Monday... I fixed dinner!

It doesn't happen often. And it happens even less from scratch. So I took pictures to document the occasion!

Here is the prep. From back of counter to front: tomato pesto sauce, "Eat This Not That" which had the recipe, french bread waiting to go in the oven, asparagus also waiting for the oven to preheat, chicken breast cooking, water heating up for linguine.

Braden's basketball schedule. It's hard to read, but you can see that the boys had practice from 5-6:30 that night. They weren't home until about 6:45.

The time.... Jon was not home! (He usually cooks and I clean up behind him)

The finished product: chicken, with asparagus and red and green peppers, and whole wheat linguine all in a tomato pesto sauce. Unhealthy white french loaf on the side!

Our New Piano

The pictures loaded backwards, so you may want to go to the end of this post and read up!

Here is the piano in its temporary home in the dining room. I'd like to move it into the front room eventually. I also need to research how to safely sand it down and re-stain it either a darker brown or a black. And it will need to be tuned. But for $10 (gas money for the guy with the trailer), this was too good to pass up! Now Braden needs piano lessons :)

The guys rolling to into the dining room. (Pat, Scott, Jon, and R.J.)

Jon guiding it into the house.

Here it comes! The ramp and the fact that the piano is on wheels made it pretty easy for these big guys!

This is where the piano had been sitting for the past month or two.... waiting for us to come and get it. (the post-it note on the piano has my name on it!)

When the church cleaned house a while back, they had this piano and another piano that they were going to junk. I happened to be there helping that morning and put my name on the better of the 2 pianos! All we had to do was get it home!

And Saturday morning was the big day! The Mulls, who were taking the other piano, had a family member with access to a trailer with a ramp. The men all met at the church, loaded them up, and dropped them off at the houses. I think it took longer driving than it did moving pianos, thanks to the great help they had!

My Hair

Here are some pictures I took of my hair this weekend that give you a better idea of what it looks like.

Later in the Evening

Someone thought boxing sounded more fun than board games. What do you know! We have inflatable boxing gloves in Braden's closet! So...........

Here are Jon and Austin. Jon maintains he couldn't get his hands all the way in and was scared to hit Austin hard and knock him out. (I ordered some new gloves since these were leaking air. Hopefully, they will be able to schedule a rematch so that Jon can defend his name!)

This may be the best picture I've ever taken!

Before Round 2. (Austin had Jordan video this on his cell phone. He was pumped that he beat up a D-1 athlete! His parents both talked to us at church Sunday morning and said what a good time Austin had..... and yes, he showed them the video.)

Kayla and Alyssa gave it a try. Too bad Alyssa couldn't stop laughing long enough to get in a good punch.

Jon and Braden. Braden would only fight Jon if he agreed to stay on his knees. Braden and Nick also went at it.

This one was before any punches had been thrown.

King Cake and Beads!

After RockBand, and a break for snacks, we played a board game where correct answers earned the players beads! Though the boys technically won the games, I think that was due to lucky rolls. We would move one space. They'd move 4! After the games, we had KING CAKE! It was a huge hit!

Here are the girls in their masks and beads: Alyssa, Christina, Audrey, and Kayla

Austin and Dallas in the giant beanbag..... after Austin's 2nd piece of cake.

Audrey found the baby in her piece of cake so she won this fabulous hat!

Kayla enjoying some king cake.

Nick and Braden with their cake and beads.

The girls enjoying their king cake.

Ice Breaker

Saturday night, they all played RockBand as an ice breaker. I didn't get good pictures of everyone, but Jon rocked the mic!

Audrey gave the drums a try and played the guitar.

Austin rocked it on guitar.

More of Jon.

Braden played and sang a little. Alyssa played guitar and drums. And I think a few of the others played when they got here later on. This is the most action RockBand has seen in a long time! I think I'm going to give the guitar a try this week!

For Laci

Since Laci hasn't updated the blog she has where she shares her deals (usually from CVS), I thought I'd share mine today!
I sent Jon to CVS on Saturday morning because Braden was in dire need of Zyrtec. He had a list: Zyrtec, Nature Made multi vitamins (which I had a $3 off coupon for), and some CVS brand mouthwash (which I also had a coupon for).

Zyrtec was on sale for $26 or $27 for a bottle of 45
Nature Made vitamins were Buy 1 Get 1 Free = 2 for $10.99 - $3.00 off
Mouthwash I had a coupon for a free bottle

So he left the store only spending $37...... WooHoo! I thought that was a steal!