settling

Sawyer's still sleeping this morning, which is rare, so I thought I should sit down to this blog while I have a minute. I had a lot to blog about this weekend, I just didn't take the time to do it. The kids have been up early, I've been trying to go to bed at a reasonable time, and we've been cramming as much house stuff in between our *social life* as possible.

Well, wha'dya know... guess who's awake.
Hang on, I'll be back........

I knew if I sat down here, that would wake Sawyer up, LOL!
Oh well. They both have a cup of Cheerios and a cup of milk and are parked in front of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse at the moment, so I'm gonna try and finish a little update for y'all!

Where was I? Oh yeah, having a social life. Can I just say again how weird (a really good weird) it is to have lived here such a short time and have it feel so normal? It's great having a weekend that just consists of hanging out with friends and doing "normal" house projects instead of just unpacking all the time.
We didn't end up doing anything exciting Friday afternoon except some shopping at Old Navy. Can you believe I complained constantly about the fact that I couldn't shop at Old Navy for the past year, and now I live less than two miles from one and this was only the second time I've been in there?!
Friday evening our neighbors came over after dinnertime for dessert. We had a great time visiting (the girls had already played together for a couple of hours that morning and Tracy and I ended up visiting that whole time too), and for dessert we had brownie cookies and all the kids (their kids are 2, 4 and 6 years old) made their own Ice Cream in a bag. I'm still amazed every time that it really makes yummy ice cream in just 5 minutes!! How great is that little project for kids?! Anyway, they had fun (I can't believe I didn't take any pictures) and we had a great evening with our new friends.

Saturday we went to Costco and then took the kids over to a grand opening for Family Christian Bookstores nearby where they had Veggietales visiting. Savannah was a little shy with Bob and Larry, but Sawyer loved those giant veggies! He ran right up and shook hands, gave hugs and plenty of hi-fives!!
After lunch, the Malones came over with baby Yuri. Erin and I went through our baby clothes, the boys grilled up some juicy ribs, we all had a nice dinner (with way too many brownie cookies) and just enjoyed hanging out together.
After they left that night, Ryan and I decided to attack the armoire staining project. We figured by 9pm, we would be able to work out in the garage, so we dragged the armoire out there. Yeah, we were WRONG. It was so stinkin hot, I could not believe it. I hate sweat. I mean, I don't mind working hard and working up a bit of perspiration, but when you have sweat dripping from your face and your clothes are soaked just from sanding some wood and using a paintbrush, heck- from just sitting in one spot even, I do not enjoy that. We had only been out there for 15 minutes and we looked like NBA players at the end of a whole game. Plus we were covered in sawdust and stain. Not pretty. Not to mention we were being eaten by mosquitoes and had moths flying into our stain right and left. Fun times. Needless to say, we were ready for showers and bed shortly after that.

Yesterday after church, we moved the project down to the basesment. We realized there was no way we could work out in the garage... and it was so humid our stuff wasn't even drying. Our basement experience was much better, even though we were both feeling a little loopy with all the fumes. It's all looking pretty darn good after a couple more coats of stain, now we just need to slap some polyurethane on there and I'm excited to get it back in place!!
We also spent yesterday removing the wallpaper in the kids' bathroom, priming whatever was under the wallpaper (we honestly can't tell if this odd pink and purple design is bare wall and some sort of glue or if it is older wallpaper... whatever it is, it's not coming off), and painting the ceiling in preparation for painting the walls tonight. I'm painting the cabinets in there too (white), but I'm going to hold off starting that project until after our visitors this week.

Our visitors!!
After kind of moping that we weren't having any houseguests this summer, it turns out my aunt, uncle and cousins from Minnesota, are going to stop in for a couple nights this week in the middle of their roadtrip vacation. So excited to see them! Their youngest is two months younger than Sawyer and we've never met her before! We haven't seen any of them in about 4 years... so we're long overdue for a visit! We're really looking forward to our time together.
Also, just last night, the Robertsons called us to inquire about our guest room vacancy for this weekend. I guess this is the only weekend that Dr. David is not on call for like the next two months, and we are delighted they want to come spend that weekend with us!! It'll be so fun for Ben and Sawyer to be buddy buddy again, and we get to meet sweet baby J! And of course it's always such a great time visiting with Dave and Amie.
Lots of fun stuff to look forward to this week! Also, finishing up the bathroom, the furniture, and I guess I should actually uncover the guest bed and make that room livable!!

Hey, also thought I'd share:
it's coming along... what do you think?










Yes, I have double prints up in different frames... I'm still playing while I'm waiting for prints from Nic. In the middle above where the armoire goes, I think I'm going to put up some letters to spell out family or love, laugh, cherish or something. Opinions, ideas?