Labor Day weekend ~ a blur

It was a combination of bits of several TV shows. Our weekend was a lot of TLC's Clean Sweep, a pinch of ER (we never had to take Kylie for her burn but I sure was thinking we would for a while), and even a taste of Jon and Kate plus 8 (only four kids today at the pool, but the boys have enough energy to make up for the other four).

Ian and I spent ALL DAY Saturday working on the downstairs of the house. I'm proud to say that we now have the "showroom closets" where there are only about ten things on hangers and nothing falling off the shelves. Ian's office would be clean, but that is currently where we are storing all the "sell" stuff. Honestly though, I'm not sure that I'm going to have the mental and physical energy to even do a yard sale, all that may end up at Goodwill... We never even stopped for dinner, Papa John's brought us a large pizza and a 2 liter of Coke. About 10:30 that night it occurred to me that I had never even gone outside so I walked out to get the mail.

Sunday we decided to take the day off from working here, but I did make a run to Target and Lowe's to pick up a few things we need for storage and giving the house that coveted "curb appeal." This of course was after dealing with Kylie's hand. Oh that was dreadful! Her little fingers are so blistered! But she's taking it like the little "tough nugget" she is and keeps looking at us saying, "My boo-boo almos bedder!"

Monday Ian tackled the garage and made some amazing progress while I continued to clean out the kids rooms upstairs. Now if I can just keep Kylie out of her room so that it remains perfect... Seriously, I got their closets down to respectable levels and began working on the linen closet (man we've accumulated a lot of towels and sheets in 9 years ~ it was time to purge!) and our room.

We decided that enough was enough and headed to my mom's for some pool time and a cook-out. My cousin Tricia and her three (the triple A's) were there. It was a beautiful afternoon and we had a great time. I had a premature "senior moment" and had forgotten my camera (I'm using the excuse that I've got a lot on my plate right now), but I have some cute pictures from last Sunday when they came over to swim. Just change the bathing suits on most of the kids and replace the Sun Chips with a bag of Santa Fe Ranch Lay's chips and you'll have a look at Labor Day...

Ian tossing Adam. The first time he was a bit nervous, but then he kept asking him to do it again!

How high can Andrew fly?
And yes, Ian was quite sore the next day...

"My turn Daddy!"

Abby and Kylie enjoying a snack. I'm calling Sun Chips ~ I think we have a potential advertising shot!

One side note worth mentioning... Those that know Kylie well realize that a good indication of her being tired is that left thumb in her mouth. I've often wondered how we'll ever break the habit, but I've also been glad that sucking her thumb helps her fall asleep. (I've found myself saying, "put your thumb in your mouth sweetie" when it's time to sleep on more than one occasion). Can you guess which hand she burned? Yep, of course, the left one. Last year when we noticed how badly she was building up a callous on her thumb we tried to get her to take a pacifier. She never got used to it to spare her thumb then, but during clean up yesterday I came back across it. Funny girl, she prefers it to her right thumb. It helped her go to sleep last night and at least we can take this away one day...

By the way, I was just looking back at old pictures for some to fill an album for Caleb (in anticipation of getting our RA this week ~ today is day 81) and saw the file from last year's Labor Day. That was when Kylie smashed her finger in the door at the kennel. Apparently Labor Day is a bad weekend for Kylie's hands...