Shut the Front Door

Just a quick documentation of the refinishing of our front door. The new coat of paint we got on the inside inspired me to help our long-neglected front door, and various blogs made it look so easy (don't they always?), so I tackled this task on my own. Our door faces west, so it gets the brutal afternoon sun, and the previous varnish was peeling off for who knows how long. First, I washed the whole door. Then came sanding in various grades of sandpaper. My lovely husband also upgraded our door lock and handle, so that we would have the right surface to refinish. I wanted to go for a darker color for more contrast and better matching of our black shutters, but I didn't want to paint the door and lose its wood look. The answer was gel stain in Java, which you can use in place. Two coats of gel stain (each required 24 hours of dry time), and 3 coats of urethane later (each required 4 hours of dry time), here's our before and after. I like the darker color (it looks almost black, but is just a very dark brown) and the door looks much better equipped to handle another Texas summer. It's not perfect, but it saved us some money from a professional job and hopefully will last a few years. Now, of course, it makes the faded and peeling painted trim look in need of a touch-up, and we'll have to have a pro fix a cracked piece of glass. It never ends...

One funny side note: since it took three days with substantial dry time, the door had to be propped open to allow the coats to dry before they could stick to the door frame. The last coat of urethane went on at about 7pm, so we left it open just a smidge until we went to bed that night. While we were watching TV, I heard a squeak of hinges and knew that a cat had squeezed through the gap (curiosity and all that). We brought her back inside and eventually closed the door for the night, but I suspected I would find fur stuck in the still-tacky varnish. Sure enough, the next morning proved me right with a tell-tale fur swipe! Ugh! At least it came off easily and wasn't more inlaid...

Oma and Papa Over Easter

Two grandparent visits within just a few days?! Amazing! Oma and Papa drove down to spend a couple of weeks in Houston, the first one was with us. The big paint job had just been finished the day before, and soon after their car rolled up, kids got home from school and we had gymnastics and a church egg hunt on the agenda. That's Hadley up on the rope at gymnastics! She rang the bell at the top and conquered some pretty big spaces between knots!

The next day Hadley's grade had a reading picnic that was almost rained out, but we all got to come and hear her read to us while we ate some snacks outside. She's a great reader! We didn't have time in that half hour for her to read the whole chapter book that she brought outside, but she read a chapter for us, as well as a few other shorter books.

Up next was Easter weekend, so O&P went to a lot of church services. The kids had Good Friday off from school, so they were able to spend some extra quality time with them. 

And we found some Easter decorations! This one is a little creepy...

Somehow, we've avoided egg dyeing up until this year, but I thought the kids might enjoy it. I was right! They wished we had more eggs, until I asked them if they would eat all the hard-boiled eggs they wanted to dye. Hmm..., maybe 8 was enough after all. Anyway, it was fun and we had some deviled eggs for our Easter meal.

Easter finally arrived! There was a careful inventory taken of their baskets and plastic eggs. Apparently, the Easter bunny did not hide eggs very well this year...

After church (I wish we had taken a family photo while we were all dressed up!), there was a harder egg hunt upstairs. Someone brought their A game, and someone did not...

That evening we hosted family for some traditional ham (who knew it took an hour to bake ham?), smoked pork loin, and pot luck sides and desserts. We managed to find seating for 13, including a kids' table! It was so nice to be all together, even among bare walls and boxes.

Too soon, it was time for Oma and Papa to leave for their week over at Uncky Dan's house. We sure had a great visit. The kids got to show them their new house, school cafeteria, gymnastics class, church, and a soccer game! Can you tell that the kids did not want to see them go?

We were able to reunite for an afternoon before O&P had to head back to Ohio. Time was spent at D&J's house and then at a local brewery where we even got a rare extended family photo!

