JiffyPop & Star Wars

Tonight we introduced Ben to JiffyPop and the girls to the original Star Wars trilogy. 

Thanksgiving Centerpieces

I took the girls to paint some pottery while Joel and Ben watched the Eagles game at a sports bar. I chose some Thanksgiving-themed items to use for our table on Thursday but the girls were into more of an ocean theme (since we are, after all, at the beach). Becca chose a fish and Caroline chose a mermaid (which she painted to death as usual). 

Preseason Tournament

Quick pit stop before heading to Hilton Head so Ben could play his first game with his new basketball team. They didn't win which was fine with me since that would have meant hanging around for another game. We were able to hit the road by 10:30 (thanks to a furious day of packing and errands yesterday by you-know-who and an early start this morning to pack the car and get to Ben's game by 8:30). 

Welcome Back

I will never take the microwave for granted again! Did you know it takes eleven minutes to cook microwave pancakes in the conventional oven? WHO HAS THAT KIND OF TIME?!

Backsplash Before, During and After

Before:

Demo:

After:

It still needs to be cleaned and my microwave still needs to be hung up. 

Party Planning

Besides the junk purge -- and getting Joel's car inspected/oil changed and renewing his registration and paying the (ahem, slightly overdue) vehicle property tax, I also started planning Caroline's birthday party. We are having it at a children's art studio and I want to have an undersea theme for the art projects and a mermaid themed birthday cake. This will be the first "real" birthday party we have had for her with all her school friends. The only problem is I don't know where to get a gluten free cake for her! I have started to make some inquiries on that front so hopefully we will get something figured out :)

Got Junk?

We said goodbye to some piles of crap we seemed to have accumulated recently -- mostly furniture and appliance boxes, but also left over construction materials (tile, grout, backer board, old roof shingles and random other crap that was left here by the people who lived here before us that we never managed to get rid of). We also disposed of the living room area rug, whose purpose largely consisted of hiding the floor so people wouldn't notice it was a different type of flooring than the rest of the downstairs. Now that everything is being refinished it should look much more similar to the rest of the floors.  We need to get a smaller rug that hides dirt better than that one did. The garage, which will be temporary home to most of our downstairs furniture next week, is much cleaner now.