I cooked in my kitchen!

Oh, happy day!  All appliances in place and in working order!  Just a few loose ends left to finish before I can actually say the remodel is totally done, but won't it always be a work in progress?  I have targeted my next update--the light over our table has got to go.  It is sooo 1989!

Still awaiting the range hood, 1 light fixture and shower glass to be installed.  We have made a lot of progress with unpacking everything that we removed from the kitchen and bath 2 months ago.  Why does it seem like this has been going on for 6 months?!  Anyway, I did do some sorting at that time to weed out stuff to donate, but now as I am unpacking I am doing the same thing!  This is mostly because I feel like I have all of the essentials in place in the new kitchen, yet there are more boxes awaiting us.  This probably means that we have non-essentials that could go live with someone else instead of cluttering up this place!  Just one small example:

Inside a plastic storage box I found a whole bunch of costume jewelry.  Some of it I actually remembered wearing at about the turn of the century!  Some of it seemed totally unfamiliar to me, like maybe someone else stashed it in there?  And I don't think it was Bob!  So almost all of it went into a bag for the donation box.  One very fine rose among the thorns were those fantastic skeleton earrings!  Halloween, here I come!

Some updates on the kiddos:

Ian cashed in his IOU that we gave him at Christmas to go to a ballgame with us.  Last Sunday we took him to see the St. Paul Saints, our minor league team.  They have a very entertaining ballgame and very family friendly.  They have spectators participate in contests between innings, doing races while rolling a tire around the bases; spinning around until too dizzy to stand then required to cross a finish line; sumo wrestling, etc.  The ballgame was pretty non-existant to Ian, except when the pitchers were warming up right in front of our seats.  His biggest impressions from the excursion were the garbage truck in the parking lot (he loves garbage trucks) and the "funny lady" (a pig mascot wearing a dress).

Jack is now a little over 3 months old, and I propped him up on a pillow for a different perspective.  He is so happy and healthy right now.  His mommy had her first day back at work and he did OK being away from her for 13 hours.  Next week he will start at the same daycare that Ian goes to, so that will be another transition.  Much easier the second time around, and not just for his parents!

Most of my time at home has been devoted to organizing and cleaning.  I have been on a cleaning bender the likes of which this house has not experienced in a long time!  With the new kitchen and bathroom, I feel like the whole place needs sprucing up.  I think I have cleaned and washed in a few places that have not been touched in decades!  Seriously!  But occasionally I take a few moments to sit down and do something like write a blogpost or assemble these little pie pieces:

English paper pieced circles that measure 5" diameter.
Plans for more but not sure where it is all going.
I just get satisfaction in how neatly the points all meet!

 So I hope you are getting some satisfaction from something you are doing, too!