A Before & After Weekend

This weekend was a before and after kind of weekend. We are feeling the crunch of demo day approaching, as well as a trip approaching, as well as spring (yes - that is right - SPRING!) approaching. So lots to do and so little time - the story of life, right?

Here is what we managed to fit in this weekend. (or at least what was remotely worth taking a picture of.)

First, both of my boys needed haircuts. I didn't get a before picture of Adam but Carter lost a lot of hair! We arrived armed with animal crackers, milk, and a bit of chocolate, but those took a back seat to the dum dums they had. Carter loved the sucker and drooled ALL over the black cape. Then the sucker started collecting little bits of cut hair. Gross. So I convinced him to switch to the animal crackers. We still didn't get those pieces that hang over his ear - I think there are a couple that haven't been cut since he was born - that is just a tough spot.



Also in the after shot of this picture is Carter's first attempt at a booster seat at dinner Saturday night. He didn't last in it the entire meal, but it was a good first attempt.

Let me tell you before you look at the next picture that they are BOTH after shots. I will just have to describe the before. These are the stairs that go down to our basement. And just about every time we go down to the basement we put something else on the stairs. I am even bad about just opening the door and putting something on the top step promising myself I will find a home for it the next time I go downstairs. Not very good at keeping that promise. So, imagine something on every step - tools, mittens, snow jackets hanging over the rail, old baby stuff that Carter has outgrown, water bottles, etc. I was so excited when it was all cleared away that I had to take a picture. We expect these stairs to be used a good bit during the renovation so we wanted them to be easy to navigate.



The other after picture is a newly organized area for my bulk shopping cleaning supplies. It has been really nice to buy a bunch of the big heavy cleaning supply stuff like paper towels, trash bags, toilet bowl cleaner, etc. in bulk and actually have a place to store it! But, again, most of it was just sitting on the basement floor which is not the driest place to store things! So, it feels good for everything to have a home.

And finally, we got to do some yard work this weekend. The forecast is calling for us to reach 60 next weekend (YIPPEE!!!) so I really wanted us to get the pruning done before everything wanted to start growing again.



Adam focused on the crepe myrtles and the zig zag jasmine and I spent most of my time on the nandinas (red now green bushes) and the other evergreen bushes that I don't know the name for.

So all in all a productive weekend. I just made my last full grocery run for awhile - our stove is getting disconnected on Thursday. Anyone have good toaster oven, microwave, or crockpot recipes they want to share? Need them to be super easy with minimal ingredients and minimal mess.