So everyone made it, which is extra awesome because I made a double batch of egg noodle lasagna (of course I overdid the noodles¹, and finishing off the lasagna in the crockpot instead of in the oven made the whole concoction a little mushier, but it was still well-received, so oh well), Dan put together a cute meat & cheese tray, I had dinner rolls warming in the oven, fixings for Italian salad, and mini-cupcakes for dessert. What can I say? I like to feed people. EAT UP! I also sent home leftovers with everyone.

Alyssa wasn’t overly flouncy or dramatic, as she sometimes is when people come over, and Ryan kept his pants on and his hands out of everyone’s cleavage (except mine). In fact, the three kids (Amanda brought Sophie) did great with occupying themselves, first with playing outside, then playing inside, even though after a short period of time it looked like a Littlest Pet Shop factory threw up in my living room. Alyssa was charming, and Ryan was oh-so-endearing with his continued inability to pronounce Ls and Ws (Kwystal, Bwandy… does it get any cuter than that?!). Leah, for once, didn’t bark her stupid head off, and of course the cats (Fritzy, mostly) were curious about the newcomers.

(Photo-bombed by sproglets clutching stuffed animals and crackers!)

I had SUCH a great time, horrific, hellalicious menstrual cramps aside (I kept myself nicely medicated on Midol, muscle relaxants and pain meds, and only felt like I was going to nod off a few times), and I hope we can all get together again sometime soon!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Are we really the parents of a seven year old?!

Hi Jason!

Food!

Presents (and Dan’s aunt N)!

Krystal, myself, and Amanda! I’m so glad they finally met each other. The three of us got along fabulously, and MUST get together soon. ♥

Hello blue eyes!

Piñata time!

Present time (for my brother-in-law, whose birthday was October 29th)!

Present time!

Ryan gets consolation presents.

I think Alyssa approves of the Monster High doll Dan’s aunt C got for her.

Surprise confetti bomb (some of it is still stuck in the eaves, whoops)!

Post-present and post-confetti aftermath (yes, we cleaned it all up.).

Hi mini Amanda!

Birthday cake! Nom nom nom.

Krystal stole my headband (she gave it back later).

Newlyweds. ♥

Mother & daughter. ♥

I know it looks like I’m photobombing, but I swear this was posed (those are Dan’s brothers, in case you didn’t know) (yes, Dan is groping me – purposely. That’s just how he rolls – with a boob in each hand, preferably).

I don’t even know. I was eating candy and de-packaging presents with Alyssa and Sophie¹ while Dan, Jason and maybe a few other people were putting food away (Amanda took this).

Here’s the entire photoset from yesterday, set up in a snazzy little slideshow that’ll save my bandwidth and your load time!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Alyssa is thrilled with her new super-pink and super-Hello-Kittyified bedroom, and hasn’t seemed to notice or perhaps doesn’t care that it’s significantly smaller than her old bedroom (so much, in fact, that sticking the bed in the middle of the room was the only way Dan and I were able to fit her corner desk (bottom left corner of the photo) and stupidly wide nightstand in there). Her old bedroom, in comparison, has been the same pastel pink I painted it back in the summer of 2007, and even though it was larger, I don’t think she liked it quite as much since it wasn’t as bright and cheery and inviting as her new room is.

Ryan hasn’t said much about his new bedroom, but I’m hoping that his behavior and general mood will settle down now that he can see that his new bedroom is a lot like his old bedroom (practically the same paint color², same wall stickers, same signs (he has a fascination with road and railroad signs), same furniture³, same toys, etc. Hopefully the smell of new paint combined with carpet cleaner and an Airwick plugin will remove the stench of GIRL! he repeatedly complained about. And my brother is very happy to have a larger bedroom, and actual drawers to put his clothes in (while he was sharing the smaller bedroom with Ryan he used hanging canvas bins — similar to these — to organize and store his clothing).

And while Dan and I are FUCKING EXHAUSTED from painting two bedrooms (Alyssa’s new bedroom took two, but the boys’ new and much larger bedroom required three), moving furniture from Alyssa’s old bedroom into the hallway and living room, then moving Ryan’s and my brother’s furniture into that bedroom, then moving Alyssa’s stuff into the smaller bedroom, switching the contents of dressers, switching the contents of two very full closets (and doing some weeding-of-the-clothing-for-donations and closet-cleaning-out in the process), then doing the general clean-up afterwards (throwing out of paper, vacuuming, sweeping, doing laundry, etc.), we are both very VERY happy that this is all done with. FINALLY.

I have to give a big shoutout to Amanda, who came with her five year old daughter Sophie on Saturday afternoon for a visit, and got roped into helping with putting up the third coat of paint in the boys’ bedroom and then later, when Dan got home from work, helping us disassemble the bunk bed, move the parts into the bigger bedroom, and then reassembling it. But I gave her and Sophie some nail polishes, got her Sophie hyper on homemade sugar cookies (I prepped the dough before Amanda and Sophie got her and stuck it in the fridge so that it would be ready for the kids to attack with sprinkles later) and Capri Sun, and fed everyone crappy but delicious Hamburger Helper⁴, so I guess she didn’t do all that work with us for nothing. ;) But seriously, THANK YOU AMANDA!

