Let me tell you a story

When you give John some wire, he is going to want to poke it into the wall, so he's going to ask for a hammer.

When he gets the hammer, he is going to want to poke some holes into the wall.

Poking holes into the wall will allow John to see the crazy, not-so-safe wiring going on behind the wall, so he will need to take down some walls.

He will discover that taking down walls makes for a very large pile of debris, and a very unsettled wife.

Seeing the large pile makes John think about his two older girls who spend too much time on their electronic devices, so he will ask for their help putting all of the debris into the garbage.

Seeing the debris gone and the holes in the wall will remind John that he still has wire to put through the wall, so he will start inserting the wire.

Connecting the wire to the outlet box will remind John he needs to ask for some electrical assistance, so in come the older girls again.

Shutting down power for the hallway leading down to the basement allows him to install this fella,  which will remind John what the wire was meant for in the first place.

Thanks to the Give a Mouse a Cookie series that inspired me. Those are some of my favorite books, and apparently there is an actual method that is studied in school, something about cause and effect and Natalie had to write her own version, so I thought I'd add mine to the pot.

Anyway, as you can see, what was meant to be a very simple project, turned into a massive undertaking. Does this really surprise you though after our adventures with our family room? However, now the hallway leading down to the family room is not so dark and dingy because we've added the light, and as soon as the hole is patched up in the stairwell, I can paint and that section of the house will be done! (really trying to focus on the positive, and not the massive demo area downstairs that now needs to be repaired. On the plus side, John spent all last Saturday fixing wiring, so portions of that are done.)

Side Note: All of the photos in this post are from my cell phone, which are far, far removed in quality from our other lovely camera, just in case you were wondering...

In other news, we spent Martin Luther King, Jr. Day ice skating. Natalie was about the only one who enjoyed herself. Kim lasted about 5 minutes, and Alicia for about 30. Actually Megan had a lot of fun too, thanks to help from Alicia, but she called it quits after about 30 mins too. 

We all watched Natalie have a blast for the last 30 minutes. 

Megan loves to play with play-dough, and made these cute play-dough dresses for her monster-high dolls.

And with all this crazy warm weather we've been having, we dusted off the bikes and rode on the rail trail. 

Seriously, 62 degrees February 8th? Ghastly. 

The older girls and I had planned to go skiing this month, but unless it snows, we will be waiting until next year...