Lucy was in the right place and time the other night. I was getting repeatedly kicked in the same spot of my belly, and I had her come over and feel. She felt it and her eyes lit up – super cute. Max is waiting for his turn now…
I’m 21 weeks now, by the by. Please pray for my sleep – I haven’t slept through the night but once in the last 3 weeks. I lose 2 or more hours every night and it is getting brutal.
No sooner was the party complete than I have to finish up the little details of the renter’s room. I spent Sunday afternoon working on assembling a roll-top desk. I had the kids ‘helping’ me. They were mostly yelling and dancing and singing while I tried to decipher the cartoon based instructions. At one point Lucy said to me, "Don’t look, Dad." So of course I looked. I waited 3 beats and turned my head to see Lucy dropping trow(sers) and giving Max a full moon. I laughed and laughed.
Later, Lucy said to Toby "Mom, how big is your bottom?" I kept my mouth shut and waited to hear the answer. Toby said, "It is the perfect size for my pants, so I am happy with it." (She was wearing sweatpants). Lucy would have none of this. She said, "No, I mean how many inches around is it?" I couldn’t keep it in any more. My laughter allowed Toby to make a get away and avoid the answer.
The last few weeks have been completely focused on getting the first floor finished enough to have a baby shower hosted here for Toby’s cousin, Chelsea.
Chelsea’s mom (Toby’s aunt) Bonnie, stayed with us for the long weekend, and was a massive help. She cleaned on Friday, set up the tables and chairs Friday night and then on Saturday got all the food prepared.
The pulling of the paper off the floor and the moving of the cardboard out of the house was done in such a rush that everything was just thrown into the front yard. It was trash city. The kids and I went out early on Saturday and began the yard cleanup. We got all the trash up, Max trimmed some of the bushes and Lucy swept up the front porch. My lawn hadn’t been mowed in months, so I did a ‘pre-mow’ with the weed-eater. I was racing against the clock, but finished cleaning up with about 15 minutes to spare.
As a reward for doing a great job working so hard, I took the kids to see The Tooth Fairy. It was silly and perfect for Max and Lucy.
Below are some pictures that show the insides as the party was being set up. I think more than 30 people ended up attending.
On Thursday night, all the tools were moved out of the house (or hidden in the drawers of the kitchen). After the floors were tool free, the paper came up off the floors. That left a lot of dust everywhere. We swept / vacuumed, dust mopped and then wet mopped to get the floors shiny clean.
Poppa stayed an extra day, working on putting epoxy in the joints of the tiles on Tuesday. When I got home from work, all the joints had been filled. I love those kind of work days!
We worked together to get the edges placed on the long strip of countertop. We used Bondo to attach the 1 3/8" wide strips of granite tile to the edge of the counters. Then we mixed 2 different 2-part epoxies to make the ‘grout’ the color that Toby wanted. In the picture below, you can see that we used masking tape to hold the edge pieces in place while the Bondo cured. The cure only took about 5 minutes and then the tape could come off.
