Isaac's pre-birthday week

The past two weeks have been pretty crazy. Let me tell you about a few things we did before I launch into separate posts dedicated to the most momentous events.

We left Indy on March 30th and took Meemaw with us, all five of us crammed in our little Liberty. Daddy took one for the team and sat crammed between the car seats in the back seat playing DVD jockey. I think his muscles spasmed for a few days after that.

Daddy then spent much of the week repairing our laundry room. We found out the day before we left for Indy that an old (but major) spillage of water from the washing machine's hose had, surprise, seeped under Daddy's new pergo floor and grown a fantastic crop of mold. We didn't leave until our trash can was heaped over with rotten flooring and our laundry room was stripped down to bare concrete. It was a pain, but in a way it was a good thing, because it motivated us (read: DADDY) to do what we had wanted all along. In three days, Daddy tiled the floor to match the kitchen and landing and shifted the appliances over to the wall on the back of the house. Along the way he also installed a countertop on the cabinets in there, did some brickwork on the outside of the house to move the dryer vent, and installed an overhead shelf/hanging pole as well as some wall storage. The end result is the laundry room of anyone's dreams, with about a billion times more storage than we had before. Oh, and it's green.



Meemaw spent a goodly part of her time with us reupholstering our beloved old leather couch. Now 10 years old, its cushion cover had been worn through. She made us another one from a bolt of fabric we bought a few months ago. Didn't I mention how crafty she is?



Meemaw also brought along her Harry Potter #6, and I pushed her to read it through quickly this time, instead of the year-and-change it took her to get through #5 (the most boring one anyways). My main motivating tool was that we should read it together. That was pretty fun. I hope I can keep up with her as she starts in to #7.

I went to the eye doctor that Tuesday and ordered new glasses for the first time in, oh, eight years. Daddy has been pushing me to get dark rims for just about ever and I finally caved. I really dig them. I call them my hot librarian glasses.



I spent the rest of my week planning for Isaac's birthday. His first celebration was on Thursday at preschool. We go to one of those preschools where the birthday-haver gives small gifts to everyone else -- not too big of a deal because there are only 10 kids in his class -- so that required some attention. I obsessed about it quite a lot. I wanted to get something cheap that didn't look cheap, and was also thoughtful. The Dollar Store helped me out. How did people ever throw kids' parties without it?



Each kid got a fat activity pad, a washable marker, a Ring Pop, and a mix CD of Isaac's favorite movie soundtrack songs. Meemaw made a pan of brownies for Isaac's special birthday snack, and all his buds sang to him at school. Then it was on to cleaning the house in preparation for his real birthday.