“I have a bacon tooth AND a sweet tooth.”
8:06 AM Mar 21st

“I’m not feeling it.”
10:48 PM Mar 28th

“It’s not YOURgration, it’s migration.”
9:40 PM Mar 15th

“Know what I admire about pussywillows? They don’t have even a single sharp thorn, and they’re beautiful for decorating. And they’re soft!”
12:24 PM Mar 8th

“Sometimes my brain just has a mind of its own.”
1:20 PM Mar 7th

“My fingers are fighting with each other, because they both think THEIR fingernail is the cleanest. Those silly fingers!”
7:02 AM Mar 5th

“Hello there, candy. Take me on a journey to chocolate heaven!”
1:08 PM Mar 3rd

“I don’t care what anyone else says. Pluto is STILL A PLANET.”
6:38 AM Feb 28th

“I call this move the Jellyfish Corndog.”
10:10 PM Feb 24th

“I’ll be right back, you pies….Get it!? Instead of ‘you guys,’ I said, ‘you PIES!’ Hahahaha!”
6:59 AM Feb 22nd

“I don’t have any imaginary friends, but I like to pretend that I do.”
7:42 AM Feb 21st

“Well, Daddy is ONE of the Awesomes, but he’s not the Captain of them.”
8:34 AM Feb 17th

“I need an extra eyeball so I can look at my eyes.”
10:41 PM Feb 14th

“Happy Valentine’s Day, happy Valentine’s Day, happy Valentine’s Day EV-REEE-WUUUUUUNNNN!”
8:59 AM Feb 14th

“I can’t believe we’re back in the state where I was born!”
7:56 AM Feb 14th

“Can I use the colored pencils that Miss Sonja sent me yet? How about now? Can I use them now? Now? What about…now?”
11:21 PM Feb 12th

“Oh, I’m just enjoying the show.”
2:49 PM Feb 11th

“Rule number 54: if you have a cat, DON’T leave rubber bands on the floor.”
9:06 AM Feb 9th

“It’s about a baseball player who was playing tug-of-war before the big game, and he went home tired, and overslept and missed the game.”
12:58 PM Feb 7th

Brenda and Bug went home on Wednesday. I’m so glad they were able to extend their trip. We not only got the house almost completely done, we managed to do a bit more sightseeing. And of course we just enjoyed having them around a little bit longer! I’ll write a post about the house soon. And one about Dana & Leo’s weekend visit, and one about our college friends who happened to be in the area and came by for dinner, and one about the other fun stuff we did in the last week.

B, thanks again for flying all the way across the country, doing most of the unpacking and organizing, hanging all my pictures, pitching in with the chores and dinner-making, and just generally being such a good friend! I miss you already and am looking forward to many late-night IM chats.

See all that stuff on the floor? Yesterday I spent hours working on organizing the bathroom, sorting through all the shampoos and lotions and bandages that seem to accumulate and multiply in bathroom cupboards. I should really say, I spent hours trying to work on it. I kept getting distracted by children needing food, or helping Brenda hem and hang Annalie’s curtains, or reheating my coffee, or a million other things. (If you can’t spot me, check Troy’s shaving mirror in the shower. Or view largest to snoop!)

I’m sort of shrugging and sighing over the fact that I ended this 7 Days with a lame photo of my messy bathroom. But I’m also cutting myself some slack. I’ve had a busy week!

One of the things distracting me yesterday was this project. We were making a photo wall! I’ve wanted a photo wall like Joe & Kassie’s for ages. This house has the perfect wall for it, so I’m finally gonna have one, whee! We laid all the photos down on paper in the arrangement we liked, traced around the frames, and marked where the nails would go. Then we hung the paper on the wall and hammered the nails right through the paper. Worked like a charm.

While we were hanging frames, Annalie built this pet shop out of mega blocks, filled it with her Littlest Pet Shop animals, and drew some posters. She offered to sell me a puppy for the price of a black-and-white cookie. I thought that was a pretty good deal.

