Ch-ch-ch-changes!

It's official: the Sanders family has moved! Not very far though; although, I wouldn't be surprised if moving here feels like living in another world. We've actually moved back to Paris proper. For those of you who were unaware that we were not living in Paris, consider yourself informed. We've been living in the close suburbs of western Paris-area, basically a 15 minute train ride away from actual Paris. It's hard to believe, but it's been about seven years that we've lived here! That's actually the longest literal place that I've lived in my whole adult life. Even if you're counting cities and not apartments, I only lived in Seattle during my college days for just under 5 years. Our church's senior pastor retired back in January and since then, the church parsonage has been sitting empty, just waiting for some new tenants :) Some of you might be thinking, 'But didn't you guys just have a baby as well?' Why yes, yes we did. Ha! I wouldn't recommend the combo but for a lot of various factors that I won't really get into, this is the timing that we got.

Here's a few little factoids about the new digs (pics to come at a later date!):

--We'll now be only about a 20 minute walk from the Eiffel Tower (I hear those wheels in your heads churning...you're wondering if we'll have a guest room in the new place, aren't you!)

--Napoleon is buried there (not in our new place, but down the road, lol...)

--Paris is divided up in a circular pattern like a snail (oh how fitting!) and cut up into neighborhoods called 'arrondissements'. They're numbered, so we're in number 7.

--In 2011, the population in the 7th arrondissement alone was 57,786... That's actually more than my hometown of Albany, Oregon ! (And the 7th is considered to be one of the less populated Paris neighborhoods!) Compare that to the surface area of the two places and the 7th arrondissement is more than 10 times smaller than Albany! (4.09 square kilometers compared to 45.97)

--It is stinking rich. One of the richest in Paris. But you might not know that just by walking around. It is a place of old money; people have been wealthy since the beginning of time and apparently don't feel the need to flash their bling around.

--This follows my last point, but since the 17th century, it has been home to the French upper class and aristocracy.

--There are a ridiculous amount of public demonstrations that take over the street our new place will be located on. Yes, my husband has told me before that he couldn't get back home right away because of the tear gas lingering in the streets!

--The place was actually a very old home originally which is extremely rare in Paris proper (we mostly have apartments in Paris).  When the church started meeting way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, they met downstairs in the house. They quickly outgrew the location and added a ginormous room onto the front of the house. Today, the first two levels of the house are used for church purposes and the upper two make up the church parsonage.

--This follows my previous point: we'll be living on site! This should be an interesting adventure full of advantages and challenges as well.

--And I'll just end on this: there's no yard but one of the little known gems of the parsonage is that it has a roof top terrace....lounge chair and chilled drink, I hear you calling my name...

Our Jardin d'Enfants

September has left the building and it took October right along with it. No seriously, where have these months gone?? Fall has been busy in the Sanders household. Some fun things like a Halloween shindig this past weekend. Some not so fun things like Livia getting sick this past week for the first time (hello torture!). Something that has been for a long time in the works but only took shape at the end of August (and thus contributing to the busyness) is a project I've been working on in our church's nursery. A couple of years ago Christiane, an awesome lady from my church, asked me if I'd consider coming on board with her in co-leading the church nursery (apparently rumor has it that I like kids or something). I told her yes but on one timid condition...could we please makeover just about the ugliest nursery I've ever seen? (may or may not have been said in those terms...) Who knew but Christiane was just waiting for someone to wrangle this room into something cute.

The room started out as a youth group room back when dinosaurs roamed the earth... Check out this amazing wall mural (it screamed baby/toddler, I know...):

If the room looks yellow to you it's because there is only a tiny window (really more of an escape latch just in case the zombie apocalypse happens anytime soon) which means a serious lack of light and to top off the situation, the walls were what I like to call dirty cream/I want to throw up/not quite yellow but far from off-white... Plus did I mention the ceiling was painted brown brick? A gorgeous combo, let me tell ya. 

My plan was to attack the oppressive feeling the room conveyed as well as ad some much needed toy storage. Because, well, this is what I was working with (can you say bare??):

Basically we started by dousing the room in white paint and that alone made a huge difference. Here's what it's looking like these days: 

I've been trying to play around with a garden theme because in French it's called a "jardin d'enfants" (garden of children). I like the idea that just as a garden grows, we're growing little souls that will one day (hopefully) embrace Christ as their creator. Planting seeds and all that jazz. 

The tree is actually just a wall sticker so it can peel right off whenever we want to change things up and the Ikea cups/wall bar are fabulous for holding our markers and crayons in. 

A few more befores and afters... 

That was the small baby corner--not the most inviting environment for new mamas and papas... I simplified things up back there and added a couple of nursing chairs. The bookcases make for a natural separation between to two spaces which is a good thing because our nursery is for ages 3 months to 3 years. 

Here's the book corner I made: 

I wanted to create a nice happy and calm spot for some of the kids to relax in while at the same time having a natural meeting place in case we want to sing songs or look at a bible story together. (Hello toy storage!!)

On the other side of a very long and narrow room we kept most of the same furniture but with a new paint job to freshen things up a bit. This is supposed to be the more active part of the room. 

So far it's gone over pretty well with the kiddos so I'm excited to throw in a few more finishing touches along the way! It's so fun to finally feel like I'm finding more of my niche in our church community. A lot of work, but so worth it :)