Kitchen Paint

It's been kind of fun to keep track of our house project before-and-afters on here. When they say a fresh coat of paint can do wonders, it's no lie! The paint in our kitchen/living room was light tan walls with darker tan trim, doors, and cabinets. We took the dark tan trim back to white and made the walls a uniform light greige (grey or beige depending on lighting), and it made such a difference! Dingy to bright! I really don't understand brown crown molding...

The kitchen was fine, but sort of blah. The trim was the same color as the cabinets, and since we were making the trim white, it followed to make the cabinets white, too. I've always wanted a white kitchen! I like it a lot.

Here's what spurred on the new wall paint. The previous owners had big window treatments in place when we bought the house, which they took with them, but they were supposed to "touch up" the holes left in the wall when they took them down. This is what we got. Gee, thanks. Ten abandoned paint cans in the garage, and none seemed to match the existing wall paint either. The polka dots had to go!

And sometimes new furniture helps too. Now it appears we need a bigger TV. Ha! We're slowly settling in and it's finally starting to feel like home. Maybe the house projects will slow down, but there are still quite a few on our list.

Busy Weekend

April is a generally pleasant time to be outdoors in Texas, and the events really ramp up this time of year. Our neighborhood kicked off Palm Sunday weekend with an egg hunt, complete with Easter bunny, face painting, bouncy house, and all kinds of desserts. One kid decided he was not interested, but one took full advantage!

She was all business at the egg hunt, and although they were limited to ten eggs each, her basket and recounting of the event had her brother rethinking his decision to skip it. 

The next day before O's soccer game, we were able to take in a car show in a neighborhood by the soccer park. They had a pretty good mix of new and old, sporty and comfy, sleek and boxy. I asked Owen which car he wanted his picture next to, and he chose the Lamborghini and the "Never Forget" car.

Finally on Sunday, we drove north an hour and a half to surprise Granna and Grandad for his 78th birthday and their 54th wedding anniversary. They've been to 49 states, so we thought a Hawaiian meal might fill that Aloha void for now. It was really great that all of us could come together for that time, albeit short, and they were very surprised!

Though one brother had to make the return drive to DFW, the rest of us headed back to the ranch for a little fresh air, gift opening, and egg hunting. It was a beautiful spring day, and we got to see some bluebonnet patches along the highways. We've said it before, but I'll say it again. It's so nice to be able to do a day trip and see family!

April Fools

We started off April down one parent for the week. It was a bit of a rough start with discovering a long-term slow water leak under a bathroom sink, roaches surviving bug spray, and a shower rod falling into Hadley's nose. And that was just Monday - April Fool's Day, of course! Here's the poor dear nearly a day after it happened; you can see it was right between her eyes. (Ignore the marks by her hairline - that's from her bike helmet.) And a side picture when the bruising appeared by her eye a couple of days later. I was concerned that she might have broken it, but it appears to have returned to a mostly normal shape now. Phew!

Fittingly, the kids' school had a Munchies with Mom day this week. We had to show up at 7 am for some pastries and juice, all ready for the day. Next year, maybe we'll do our own MWM day and sleep in instead. 

That same day, I volunteered to help out Owen's grade with a science lab on animal adaptations and life cycles that they were studying. My station was the blubber lab where we used Crisco to simulate insulation from ice cold water, but one of the moms is a biology professor at the University of Houston, and she brought some cool specimens and slides, too. I found these pictures on the school web site! That's O on the microscope.

We also survived two weekends and a full week of soccer practices, soccer games, gymnastics for H, and daily swim lessons for both.

Owen even got to play goalie for about the last 5 minutes of one of the games.

To celebrate surviving our hectic week, we ventured to a local Tex-Mex restaurant that has a nice big patio and a sandy play area for the kids. It was a hit with them!

It was a warm weekend, and the kids wanted to wash Dad's car, so it would be clean upon his return. At least everything from the hood down got wet...

Reunited! Of course, a big storm blew in and closed the airport, so he had a few hours of delay and was re-routed to San Antonio for fuel, but eventually, he made it home!