Oh the excitement!

THEY PAVED OUR ROAD TODAY!!!!!!

That may not be so exciting for our readers, but trust me, this is very exciting news in our household. Like new-baby exciting. Or winning-the-lottery-exciting. Or Trump-and-Clinton-have-both-decided-to-step-down-as-presidential-candidates exciting. 

Ok, maybe not that exciting, but I did catch myself loudly squealing with joy when I saw what was happening before I realized what I was doing. And I'm not an overly emotional person so that says a lot. With a 90% chance of rain forecasted for today, the kids and I prayed last night (a few times) for the rain to hold off until our road was paved. And it did just that! They finished about 20 feet past our property line before they had to quit due to the rain.

It's looking like our new living room will be done this week, too. Seth just needs to finish up the trim, and we can move the furniture in and start using it. I'm looking forward to this even more than I was looking forward to having the road paved.

I hope Charlie will like the new living room with a play area for him. So far he hasn't been a big fan of the remodel. He has asked on several occasions to have our old kitchen back. He also misses our old bathroom and our old sink (barf). Unfortunately for him, the first thing we have done so far that he liked was temporarily move all of our furniture into the current living room so we could finish the floors and trim in the new living room. 

This is the state of the living room we have been using for the last 2 weeks. Cozy, in't it? Charlie took one look a this arrangement, and said, "YES! I love it!!!"

I, on the other hand, am very anxious to have more than a few square inches of floor space in our living room. And to not having to rescue poor Frankie from getting wedged in between all the furniture 5 times a day. Most of my time at home since Frankie became mobile has been spent just keeping him safe. If it weren't for the older kids who have been forced to  willing to help watch him for a bit every day, I would be so behind in basic day-to-day chores I would have long ago lost hope of catching up before the end of the decade. 

Of course, being the mother of 4 kids, I don't actually have any expectations of being genuinely "caught up" until our youngest is a sophomore in college at least. Fortunately, 9 years of motherhood has prepared me to happily accept the persistent feeling of being behind and to let things go enough to continue enjoying our beautiful (although dirty) family. Double fortunately, my parents have frequently swooped in to take the kids right when I'm about to hit the "I can't do it anymore" state.  I do hope that once the project is done, the phrase "Hmmm...I wonder what I should do next" will pass through my brain from time to time.  It's been a long time since there hasn't been something (or someone) pressing it's way to the foreground of my mind screaming "Me next!!! You need to take care of me next!"

To give you an idea of what I mean, here is a clip of the condition of our house while Frankie mastered the art of walking. As you can see, it doesn't exactly scream, "Go ahead and let your 10 month old roam free and unsupervised while you get a few things done." 

And just to be clear, he is completely covered in sheetrock dust, a look similar to but not to be confused with the pasty-white-summer's-over-Minnesotan look.