We took the kids to a park near our house on Thursday. Apparently they have not refreshed the mulch on the playground, because this bench was a bit higher off the ground than normal. So while the kids played, Brenda and I sat, drank our lattes, swung our feet and felt like little kids. It was fun.

We didn’t realize this playground was there till just a few days ago. It’s kind of hidden back in the trees around the block from our house, but it’s very close! We could probably even walk there, which is really nice.

Annalie and Bug both approved of the park.

Earlier that day we went out for lunch. Bug wasn’t quite ready for me to take her photo in that first shot, and after I took it she said, “That’s not how you pose! Here, I’ll show you how to pose.” Then she tilted her head and smiled sweetly for me.

Then I tried to get Annalie to pose for me since she was wearing the arm warmers CC knitted for her. I wanted to send Heather a photo so she could see how Annalie loves these and wears them all the time. But she gave me a fake eye-roll, the little stinker. She cracked up right after I took that one.

Notice what Annalie is eating? When we walked up to the register to place our order, the friendly young guy behind the counter said, “Let me guess…two macaroni & cheeses for the kids?”

I’ll admit I felt a little smug as I replied, “No, actually…my daughter would like a small tomato soup and a ciabatta bread, please!”

The guy laughed good-naturedly. I’ve said it before: I love that my daughter loves soup!

These are Troy’s lists. The one on the left (on the paper that says “This looks like a job for Superman!”) is the one Brenda and I have been adding to, with items like “hang knife bar” and “move boxes to attic.” The one on the right is Bug’s list. She told us, “it’s a little bit of work, and a little bit of party!”

We went to Chevy’s for dinner Wednesday night. It was supposed to be Brenda & Bug’s going-away dinner but, um…they’re kind of still here. We were talking about how we were thisclose to finishing the house, and how Brenda hated to leave with it unfinished. One thing led to another led to Brenda calling Toby to see if he could manage without them for a few more days, and he said he thought he could do that. So we got their tickets extended for a week, and it’s already paid off because we got a ton of work done in the next two days.

Me and Troy at Chevy’s. I was going to use this for my 7 Days shot, but it’s not really a self-portrait. Brenda suggested the spot for the camera and pressed the button for me.

An attempt at a 7 Days self-portait with a star-shaped light at the restaurant that didn’t work out. But still, it’s kinda cool.

Probably none of you reading this have any clue that I like the TV show Chuck, right? I’m pretty quiet about it.

Lauren had the idea for one of the days of 7 Days to be a Chuck day, just for fun. Here you can see me very obviously speaking into my spy watch, without anyone around me even noticing. Also, I’m wearing my orange Chucks, a mustache from our Chuck party in January (also seen in Sonja’s Flickr stream), and my Orange Orange t-shirt. (Appearances to the contrary, I’m not obsessed. Chuck isn’t even my favorite TV show. I’d have to say my favorite show right now is probably Castle. Nathan Fillion is only one of many awesome things about it.)

Brenda and I had to go to IKEA for the 37th time in two weeks yesterday, and mamalang couldn’t make it to the meet-up yesterday so she drove all the way to meet us at IKEA instead. We shopped, we chatted, we ate meatballs. It would almost be boring how all these internet meet-ups go so well if they weren’t so much fun.

I’m getting a bit behind in my 7 Days blogging because we’ve been scrambling to fit in all the things we want to do before Brenda & Bug go home. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is their last full day here; they fly back home Thursday morning. Brenda was worried that two weeks would be too long, that we’d start to get sick of them, but it seems like they just got here! They could stay another two weeks and we’d probably still be finding things to work on in the house, or fun touristy things to do. But they miss Toby, and he misses them. And the house is almost completely done, which it wouldn’t have been for another six months if it weren’t for Brenda.

We’ll be sad to see them go, but we’re so very glad they came!

Brenda has written about what we’ve been up to in a bit more detail, if you’re interested.

The unpacking is going pretty well. I’ve been in the zone for three days now and I’m just starting to feel a tiny bit tired. Overwhelmed no, just a little creaky from working hard. I’m loving the challenge of finding a place for everything. I know I can do it and when I’m done this house is going to look sooo good!

