We Bartholomews have been a bit busy lately. Dave decided that he needed an officey/desk area where he could do his "freelance" work. He used to have a big area in the basement, but when he switched jobs, he took his fancy, schmancy desk there because they didn't have one for him. Then he put a huge chunk of gym equipment down there....... so he didn't really have a place to work - except for the dining room table - which was kind of a problem because when he was done working, he'd leave all his stuff there and it would be in the way for when we did schoolwork the next morning. I said all of that to say this............. here is his new desk (from Sam's) and his new chair (from Wal-Mart).

I don't think any "work" has taken place here yet :)

We've also rearranged the upstairs closet. I was getting tired of hauling Consuela's rather substantial butt up the stairs every time I wanted to sweep, so we made room for her in the closet. Notice that only one of the boys' shoes each fits in one of the shoe holder thingies. Apparently, they don't make those spaces large enough to accommodate the boats that these people wear on their feet!

I spent some time this morning swiffering, sweeping and dusting in preparation for my Dad's birthday party which is being held here tomorrow evening. The boys watched tv in their jammies, Dave was running around returning stuff and buying stuff, and Coco worked on her "roadkill" impression:

After that, I was a mean, mean mommy and made Frick and Frack go outside and help clean up the front yard. We picked up and raked up sticks and bagged them for trash pick-up. Afterwards, they decided to get their bikes out and cruise around the 'hood:

They can't just ride past normally. They have to make weird faces, do weird gestures, or act like they're singing...... Ding dongs :)

While all of this was going on out front, Dave was in the back cleaning and fine-tuning the grill: