House Tour + Prepping for our Foster Care Homestudy

Can you believe it's been a year and a half since I posted our last house tour video? Can you believe we've made nearly zero changes to our home in that year and a half? Well...believe it, because those are both facts. I wanted to do an updated tour so I watched the last video just to see what changes I should highlight...and...well...there wasn't much. (Fun fact...I actually accidentally wore the same shirt today that I wore in the last video, so literally nothing changes around here. Not even my clothes.)
It's astounding how long half-done projects can sit around, how many things stay on the to-do list untouched, and how much all of that fades to the background with all the happenings of regular life. So if this was purely a decor showcase, you'd all be rightfully underwhelmed.  But, today's tour serves another purpose- we were prepping for our final foster care home study. The home study was actually three in person visits where they interviewed Dustin and I (separately and together) as well as Piper. (Full story on that someday, because it was as hilarious as you would think an interview with a five year old would be). This last installment included a full tour of our house, with the assessor checking to make sure we had everything in order (so many little requirements and checklists) had everything filled out (more forms...always more forms), and were meeting all the safety standards (locks, locks, locks on everything).

So since our house was actually clean, and semi-put together I thought I'd take a quick spin through to document the progress/chaos (the assessment thankfully does not record if there are dot stampers all over the place, or if a certain three year old is in the background crying about receiving the wrong color tie-dye fruit roll up, whhhhhhyyyyyyyy?! Those are bonuses for your viewing pleasure.) 

And because I'm obviously totally on top of my scheduling game, the assessor actually showed up right at 10, rather than 10:30 like I was expecting, so the downstairs was filmed pre-study, and the upstairs was post-study. Spoiler alert: we passed (I'm not even sure it's called that...but we met all the requirements, which feels like a big fat A+ to me!) So now she'll write up our full report, turn in 87 more documents we prepped (exaggerating? maybe by 1 or 2) and the agency will send it all off to the county (or state? government of some kind) for final approval, and we'll officially be licensed.

So now on with the show:

House tour/prepping for our foster care home study from Courtney Bowden on Vimeo.

I'm planning a follow up post with more details on the foster care side of things, as well as some more shots of the changes we've made to the girls' room. So check back in if you're curious about all that. I'm starting to get my blogger groove back (I think...maybe...until I don't...)

P.S. You can see all of our house updates on our "home page", view #houseofbowden pics on IG, or check out the homestead archives. 
And foster care updates are on IG as well: #thebowdensfoster (though those may be few and far between as we continue to take our time and pray about how/when to move forward). 

-------------------------------------

Psssst....Want to get all the Bowdenisms news delivered right to your inbox? 
YES PLEASE! Subscribe via email and never miss an -ism.  xox.