The Frantic Clean, and a (belated) Thanksgiving recap

Today was the day I'd planned to clean for Greg's upcoming arrival.  A few days early, but I figured this would give me a chance to get a reasonable amount of things done each day without going totally crazy.  Let me just tell you: the nesting urge, once fully unleashed, is a frightening and powerful beast.  The children helped some, because of course the Best Thing Ever is to squirt excessive amounts of cleaning supplies all over everything, and we actually had a very nice day together.  Things accomplished today:

Children's toys picked up and put into their room
Floors in living room, guest room and sun room swept and vacuumed, including rolling up area rugs and getting under them.
All furniture moved and cleaned under (vacuumed inside couches, moved piano, corner bench, etc.)
Living room and my room dusted.
7 loads of laundry washed and hung to dry (= 14 trips up and down 2 flights of stairs)
Both bathrooms cleaned.
Some windows and both glass doors Windexed.
Microwave scrubbed out.
Kitchen cabinet surfaces wiped down.
Hood and stove range cleaned on top of and under.
Oven door window scrubbed.
Computer room partially organized.

I still want to wipe down the inside of the refrigerator, finish the computer room and hit a few other clutter spots, but I had to stop myself after 8 hours.  It's 10 at night right now.  The children have been in bed for 2 hours, and I'm just now finishing my dinner.  I will clean more...if I can still move tomorrow.  I'm telling you though, this level of Crazy Clean feels good.

This is very belated to post about (although when has that ever stopped me?), but we had Jonathan here for Thanksgiving weekend!

Jillian had a big Thanksgiving dinner at her house.  Lavella, teething two teeth at once, had refused a nap all day, so this is how she spent the first part of the later afternoon:


Thankfully she roused herself part-way through, and was quite the character for the rest of the evening.


Jonathan and I were responsible for most of the desserts, so we brought Pumpkin Ice Cream Pie (with dark chocolate almond bark, whipped cream and toffee sauce), and Butterscotch Pumpkin Pie (with Scotch spiked whipped cream).  Both were huge hits, and rather delicious, although Jonathan preferred the latter (guess which one he made). 


(Sorry, the picture sucks, but I kept having to jump up and help the children with stuff, so it started melting before I could get a good shot)

Also, because I'm excessive, I decided that I needed to make two types of candy as well.

Chocolate rum balls (recipe to come soon):


And vanilla marshmallows:


On the last day he was here, we struck on a fun idea.  He ran out to get take-out from the local Asian Bistro (their name for it, not ours -- just "Asian".  Really darn good food though; some sort of Chinese/Thai fusion.).  We set up the computer room with my little collapsible tables, and then watched on the computer an episode of Bizzare Foods on Thailand.  Everyone ate happily, and the kids thought it was the coolest thing ever to be "eating what the other Andrew is eating!!"

(I love all of their expressions in this shot)



We also visited the Midevil Christmas Market at a nearby castle ("OUR" castle), which wound up being kind of fun, but very, very cold in the end.




Overall, we had a wonderful visit, and look forward to seeing him Christmas weekend!  (He and Greg will probably be cooking dinner -- should be fun times!)


Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to all of you, and much love from our family to yours.

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