Visitors part 1

As I mentioned before, we had a few visitors come last week.

Candice, Craig, Charlotte, and Millie all drove down from Chicago to spend Craig's spring break w/ my parents. We headed over Sunday after church and spent the day with them. See Dan and Craig bonding there?

 We jumped through hoops,

 assembled puzzles,

 shared our talents,

 embraced,

 dressed up,

 ate chocolate chip cookies with nutella in them,

 had a fabulous dinner, and went on a chilly stroll to rock rainbow bridge and beyond.

 Afton looks like she's licking Dad's head.

 Monday they decided to drive over and see us, since Sam had school.

Soccer in the backyard.

 Friday I went back over to my parents' house with Afton. Mom put on a fun Easter egg hunt for the girls and they painted some suncatcher things.

 I don't know how that tiara can be comfortable. I always try to show her the right way, but she insists on wearing it like this.

 Feature-less Charlotte.

A fun visit had by all!

Randoms before the visitors came

I've got a lot to catch up on. First I'll post the pics of things we did before the visitors came into town (Candice, Craig and kids, and then the Dursts).

Sam's school had a spring picture day. They had one in the fall, too. Spring is when they take the class picture, as well as another individual picture, which we thought was overkill. Since we figured Sam would be standing on the back row, we let him wear whatever he wanted. He went his usual route of elastic wasted pants and a random sweater on top. I love that kid. Since we weren't buying the individual pics, I took my own. His stance reminds me of a wrestler.

 Of course Afton wanted her picture taken, too. She dresses herself.

 I made a delicious pesto pizza. (Well, our half was pesto. The kids' was pepperoni.) The recipe is here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pesto-pizza-2/detail.aspx

 Sam drew this picture at church.

 Afton did her own eye shadow.

 And demolished her shoes by dragging them on the road while riding her motorcycle. Her toe is peeking out there.

 On that same outing, Sam ran into a neighbor's vinyl fence and it fell apart. Ten of the slats just broke off like twigs and the bottom horizontal piece came off, too. Dan went over there the next day with Sam to fix it.

Thanks to Mom hooking me up with crafts, I made this.

 And one of my big goals before the visitors came was to finish these beastly curtains. They're beastly b/c they're almost 10 feet tall, and I lined them with blackout fabric, which is heavy. I know this picture is terrible. It's hard to take a good picture because it's always so bright outside. I'll try tonight maybe.

Tried tonight. Here's a better picture.

Afton continues her dress-up love.

The end.

Cheney weekend

Mom and Dad Cheney came over last Saturday to spend the day with us. We hung out at home for a little while, had lunch, and then headed over to St. John's Church. That's where Patrick Henry gave his famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech way back in the day. Did you know that he had 17 kids (two wives - not at the same time)? And that he was Virginia's first governor? Neither did I. There's also a really old cemetery on the property. We got a tour from a nice woman dressed in period clothes.

They have an impersonator come and do reenactments sometimes. We may have to go to one of those. I'm reading a book about James Madison right now. He has some not-very-kind things to say about Mr. Henry, but he sounds like a decent guy to me.

After our visit to the church, we went to a park. It was a BEAUTIFUL day. Mom and Dad had coupons for free cheesecake so we tried to hit up the Cheesecake Factory for dinner but the wait was TWO HOURS. What the heck? That was at like 5:30. Ridiculous. So they got their cheesecake (they shared - thanks!) and then we went to Chipotle. After which we went our separate ways. It was really fun to spend the day with them.

And on another note, I'm doing this thing I saw a friend post on facebook called "40 bags in 40 days." If you google it, you'll find the official site which is too long-winded. Basically you just find 40 places in your house and declutter them. One place a day for 40 days. It coincides with Lent, but even though I don't participate in Lent, I thought it was a good excuse to get my house organized. I've got in-laws coming in two weeks so it's more like 40 bags in 14 days. A good spring cleaning opportunity if anyone else is interested!

Before and After

Here's a before of the hallway. What you can't see is that all around the edges, the carpet was permanently discolored. I think I have a better picture of that in one of the bedrooms.

And here's the hallway with the new hardwood.

We think it looks a lot better. It's kind of a dark hallway. Someday in the very distant future, I think sky tubes would be cool up there. We are planning on painting the hallway some kind of light tan, too.

We also replaced the carpet in three of the bedrooms. Here's what I was talking about with the dark edges.

It never really looked clean, plus there were a lot of stains. So here's a shot of the guest room after all was said and done.

Man, it looks so much better than it did! I actually painted this room a few months ago and surprised Dan with it. I also made over this little dresser that's been in the family for a long time. It has previously been olive green and bright yellow. Now it's a pale green.

I also made the two decorative pillows a while back. I'm thinking, after looking at these pictures, that I should make a bedskirt. I'd also like to put up some curtains in there. And maybe a headboard one day... Anyhow, we love the new carpet! Everything just looks newer and warmer.

Afton has never had a haircut in her 3.5 years of life. Eventually her scraggly ends were too much to handle. She kept refusing to get it cut, but I finally realized that she didn't want it cut because she thought it would be cut like Sam's.  Once I assured her that I would just trim it, she agreed.

Here's her before photo shoot. She had to make this face from every angle.

So classy, right? I was pretty nervous to cut her hair but I watched a YouTube video that made it look pretty easy. I went for it. Here's the after. Her hair is slightly wavy, so it's hard to really get a good feel, but I cut off two or three inches. I didn't want to try something too short and mess it up so I kept it simple.