Yeah for real wood!

After
After

Before

Before

As Samantha's coming got closer, we started looking for a used dresser. It was tough because I wasn't really in the mood to search for a good one, but didn't want to go to Target and buy a cheap particle board dresser either. My mom had a dresser that was her Grandmother's that she was willing to give us -- the problem (for me) was that it was a mess! I didn't mind the color, but there were watermarks and other stains all over it. Nick and I spent a weekend sanding and staining the dresser and it looks fantastic! When Mom saw it, she said, "I want it back!" We are now hoping to find a bookshelf in the same type of wood that we can do the same thing to. It was fun (even though Nick did most of the work) and way cheaper than buying a new real wood piece of furniture.

Yeah for stress!

I love to be stressed. I have as long as I can remember, felt and done best when I've had a million things going on. I had the opportunity to plan our ward's "Super Saturday" because the Enrichment counselor moved and we needed to get it done. It was scheduled for 10 days before Samantha was scheduled to be born.

We had a "Christmas in October" on Friday night, instead of Saturday morning. It was a huge hit -- we had fantastic attendance and I think everyone had a good time. We offered different 5 different craft projects, a service project, a class on using Shutterfly, and cookie mixes in a jar (kind of crafty).

I realized that it wouldn't have been stressful (at all) if I would learn to delegate. I did a little, more of a just in case than because I wanted to, but definitely had my little hand in almost every aspect of the evening. To just organize something is one thing -- to organize and plan and prepare 4 different projects is another. Goal of mine: LEARN TO DELEGATE!

The crayon fiasco!

It is never a good idea to wash a crayon. Good advice: make sure you don't sort laundry on top of crayons hanging out on the floor. They can get picked up and washed. I, unfortunately, made that mistake with a very large load of dark clothing. It was the first time that I washed a lot of the clothes too -- I just finished buying a bunch of fall/winter clothes for Grant and was getting them ready for the first wear. Imagine my horror when I pulled them out of the dryer and found orange crayon on EVERY single piece of clothing. Some were worse than others, but there was at least a handful of marks on each. After researching online (what in the world would I do without the Internet) crayola's website said to use WD-40 and dish soap, and then to wash with oxy-clean and regular detergent. I started with a few items to test it out. I spent a good 2 hours finding the spots, spraying them with WD-40, letting it soak, and then rubbing dish soap into the spots I'd sprayed. I think I only did about 8 items too before I ran out of stuff. I didn't want those stains to set in (in case the WD-40 did damage) so I washed what I had done. I hadn't sprayed the maternity panel of my jeans (not visible=not worth it) or finished one of Grant's shirts because I'd run out of spray, but yeah!!! it came out anyway! Turns out, after a week of procrastinating and 2 hours starting, all it needed was a regular wash with detergent and oxy-clean. Yeah for oxy-clean. I no longer have crayon on anything EXCEPT the only two dark shirts that Nick wears on the weekends! Bummer for Nick, yeah for me!