what's up weekly. (catching up from like forever ago. POST ONE!)

Hi there!  Remember me?  Paige Van Voorst?  I'm the one with the million kids?  No?  Not ringing a bell?

Photo from last summer for effect.  I'm the one in the red shirt and giant pregnant belly.

I realize it's been a while.  There has been a lot going on around here and I just haven't had the time to sit down and document it all.  So maybe if I jump in and tell you what has been happening, it'll jog your memory and we can become fast friends again.  I'm going to do a separate post for each week I have missed, so let's go waaaaay back to the beginning of June.

Last time I checked in, we had just celebrated Mes'morial Day and were balancing the pace of summer with prepping to sell our house.  We spent a lot of time cooking and eating outside so that the house wouldn't smell like cooking when people walked through.  (Our realtor said that my house perpetually smells like bacon.  I personally don't see the problem with that, but just in case someone was hoping to buy a pristinely kosher or halal house, they might be tricked into thinking we never cook pork if I just let the house air out a bit.  Sure.  Seems likely.)

I also had carpet cleaners come do the basement carpet because "Missouri humidity + basement carpet + sweaty boys' room" is apparently not a recipe for recreating the smell of the crystal clear air of the Alps.  So carpet cleaning and a dehumidifier came to the rescue.  

We celebrated Pentecost that Sunday (June 5)... 

Pentecostal Reformed Presbyterians: only a thing on Pentecost.

...which was also the day Atticus turned thirteen-and-a-half. He is now closer to fourteen than thirteen, and that is all I feel like saying about the matter.

We had cleaning ladies come in for a light cleaning of the whole house, and I have two things to say about it.  First, I loved it.  Everything in the house was clean simultaneously for a little while.  The bathroom caulk was white for once.  You know, that kind of thing.  

Second, it was validating.  It took two professional women two and a half hours to get it done.  That's five man-hours.  They weren't splitting their time between cooking and childcare and laundry and school and personal hygiene and cleaning, and it still took them five combined hours to do a light cleaning.  When I feel like keeping up with the cleaning is sometimes hard, it's apparently because it actually is.  Not an impossible challenge, or one I resent at all.  It was just nice to know that the honest calculations reflect that it does take a good amount of work.  (And it inspired me to do a little bit better myself when it comes to my weekly work - it's amazing how much better it looked and felt to have things truly clean.  I want to do a better job so I can feel that way more often!)

And we continued to truck along with house prep.  I borrowed a power washer and blasted the front step and driveway clean.  

The kids literally had front row seats.

Atticus got to try his hand at power washing.  We have together decided that a power washer of our very own ought to be in our future.

Todd and I worked together to replace the ballasts in the laundry room lights.

Todd replaced the dead battery in Goldie Honda so we could move her out of the driveway and onto the street for showings and photos.

And speaking of taking listing photos: the realtor's photographer came over to take pictures, and wanted to start in the backyard where the kids were playing.  So all the kids rushed into the garage so they wouldn't be seen by the drone, and they forgot Juni behind.  So the drone was flying all around the yard, and she was hiding behind the air conditioner and all you could see was her little waterspout ponytail over the top.  Poor baby, she was so scared of the drone and being left by herself.  You can't see her in the photos, but you can see a bunch of kids' heads peering out the garage door window.

And don't worry - we didn't forget it's summer, so we spent our free time accordingly.  

We got our first Mini Van Voorst bee sting.

Rocco stayed on track with Same Page Summer.  Just kidding, but look at him go!

This was a "popes in a Volkswagen" situation but they liked it.

We had to remove the back seats of the van so we could haul a bigger load up to storage.  The kids didn't seem to mind.

And that was where that first week ended.  Sorry to leave a cliff-hanger!  Click on through to the next post to find out whether we ended up selling the house!