Birthdays and Boxes

AW had a birthday last week!! Woo-hoo!! Happy Birthday, my love!! We celebrated with our family, but it was somewhat low-key. We started the morning by bringing Daddy breakfast in bed, which was great until Jonathan grabbed the apple cider glass and spilled it all over the bed! Luckily the bacon, eggs, toast, and oranges stayed dry! We loved having Daddy home with us this week and it was nice to just have the day to be together as a family!! We really needed this time! We had some good friends (Jim and Martha) come over for dinner, which was great! The boys loved playing with Mr. Jim and they were running around like wild little people before bed. AW and I were hoping they would fall asleep early so we could sneak out to a movie while our friends stayed home with the boys, but of course that didn't happen! They finally were down and quiet about 8:30, so we were out!! Let me tell you how exciting we are....we went to Bed Bath and Beyond and Target!! We needed to get some things for staging our house and it was really nice to go shopping without kids and be able to hold hands!! We have not shopped alone in years!! After shopping, we decided it would be fun to stop by a sushi bar and have a birthday treat---both of us really enjoy sushi! YUM! The chef started our meal with octopus cucumber salad, which was surprisingly good!! We weren't told what it was and we tasted it, liked it, and then asked what we had eaten! I looked over at AW and said, "I just ate octopus and liked it!" Pretty impressive for me! The sushi and spicy salmon and tuna rolls were amazing! It was a fun late-night dinner! Happy Birthday, AW!! We love you!!!

Boxes, boxes, boxes!! They are everywhere!! Our realtor gave us a to-do list four pages long!!! Some are easy things, like remove the towel from the sink in the boys' bathroom for the showing. Ok, done! Some are a bit more time consuming, like mulch all around the trees and shrubs. Ok, 8 bags of mulch later, done! Some are crazy, like put new carpeting down. Nope, sorry, not going to happen! Here's what we've done so far, packed away toys, picture frames, books, clothes, "stuff", put up a wreath on the door, put a mum by the door (to make it welcoming, right Sarah!), bought new "show" towels for our bathroom, organized our clothes in the master closet, took down everything above the kitchen cabinets, took everything off the fridge, cleaned all the appliances, re-arranged and organized the pantry, and the list goes on and on! All this before we can even put the for sale sign out front!! I'm scared to death about having the house show-ready with the three boys! AW is painting all this week. He patched holes in the walls. He covered my mural in the loft (I was sad about that one), he is rehanging pictures. We've been working like crazy people and I don't know when we'll have a chance to slow down!! He goes back to work tomorrow and I'm sad (as always when Monday rolls around) but now I have the added stress of trying to get the house ready and then keep it clean (as much as possible with little kids). We're just praying that the house will sell quickly and we're not in this limbo state for too long!!