting to call his post-shower hair is Farrah Fawcett do. Which is worse??)