My quads (those muscles on the fronts of your thighs) also thank Amanda, because dear god, I seriously pissed them off with all of the bending and squatting and stretching and leaning and pushing and shoving and pulling of furniture I did over these past three days. The last time I killed my quad muscles was when I attempted to do some Kettlebell exercises in February of 2010. (Then I came down with pneumonia that same week, which is what prompted this response from Dan, which was said in response to this tweet.) The pain was so bad then that transitioning from sitting to standing or standing to sitting was excruciating, and I could barely do it. I wound up holding my bladder for a good part of the day, just so I wouldn’t have to transition to a sitting-on-the-toilet position that often.

Anyway, the pain was like that last night, so I said fuck it and took half of a muscle relaxant. They relax neck muscles (Dan) and uterine muscles (me!), so why not thigh muscles? It worked like a charm – the worst of the pain and tightness was gone, and I slept quite well, heh.

I was going to blather on about cats and Dan and how much I love the colors in Alyssa’s and the boys’ bedrooms, and how much I want fall to arrive and summer-like temperatures and humidity to GTFO, but Dan finally woke up and we have a shed to clean out, so off I go!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Not that you cared to know, but we had sex earlier tonight, after the kids had eaten dinner and were occupied with their own things. It’s been at least two weeks since we last had sex (mainly because of Dan’s crotch-eating fungal infection, blech), and let me tell you, for me anyway, and him too, that is just way too long. During and after I had some reservations on whether or not I made the right decision, whether we did, because it’s all too easy for us to go back to how things have been and get wrapped up in day-to-day living without addressing our issues, but we’re both on the same page with that, which is a huge relief.

Now it’s Saturday, and holy crap where has the week gone? My period, two attacks of abdominal pain and what I think was a migraine on Thursday afternoon (bad headache that just would NOT go away, nausea, light sensitivity) all came together to just lay me really low this week. But the week ended on a good note. I grabbed a nap after sending the kids off to school on Friday morning, and then Dan and I went out to lunch. We went to Red Robin, which was nothing spectacular, but it was good to get out, just the two of us (much to the dismay of Ryan, who pitched a fit over not being able to go and have mozzarella sticks; and Puff, who was disappointed that we went without him — until I pointed out that Dan and I work very hard to maintain our home and everyone in it, so I think we deserve the occasional lunch out together).

I spent quite a bit of time tonight talking to the two Amandas who are in my online/offline life – Amanda of forever-waiting.net (can you believe I have known her since our Kiwibox days back in the late 90s?!) and Amanda of momburntdinner.com (whom I’ve known of since 2001-2002ish, but didn’t really get to know until last year. Our daughters love each other!). MomBurntDinner.com Amanda is coming to visit tomorrow, so I’m excited; and Alyssa and Ryan are super excited to have a playmate for the day (Sophie!). I think it’s supposed to be a rainy day, so it’s a good thing we have toys and paints here, and Amanda has a small ton of stickers she’s bringing with her.

As for me, I plan on making a mid-morning run to Lowe’s for more paint for what will be the boys’ bedroom (it’s taken all week to get the walls ready for paint, and I’m sure Dan has had enough of drywall and spackle to last a lifetime) and hopefully getting a second coat up before Amanda and Sophie arrive. Then, if the powers that be give me a motherfucking break for once, two coats will be enough, OR that second coat will dry quickly enough that I can put up a third one and have the room all ready to get the boys’ stuff moved into by tomorrow evening, after Dan is home from work and dinner has been made and eaten. I need his help to get the boys’ bunk bed disassembled and then reassembled, plus it’d be nice to have some nice manly muscles to assist with shoving all of the other pieces of kid furniture and such into their new places.

Then, come Sunday, once again assuming that the powers that be like me this weekend, we’ll take on the smaller bedroom and quickly get the currently-green walls painted hot pink, so that Alyssa will hopefully once again have her own bedroom to sleep in (she’s been sleeping with Ryan all week).

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

We had breakfast/lunch at Panera Bread, and spent about three hours talking and laughing and having a great time. When we were getting ready to leave and do a Plan B (shopping at Five Below, laser tag), we noticed that the rain had mostly stopped and the sky was clearing. So off to Hershey Park we went!

We had a fantabulous time. I dragged Dan and Brandy on several roller coasters (though only Brandy would accompany me on Storm Runner, and I had to do Farenheit alone, hehe), we all enjoyed the regular log flume and the one on steroids (aka Tidal Force), and after our park fun we let the tired Australian drive us back to my neck of the woods, where we had dinner at a Chinese buffet (who sadly was all of crab rangoons, one of my favorite Chinese delicacies. Cry!)

It was hard saying goodbye to Brandy, Dan and Krystal, but especially to Dan. He’s from Australia, and is leaving this Saturday to head to New York City, and then to Las Vegas, before heading back to Australia. He’s promising to come back next summer, and he’d better! I had such a blast with him – I can see why Brandy and him are best friends. Brandy is quite awesome too, as is Krystal! Fortunately both Brandy and Krystal only live about an hour from me, so we can get together every little bit. I’ll be seeing Krystal in exactly two weeks, when I head to Delaware to see how she’s doing after her gastric bypass surgery. Whoo hoo!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty