Happy Threads

This entry was intended for before our departure but last-minute craziness and the internet not working the day we left prevented that. What I present now is some of the fine work Ally and her mother Joan did on Reece's room in the days preceding our departure. Any gentlemen reading this now, you can probably stop here, as pretty chick stuff follows...

All of us pitched in on the painting of the room, a nice, soothing brown--I can at least claim some credit for that--but almost every piece of cloth you see was hand sewn by Ally and Joan (well, if you notice a particularly lustrous sheen to the furniture, your truly might claim credit for that as well):



Here are some cool doodads Allyson came
up with on the fly:









The chair from the other room has a green upholstery that doesn't match? No problem--let me just slap on some cloth real quick here--that's how Allyson thinks--and voila! We have a new looking chair with swank upholstery that matches the room. Oh yeah, let's make a matching pillow case, too, one that conveniently covers Christian's "ugly" (we argue over this) bachelor pillow.












Flowers and knick-knack holder--once again, hand made by Ally.

Bumpers and comforter--I'm telling you, the works!

I will spare you a picture of the current state of the room, now that it's actually being lived in;)

A shout-out to my mother-in-law, Joan, is in order here. She came down from Tulsa the week before we left and worked non-stop on whatever she could get her hands on, whether it be this fine sewing on display here or painting rooms, doing laundry, whatever. Then she was here again the day we arrived to take over for two new parents exhausted from the flight home. She proceeded to love on her new grandbaby, clean house, do laundry, and dodge the living dead haunting the house (Ally and I with the flu, which thankfully we are getting over). Thanks, Joan!

One more thing about our work before we left. The room next to Reece's is called the fun room, which is where I while away my time on the computer while Allyson industriously churns out hand-made cards (insert shameless plug here). She decided that we HAD to paint that room as well as Reece's. Being the loving husband I am, I flat out refused to help painting that room, but not only did she and Mom paint it, they did so with a fiery red!

Most impressive about this, though, was Allyson's effort to get the room back in order. Here's a picture of us after the painting is done but with all her stuff all over the floor (hard to see). The picture does not do justice to the sheer amount of stuff and the chaos of it:My friend Dave and I drug all the stuff in from its temporary storage in the living room floor, placed it on the floor, whispered a sarcastic "good luck" to Ally under our breaths, and made off for our poker night. To my chagrin, I came back from poker that night to find the room like this:
I could not believe it. In four hours, she had the whole room whipped into shape, whereas all I could boast of was a measly $1 winnings for the night (at least I didn't lose money...). Ok, had to brag on Ally for that.