Even though everything is messy right now, I have a feeling that this house is going to be very photogenic when it’s done. I love the layout and the charming wood floors. The windows are nice with lots of light and offer great views of their giant back yard. I love how the back deck leans out into the branches of the nearby trees. I don’t have a great photo of that but that’s only because I have been unpacking non-stop. I don’t even like to stop to eat.

Of course we have to stop to eat every once in a while because we have little girls in our company with strong growing bodies who demand that we do so. “Feed the kid!” Bug yells at me from time to time. Don’t worry. Nobody is starving. Bethany is taking good care of us when it comes to eating. She’s making lemon bars right now as I type this! I can’t wait.

We’ve made a couple of trips to IKEA to scout out a new couch and some rugs for Bethany’s house and then back again to pick everything up. Shopping at IKEA is pretty fun (especially when you are helping spend someone else’s money) but it does get a bit tiring when you’ve been there for an hour or three. All the choices seem to run together and you feel a bit like a mouse in a maze going crazy. But I can’t complain because I don’t have to put everything together.

Troy does.

We’re all happy in our zones. Me unpacking…

Bethany cooking and baking…

Me eating…

And the girls doing whatever it is that they do.

*Brenda didn’t steal my words. She wrote her post and I said, “I think I’ll just steal your code and put it up on my site as a guest post, okay?” She said, “You should!”

Also, I didn’t mind making her lemon bars. I felt guilty about not helping much with the unpacking, even though she keeps assuring me that she’s having fun, so I practically begged her to give me a baking challenge.

We got to the airport a little early, and had to wait for 20 minutes or so for Brenda and Bug to arrive. When they finally walked around the corner and we saw each other, Bug smiled hugely and ran towards us as Annalie danced a little with the effort of keeping herself from running past the security sign. They hugged each other happily, then held hands and chattered nonstop as we walked to the baggage claim. The past month is probably the longest they’ve gone without seeing each other in the past two years!

That night after the kids were in bed, Brenda and I worked on unpacking the kitchen. When we came across the box that had our ridiculously-large-for-people-who-don’t-really-drink-much wine collection in it, I found a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and decided it was just what we needed. Apparently I was right because around midnight we finished the kitchen.

Yesterday we celebrated my birthday by having lunch with friends and painting pottery, which was a lovely way to spend my birthday. I was also treated to many emails, texts, Facebook and Twitter greetings, and phone calls wishing me the best. My birthday was rather anticlimactic this year what with being in the middle of moving and everything, but all the kind, funny notes made me smile and feel loved. Thanks for all of those!

Today we unpacked a bit, then went on a monster trip to IKEA where we bought Annalie a dresser and picked out a couch and living room rug to buy later and Annalie and Bug discovered that they completely love Småland (the kids’ play area). We were all wiped out by the time we got home. Also, it’s been raining all day (yay!) and the hole in our ceiling we were assured “is just cosmetic, the roof is fixed, we just need to repair the ceiling” has been leaking on and off (boo!). I used my recently-unpacked kitchen to make some really delicious homemade chili which was perfect for the rainy day. While I made the chili Brenda cleared the empty, flattened boxes out of the living room and did some more unpacking. I’m starting to think we’ll have this house DONE in no time.

There are more photos on my Flickr in Brenda & Bug’s D.C. Unpacking Adventure, if you wanna see ‘em.

Yeah…we haven’t made much headway on the unpacking yet. Good thing Brenda‘s coming to help us with that. She and Bug are flying here tomorrow, and will be here for two weeks, whee! That should give us plenty of time to unpack and do a little sightseeing too.

Since we knew Brenda was coming to whip us into shape, we weren’t in a huge hurry to get the unpacking done. We decided it would be a good idea to paint Annalie’s room while most of her stuff was still in easy-to-move boxes. Her bedroom was a dark wine red that, while a lovely color, wasn’t a great color for a little girl. Also the room just needed to be painted, it had obviously been a few years.

