Catching up...

...is hard to do! I recently realized I had not sorted photos THIS YEAR. Not this month, not recently, not THIS YEAR. I have hundreds of digital pictures sitting in virtual piles in my computer. So with all the blogging I HAVEN'T done, and all the catching up I WANT to do...and all my piles of pictures...I'm techni-stressed.

In my defense, we DID move...and ARE remodeling...and STILL homeschooling. In addition to that, our internet connection is...what's the right word..."Challenged". (That is, if we accidentally unplug our modem, we have to wait 1 or 2 weeks before it relearns that it is a modem, and it has a job to do.)

So, after all my venting...here are some pictures :)

What we have been up to lately:

-The House-

While I did blog on the social aspect of having WonderWoman here, I didn't show off our work!

Here's a tour of what she accomplished.

We set her to work peeling paper from our lovely bathroom...


and it went so well, we decided to give her some more! The Breakfast area:


The Kitchen:




and the Powder Room, which I forgot to photograph. She was like the "Unpaper-the-wall-Queen". Then, we were really livin' in style for awhile. Compared to the old paper, it was sheetrock paradise.

Next, she helped me decorate some of the rooms that were already painted.

Exhibit 1:


Exhibit 2:


And, my other great picture must be on WonderWoman's camera. Phooey.

So, next, we got to paint!

Here's a bad picture of the den...

It really just is not going to look right until we get rid of the PINK carpet, I'm afraid.

The Breakfast room:


and the kitchen:


By now, you may be wondering, where are all the people?, and what are those things lined up on the kitchen table?

I'm glad you asked!

-The People-

Whilst we were painting, the kids were busy outside (for once) and kept us amused with their discoveries.



William came in with something interesting...


...an army of cicadas! Er, cicada "suits"...I guess all the cicadas are running around our yard naked.


Maybe he brought them in to help eat the crumbs off my table. Good thinking.

They also found a pet...


...a pretty nice-sized Box Turtle.


We kept him for a week or two. A first, he fasted for a couple of days, probably out of sheer terror. But, we were finally able to convince him to eat. He liked bread and apples, and most of all, raw hamburger. He had good manners: he liked to eat his food off of a fork...something I sometimes wish certain ones of my boys would do...

After painting, I needed a snack:


Then the guys got to work on William's new ceiling fan (a fan which I might add, William picked out himself) :


It proved to be a two-man, two-day job...




...but the results were well worth the effort.


(Is that the essence of a satisfied expression, or what?)

And Satisfied is how I feel to have all these pictures ready to post! I'm off to do more virtual housekeeping!