Initially, I planned on setting up the craft/sewing room last. This week has proved that I cannot leave this portion of boxes for weeks and weeks. My kids, especially my girls, are very art oriented and they need their supplies.
Weeks ago, I purchased Valentine pencils and made sure I knew right where they were so they could get taped to store bought Valentines this week. Easy peasy, no stress. I got out voted. They all wanted to make them. So I went digging for boxes marked 'kid craft supplies' and 'scrapbook paper,' and 'craft/sewing room' to retrieve the needed supplies. I am more than a little embarrassed at how many boxes of supplies I have ... and they all need to fit in one room. We have now created a plastic tub to contain all the Valentine supplies. This years Valentine's turned out very cute and the children are all very pleased with what they created this year!
I'm so proud of Alexander! Look, he wrote his name on each of the Valentine's he gave his preschool classmates! Then he wrote each of their names, too!
The big kids spent Wednesday afternoon totally in the zone. The entire kitchen island was covered in paper, tape, glue, pencils and lots and lots of Valentines!
Tomorrow we're having GR's parents over for dinner - spaghetti and meatballs - and the girls are making dessert. They haven't narrowed it down yet, but the clock is ticking so I'm sure they'll figure it out soon enough.
Hope you have a fun filled Valentine's day that includes good chocolate!
P.S. Look at these paper boxes! I went looking for the MS Craft supplies necessary to make them at Michaels this week ... no luck. I'm making them just using my basic supplies ... they aren't prefect, but oh so cute! Wouldn't these make sweet shower favors, or little gift boxes for oh so many things! I love how easy it is to make them exactly the size you want for the contents.
I found the box of cookbooks this morning and while mom put them away, pulled out the Fall '09 Food and Family from Kraft. Surprise, surprise, two recipes jumped out as possibles for dinner tonight. Both were a huge success. Dinner was a tex-mex beef and potato casserole that was very yummy and went over well with everyone except my potato poo-pooing 3 year old. What isn't there to like about cheese and potatoes? It will be a bit before I get the food storage unpacked and put away - still trying to figure out the best way to do that given the space we have for it. Anyway, we're still paying "use it up" when cooking for dinner, so we used the leftover Velveta & Rotel dip from Monday nights basketball game, and instead of using frozen cubed hash browns, we diced and boiled our own potatoes. Worked like a charm and since the potatoes are hot and cooked it didn't need much time in the oven at all.
For dessert, Alex and Anna helped make a special surprise they were both quite proud of. This yummy triple-layer chocolate pie is a quick, simple dessert they could easily help with, as you can see:
We are successfully moved in! It's bitterly cold and snowed all day Friday. But we (and more than half a dozen friends) managed to move a load of furniture Friday night and then again Saturday morning too. I'm so glad we had the kids go to St. Louis. Friday night after the first load of furniture went, we started dismantling the bunk beds to make Saturday morning go more smoothly. That really helped. By the time the kids got home Sunday evening, we had their rooms put together. Kathy spent hours here on Saturday, helping me get the kitchen unpacked. And now is fully functional!
I keep moving furniture around, from room to room, spot to spot. And there are an insane number of boxes in our corner of the basement. We'll continue to chip away at them box by box, week by week.
Work on the old house started on Monday. There are a lot of work men there, and I'm stopping in each morning after I drop the kids at school, to take a look at the progress. We're making a lot of cosmetic changes. When it's all done, it's going to look so different. Hopefully that will help me walk away from this house without too many tears.
When our real estate agent walked through back in November, he said, buyers don't want to do anything. Gone are the days when you can provide a carpeting or paint allowance, or even drop the price. They want the ultimate move in ready home. Our house had none of that. The carpeting needed to be replaced years ago. The kitchen floor ... well you remember. And then there are all the beautiful painting projects we've done in the kids bedrooms and in the dining room and basement. Apparently, rose pink, cornflower blue checks, confederate red, and deep ocean blue aren't huge selling points. I'm going to miss those walls!
We need the house to sell fast, we can't afford to let the house sit for a long period of time. So we're having the carpeting replaced, the kitchen floor & counter top replaced, the tile around the fireplace replaced (thanks to a chipped tile), and the entire house painted four different shades of beige. Unfortunately for us, the windows are horrific and poorly constructed (most of the small pieces that allow the window to open to the inside to be cleaned have broken) we're replacing those too. We're praying that this investment will pay off when the house goes on the market next week.
