Surprise Paint Job

The 2nd weekend in February I drove up to Salem with the kids to help celebrate Katy's 2nd birthday. It took a lot of effort to not crazy overplan the trip. I had to keep reminding myself that when we'd drive the 3 1/2 hours to Pennsylvania to visit Matt's family for a 2 or 3 day weekend, we'd usually have just 1 or 2 specific things we'd plan on doing. It was mostly just hanging out and visiting. So I tried to apply the same thing on this trip. I think we (my sisters, mom and I) are still so used to only being together once a year that we try to cram as much stuff into the day as we can think of. I'm pleased to say that it was an improvement, but still needs some work.

Matt was a little sad to be without us for the long weekend, but I told him this way he could sleep in as long as he wants and go fishing for as long as he wants without having to have any daddy duty. I might have mentioned that if he got bored he could paint a room or two, but not to worry since we had a 3 day weekend coming up where we could also knock a couple of rooms out.

Well, to our great surprise when we got home on Monday evening (Matt was at a late out of town meeting) the previously wood paneled office was now a fresh milkweed/alfalfa color and the girls room a lovely pink with no more hideous wallpaper! I was blown away. Especially that the textured wallpaper was gone, that in itself seemed a weekend project to me. Plus he'd cleaned and vacuumed the whole house. It was a wonderful welcome home surprise indeed.

Evalyn was delighted to have pink walls.I think she'd been feeling a little left out since I'd recently added Winnie the Pooh wall decals to Henry's room. When she asked about putting up her Princess ones that I'd bought at the same time, I told her we had to paint first. Thanks to Daddy's long weekend hours (he did get some fishing in too!) she'll get her Princess stickers a lot sooner!