Sunday we primed. I had photos of us priming the room, including some cute ones of Annalie making crazy designs with a paintbrush. I thought I had downloaded them, so I cleared the memory card. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Oh well.

Yesterday morning when Annalie realized that we were going to wait for Troy to get home before we started the actual painting, she was rather annoyed. She wanted to paint! She wanted princessy, ballerinaesque, girly-foo-foo pink walls! So by the time Troy got home, we ate dinner and changed into our painting clothes, she was super excited.

We carefully explained to Annalie that if she wanted to paint, she would have to listen carefully to our instructions and follow them. She definitely likes to do things her own way so I thought that might be a dealbreaker right there, but no. Annalie listened, repeated the instructions back to us, and nodded determinedly when we asked if she understood that if she didn’t follow the directions that she would have to stop painting.

I remember when my mom painted my room when I was about Annalie’s age. I was all excited about it till I actually helped with the painting a little and realized how boring it was. I thought Annalie would do something similar. She stuck it out though!

Annalie painted and painted, followed the directions to the letter, and only had a couple of small mishaps (getting a bit of pink paint on the baseboard and accidentally putting her hand on a wet wall when she lost her balance) both of which were things that everyone does sooner or later while they’re painting. In all, I’d say Annalie was responsible for about a quarter of the paint that got on the walls in that first coat, which is pretty respectable for a five-year-old. She just kept rolling on the paint till it was time for bed.

Okay, she stopped a couple of times for breaks, but I don’t blame her for that. Those rollers are heavy when they’re loaded with paint. And five-year-olds may not need coffee breaks but they definitely need silly breaks.

Heck, even dads need silly breaks once in a while.

By the time Annalie announced that she was tired and we realized it was 15 minutes past her bedtime, we’d almost completely finished the first coat. While I got Annalie into bed, Troy finished up and cleaned the rollers and brushes and trays. Today we did it all over again for the second coat.

Even though it’s a bit crazy that we painted right away, I think it was easier since we just had to move boxes around, not a whole room full of stuff. And if there’s anything more exciting than unpacking and setting up in a brand-new room with a fresh coat of paint, I don’t know what it is…unless it’s having wonderful friends who will do the unpacking for you!!!

We are SO looking forward to you getting here, Brenda and Bug! Fly safe!

Whenever I’m going on a road trip, even if it’s a short one, I bring crocheting with me. I can’t read and be social at the same time, but it’s easy to crochet and talk. And if I have to put my crocheting down for a minute to help Annalie with something or look at the map for Troy, I don’t get annoyed like I do when I’m deep into a book.

When we left San Diego, I was actually close to finishing a big crochet project: a blanket for my friend Angela, whose baby girl is due to be born next month. I thought for sure I’d finish the blanket halfway through the trip, so I brought along a second bag of assorted yarn and some stuffing. I figured it didn’t hurt to be prepared in case I needed something else to do once I finished the blanket.

Funny thing is, though, I didn’t touch the blanket once we were on the road. Maybe because I’d been working on it nonstop for a few weeks, I just needed a break. Or maybe I just felt like making potholders.

I made whatever came to mind—headbands, potholders, balls, baskets—with whatever yarn I felt like using. I wasn’t even making anything with anyone specific in mind.

Except these three headbands, which I crocheted at Amanda‘s request. (Amanda, I’ll get these in my Etsy shop for you soon, honest!)

And I made these hearts for Bex and Jo, so I’d have a little gift for them when we met up in Alabama.

These Easter baskest are similar to the ones I made a couple of years ago. If anyone out there wants them, let me know. I’d be happy to list them in my Etsy shop for you.

I guess I crocheted one more thing with a specific person in mind. I made the coffee-cup sleeve on the right for Troy, so he wouldn’t have to use one of my girly ones each time we stopped at Starbucks. I liked it so much I crocheted another brown and green one.

And then I crocheted a brown and pink one (which I’ve been using) and a brown and cream one. If anyone wants one of these, let me know, Etsy shop, etc.

In house news, I put up a bunch of photos on Flickr, mostly ones I took the day we moved in. Go have a look!