Life this Week

Remember the cabinet painting project? 

I got quotes for someone else to paint my cabinets--- one for $950 and one for $3600. I was impressed that I kept a straight face when they gave those quotes to me. Good night! So, of course, we decided to do it ourselves. 

FORTY HOURS of work later, the cabinets are painted and re-hung and look great. I still have touch ups to do, and I drilled one of the door handles higher than it needed to be, and one of the drawer pulls is being stubborn, BUT… other than those things, the project is looking closer to done. 

Before: 

(Sis. Pace, do you see the star? It has hung in our kitchens everywhere we have moved. And I love it.) 

Then we took all the doors down. 

And set up our paint station: 

And put on four (sometimes five) coats of paint---two coats of primer and two coats of legit paint. Legit as in "water based alkyd cabinet" paint. It's beautiful paint, and only caused a small hernia when I bought it. 

Ta da. 

It took a couple of days to get used to all the white. It was rather glaring for a while, but now I like that it makes the room feel bigger (it was already pretty big) and brighter. 

I thought I could get it all done in two Saturdays and a week between, but it took me an extra four evenings to finally get all the doors finished and rehung. But hallelujah, it is close enough to done that I am finally starting to appreciate it. 

Which means I only had one evening to get ready for the Paint Party I'd been planning for a month. So Friday was filled with shoving things in closets, moving everything to the center of the room, and patching up holes in the walls. 

The Paint Party went really well. We had tons of help, and got a lot accomplished. There is still so much more to get done (it's overwhelming if I stop and think and stress about it), but I think that if the Lord wants us to go to Hawaii, He'll find a way to get it all done before we have to leave. All I got to do is trust and work. 

And we've been blessed with lots of help. (That's my sister-in-law, Squid.)

I painted from a little before seven until a bit after midnight. It was a long day. 

It was a long day for Mr. Graff, too. The boys and Mr. Graff spent the day at a friends' house. One of the things they did was play at a park. 

There was a large jungle gym at the park. Mr. Graff refrained from pointing out or encouraging playing on it, but he didn't forbid it either. And watched and waited. Sure enough, Rae discovered and played on it compulsively. 

(Rae's in yellow. We often keep him in bright colors so he is easier to spot at a distance.) 

A large group of kids were there, but when their number dwindled down to three, Rae decided to play with them. He stared down the belly button of a big kid, then shoved him. Then shoved the other two. The big kids were nice to Rae, but laughed at the three year old trying to push them around. Rae was nice, too, after some talking and time-out. 

That's my Rae. Picking on the big boys. 

You can't really see that he's smiling, and how high up he actually is...

He'd laugh and drop to the ground. Sometimes the big kids would bear hug him and help him down. And instead of just walking out of one of the bottom triangles, Rae grabbed for a higher one and walked his feet up. 

Why take the easy way out? 

Our friends had us over for dinner, and then I went back to painting and Mr. Graff took the boys to another friend's house for the night. We are so blessed with good friends. And we got a lot of good work done. 

~~~~~~~~

Joe had a follow up for surgery with his ENT doctor. They put him in a full body swaddle with lots of velcro and had two nurses hold him down while the doctor looked through a microscope into Joe's ears. 

His ear tubes are still in place, anchored well, and open! 

And there are no new masses in his mouth! 

Happy day! 

Last week, Joe tried to swipe a water cup from an unsuspecting deacon, and there was much drama when his attempt was foiled. This week, we figured that it's just water, and let him have his own cup. He put it up to his mouth and tried to drink it, but mostly got it everywhere. And he was super happy and proud of himself. 

Joe has figured out the slide in nursery. It's been about two weeks since he's started getting interested in going up and down the slide, and in those two weeks, he can now do it by himself. That's huge! Way to go Joe! 

~~~~~~~

We've been in renovation/construction/packing mode for [EVER] awhile now, so we're getting creative in kid entertainment and containment. 

This is Caleb playing with toys (a sponge, clean of course, and a foam star) that I attached to the computer table with curling ribbon. He really liked playing with them, until he found the lamp cord. Then, the lamp cord was cooler. 

Our infant seat, walker, and swing are all in storage, and Caleb is not quite big enough to sit up independently, so Mr. Graff engineered a baby croissant seat out of a comforter to contain Caleb while he cooked dinner. 

Genius. 

We think that Caleb is teething something fierce because he is eating only an ounce at a time, generally ornery unless held, and waking up 3-4 times a night. At least we're hopeful that it's a phase and he'll go back to being Baby Wonderful. We still like him, though. 

On the other hand, Caleb is pretty adventurous, fearless. He likes life on the wild side. And he loves his brothers. He needs to be in the middle of whatever is going on, and he can't sleep if there's action that he's missing. He's endlessly curious and wants what you want. 

There's something nice about a herd of little boys. They are wild and funny and love each other. 

Happy Mothers' Day!