Extreme Makeover - Virg's Room Edition

The boys finally did it!  Virg's room is now officially:  the boys' room.  It took no little effort on their part to install the new IKEA furnishings - assembly required.  The first challenge was getting the numerous and very large boxes of parts home in the extremely compact (and not at all designed to carry 4 passengers and a bunch of big stuff) family car.  Mommy had more than a few "uh-oh" moments on the way home as Daddy turned a corner and the boxes went shimmying towards one or the other of the boys' heads.  And that turned out to be the easy part.  Next there were the days and nights spent with the hex wrench and hundreds of screws that all look the same, but are slightly different lenghts, creating no lack of undoing and redoing steps along the way.  And then there was the fact that many of the maticulously counted out screws, nails, etc. were regularly carted away in one of Virg's construction trucks to be deposited somewhere else in the house at a different construction site altogether.  Yet, despite all of these challenges, and with the help of all of the Wierd Al hit albums Daddy could find at the time, the job was done.   Emmett has moved in and is very happily installed in the bottom bunk.  The roommates seem to be doing quite well during the honeymoon phase of their co-existance.  We'll see how long it lasts.

Virg is on call with hammer at the ready.

Emmett impishly grinning out of the middle of his new chest of drawers.  How did he get in there anyway?

Boys in the bunk.

Easter - The Waiting Game

Virg realized this year that Easter is a lot about building character through the lesson of patience.  Egg dying is a perfect example.  Step 1: You wait for the eggs to boil.  Step 2: You wait for the eggs to cool.  Then, when you think it's finally time to get the show rolling, Step 3:  you plop the eggs in cups of dye and wait some more.  Another example, Easter Day delays.  It starts first thing in the morning, when you hurry up to get dressed so you can go downstairs and find what the Easter Bunny left for you, but first you need to wait for brother so you can both find your baskets at the same time, and then pause for the requisite commemorative photo before you can actually touch the basket.  Same story for Easter dinner.  Hurry up, wash hands and get to the table, but hold on, you can't touch any of the mouth-watering dishes until you pose for a variety of family photos.  By the time Virg got to the Easter egg hunt (which, of course, required waiting until all the eggs were hidden in the garden), he had had enough.  Waiting was no longer an option, and Virg vacuumed up those plastic eggs like a Hoover on a sugar high.  It took all of about 45 seconds and the egg hunt was over.  Virg - 16, Emmett - 3.  But not to worry.  By next year, Emmett will have honed his egg hunting skills and, as he will be just as sick of waiting as Virg, he is sure to give Virg a run for his eggs. 

Virg and Emmett find interesting things to do with markers (which don't include coloring their Easter pictures) while waiting for the eggs to dye. 

Virg, posing dutifully for the official Easter morning photo prior to digging into his Easter basket.

Wait for it, wait for it.  Hands off the food until we're done with pictures.  Nobody blink.

Virg is just a blur as he speeds through the Easter egg hunt in record time.