The weekend just wasn’t long enough for me.  I’m pooped!

Friday night we kicked off our weekend by signing papers for a home equity line of credit for our addition (still planned for later this Spring).  Trevor left at the same time to go see the new Justin Bieber movie with a (female) friend of his.  When we got home I made Artichoke Chicken Delight for dinner and we spent the remainder of the evening looking through a scrapbook that Jim’s dad had brought over earlier in the week; a scrapbook of newspaper articles and photographs mostly from his high school years.  We had no idea he was such an all-star athlete!! 

We scanned several of the newspaper articles and photographs.  This article says it all:

We picked out a few favorite photos to put up on the heritage wall:

We really enjoyed looking through the scrapbook!

Trevor came home about 9pm and brought his friend (and his friend’s brother and dad) in with him and the five kids played while us adults chatted and next thing we knew it was 1:15am and everyone was still awake!  WOW!  That’s super duper late for us 9:00-bedtime folks!  

Saturday morning, after sleeping in until 8:30 (if you can call it that when you go to bed at 1:30am), I made French Toast for breakfast (Riley’s favorite) and started a load of laundry and tried to make a plan for the remainder of the day.  I could go to the mall to shop for new glasses (and new tops), or I could lounge on the couch and watch back-to-back movies and relax, or I could be productive and finish our taxes and do some yardwork.  Jim was going to be leaving around 1:00 to go hang out with his dad and cousins….the kids and I decided we would stay home. 

Trevor’s friend came over at noon, and we thought we’d go to the mall, but the weather was so sunny and warm (Sunday wouldn’t be as nice) and President’s weekend is our annual kick-off for yardwork.  The kids were having fun on their own so I nixed the shopping expedition and offered all 4 kids the opportunity to help me (or at least hang out with me outside), in exchange for a can of soda, but they declined.  Except Brooke, who came out to help me wearing her shimmery gold and black velvet formal dress and heels (of course).  She decided she wasn’t strong enough to pull the lily stalks from the ground, nor rake up the leaves clean-enough, nor carry the debris bucket to the compost bin, so she gave up.  Poor kiddo.  =o(

I spent about an hour-and-a-half outside pruning back the two spindly overgrown clematis, pulling all the dead leaves from around the various lily plants, and pulling the lily stalks, I trimmed all the ornamental grasses down to just 6″ tall.  Raked leaves (we never finished raking our yard last fall!), pulled the dried stems and leaves from the mum pots, pulled all the dead annuals from the flower beds, and put most of the dried yard debris into our new composter.  Spun the composter several times (it’s reallllly heavy now!).  We won’t be able to have such a large compost pile after the addition is built, so we picked up one of these barrel composters from Costco.  So far so good!

I don’t mind yardwork when it’s sunny outside!  We still need to pull out all the Shasta Daisies (want them?  We’re tossing ’em!) and prune the trees, and of course there’s still the entire front yard to do!  But at least the backyard is looking better, and that’s what I see the most out my windows.

By the time I came in and got cleaned up, it was 4:00 and the kids were hungry.  Oopsie, I didn’t make them anything for lunch!  Something tells me they were OK though, I found an empty Doritos bag and several apple cores.

The original plan of Enchilada Casserole for dinner was nixed (Jim wouldn’t be home for dinner anyway) so we headed out and picked up the kids’ favorite pizza (disgusting Little Caesar’s Hot’n’ Ready pizzas- yuck) and then I settled on the couch to watch “It’s Complicated”.  Jim came home shortly after I started the movie and surprisingly watched it with me.  There’s several laugh-out-loud moments in it and it was OK.  I was ready to watch a 2nd movie, but Jim was too tired.  I decided I was too tired, too!

Much more normal bedtime that night.

Sunday morning was typical: reading the paper and shopping the ads while sipping coffee, I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, we finished up the laundry.  We made a short list of projects:

– clean up the office/workout-room to make room for a Bowflex
– group garage sale stuff together and put up in the attic
– move a chest up into the attic (replacing with a black cabinet)
– pick up pellets for the wood stove
– check the trailer for water (dri-z-air bowls) and mice (ick)
– spray the weeds
– bring the play kitchen back into the playroom
– Sarah & Ryan would be delivering the Bowflex and a cabinet between 3-4pm

And so that’s what we did.  Everything on the list was done before 2:30pm.  Even had a 1/2 hour visit at my parents while we checked on the trailer (which unfortunately DID have mouse activity, but fortunately the only droppings were located on the floor around the poison, no droppings on the furniture or bed or table, etc. so I think we’re OK there).

Trevor and I worked on rearranging the playroom.  Baby Eva is no longer a “baby” so I was able to empty the back corner of the swing, exersaucer and bassinet playpen.  The corner has been converted to a play house area with a play kitchen, baby dolls, doll furniture and strollers, etc.  The little kiddos are so excited to have all the “new” stuff in there! 

The Bowflex was delivered and fits perfectly between the treadmill and elliptical.  We need to remove the giant rug though and make some small adjustments to each item’s location, but otherwise works well.  I was able to use the elliptical without bumping my head on the pull-down bar for the Bowflex, nor bump my elbows on anything.

We left a message in with our architect to find out when we can expect to receive the finalized plans (they are with the engineering firm right now).  I have a short list of contractors to call, need to add a couple more names, though.  I want to interview FIVE.  And we want to get started SOON.

So that brings us to today…Monday…the President’s Day Holiday.  Kids are home from school, I’m down 3 daycare kiddos so it’s pretty quiet.  Everyone is enjoying the new playroom arrangement which makes my job a little easier (for the short term at least) other than preventing squabbles over the newest toys that nobody wants to share.  =o)

This week has some busy plans:

– ballet class and Costco shopping trip tonight
– Riley has a group piano lesson tomorrow night
– Jim and I both have evening eye appointments later this week
– I have a Daycare Training class to attend on Thursday

Whew!