A Fresh Start... literally

Happy Easter! We had a really great Easter- filled with lots of fun, family and FOOD! The girls looked beautiful (we woke up at 7am to start getting ready for church at 10am, so it wasn't exactly effortless...) in their matching outfits... we watched the flurries come down outside as we put on our white spring shoes and our sleeveless dresses. Church was wonderful and Michaela sang in her first ensemble/small group with Creator's Crusaders. She did great! We sat with JuJu and Uncle Dick at church and they gave M and J some treats and DVDs from the Easter Bunny. The we went to my parents to do the famous Easter Basket search using the hot/cold technique. We returned home and Paga came for lunch, bearing cute bunny purses and fun candy and toys for the girls. Later in the afternoon my parents came to our house and we had a nice ham dinner. It was busy but lots of fun.

In other Libutti news, the bathroom is almost done!!! We started using it this weekend and have never felt cleaner. We are thrilled with the results and feel like the bathroom is now the nicest room in our house! All that is left is to do the final sanding and painting of the walls and trim. We are going to miss seeing our contractor every day... the girls really grew to like him. We even baked him some cookies on Friday! He started talking about doing another job and I got jealous- he's OUR contractor!! It has been a long 17 days of not showering regularly... I was thrilled to be clean and wearing makeup two days in a row! When it is all done I will post the final "after" pictures.

This week coming up is Michaela's Spring Break, so she is off from school, choir, swim lessons and any other structured activity. We are all looking forward to the respite. We are probably going to Lee, MA shopping for Michaela one day and also spending a day with the Strausses (we went to their house on Saturday for an awesome Easter Egg hunt... the girls had a ball!).

Two cute stories of the week: On Thursday, I told Michaela we had to do a big cleanup of her room. She said to me, "Mommy, I have a great idea... why don't I have a sleepover at Gammie and PopPop's and you and Daddy clean it up while I'm gone?" (One time in the fall we threw out two GARBAGE bags full of junk from her room while she was at their house under the guise that we 'cleaned it up' for her.) I told her, "No, I think we were going to do it today." And she said, "But that's what you did the last time!" We did work together and got it looking good.

On Friday night, Michaela had gone to bed and Jenna was still awake because she had taken a very late nap. She wanted to watch a DVD and I said no. She waved it in front of my face, showed me the DVD player, anything she could think of to indicate she wanted to watch it. I kept saying no and telling her it was time for bed. Finally in desperation she clutched it to her chest, leaned close to my face and said, "Peeease?? Peeeease??" Even a new word for please and good manners wouldn't make me relent! She did eventually settle down and go to sleep.

Well, that is enough news for now... hope you all had a great Easter.