Ain't no party like a Liz Lemon party, cuz a Liz Lemon party is MANDATORY.

Hi there,

We are still here, hanging in there. Overall things are going well! One big thing that happened is we picked a church. I think that'll go a loooooong way to feeling settled and also for actually BEING settled. Yay!

I've noticed that by the time Thursday rolls around, everyone in the family is just kind of DONE. We've had preschool, we've had dinner wars all week, we are just ready for some fun. So I've instituted Thursday Family Fun Night.

Week 1, we made a fort with the couch, some sheets and some duct tape, drew up a movie poster, made homemade pizza, and watched Tale of Despereaux. It was a blast. Kind of hard to find a G movie the whole family will like, but I think we pulled it off.

Week 2 was a bit of a cop out, as we pretty much just went swimming in the pool downstairs in our building. BUT it illustrates the power of presentation. We bought some of those noisemakers that you blow into and the little paper rolls out and in (I still don't know how to add pics from the internet. Well, at least you aren't paying for this read, right?) and "surprised" papa when he got home from work. And we called it a pool party. It's the little things, people.

This week I found my inspiration at TJ Maxx while Claire and I were killing time before picking up Ava from preschool. I noticed some cupcake liners and remembered that Ava had requested to make muffins the other day. Cupcake decorating party! It should be messy, messy fun. Let me know if you have any good ideas for Thursday Family Fun Night, week 4!

Little handprints

 

 We put wall art up! We aren't done yet, but it made me feel more settled in, as I knew it would. Looking at this picture, I think we should put up the rest of the hoops. I was kinda thinking that we shouldn't bother putting up all our wall art since we're only probably going to be here for a year, but maybe I need to rethink that. ANYway, just a little snapshot of our our dining room (we have a dining room! Okay, okay, it's an eat-in.)

So, the nature of apartment living is dealing with a lot of builder grade fixtures, but this little area of this house makes me smile. The trim and fixtures don't bother me as much as I thought they might. It may not be to my taste, but it serves our family well, and it's only 12 months. (Actually, 10 1/2 now). Our hallway has closets on either side all the way down and they are covered with mirrors. So, I've just determined that there are going to be fingerprints on them pretty much all the time. My mom tells a story about my dad's mom, who passed away when I was about 6. She said that after we would visit my grandparents, my grandma wouldn't clean our little handprints off of the mirror because they reminded her of us. Little handprints don't stay little for very long, so I'm just going to treasure them while I can. :0)