Thing 1 and Thing 2

A few weeks ago we headed down to Alabama for the Beasley family reunion.  My mom and dad were hosting this year so we decided we would go down a week before and help get everything ready.  The basement of mom and dad's house wasn't finished and they had been working tirelessly on it for a while to get it ready for this weekend.  The week was dedicated to work as Jesse tiled, Stephen (my brother) did the bathrooms among countless others, I painted, Dad worked on the ceilings and getting the doors in and mom watched the kids and cleaned.  We also had some help with friends and family as well.  To say there was a big job ahead of us was an understatement.

You have to understand that my father is a rather particular perfectionist and he only bought the nicest quality material.  I am talking about granite tile for the floor (super hard to cut and lay), ornamented ceiling tiles that had to be cut a certain way and the nicest carpet.  Work was slow, tedious, and frustrating!  The carpet was going to be laid on Wednesday so everything needed to be painted and cleaned beforehand.  Dad had finished the ceiling tiles in one of the bedrooms so I got busy painting in there.  The Red's had managed to wonder downstairs and were now at my feet begging to paint.  I think we all know how disastrous that would have been so I said no and shooed them off.  What I didn't know is while I was on the latter busy painting the Reds has snuck in and stole a few of my brushes. 

Later that night while we were cleaning out the kitchen area, I noticed a smell of Clorox.  I asked mom if she had cleaned anything down there and she said no.  It was then that I looked down and noticed two paint brushes on the floor next to a Clorox spray bottle.  Then fear...panic......as I looked at the wall and see that my boys (the Red's) had sprayed the Clorox and then painted with it with the brushes.  Streaks of Clorox ran down the wall.  I quickly washed it off and saw there was no damage, but scolded the reds and sent them back upstairs.

The next day the reds escaped again to the basement and locked themselves in the bedroom that I had painted and where the ceiling was now complete.  Somewhere around the house they had located a ball and proceeded throwing it all around and ended up knocking one of the ceiling tiles out.......something else to be fixed.

One of the doors wasn't put in completely so they also managed to knock the door frame loose when they slammed the door.....yet another thing on the list of to do's.

Again, they were scolded and sent upstairs.

The carpet people came and installed the carpet and the cleaning process began.  Everything needed to be put into place.  Beds needed to be put together and made, shower curtains installed, you name it......the works!  We looked like busy little bees and swamped with work.  Jesse jumped on the weed eater and dad  was busy with finishing touches.  The night before the tile had been grouted and a bucket of water that was used to wash the tile now sat in the garage.  The bucket full of dirty water drew my kids in like a magnet and before we knew it Andrew had dumped the whole bucket out in the garage.  So he was handed a mop and told to clean it up.....scolded again and sent upstairs.

Finally everything was ready and we were getting ready to relax.....until.........

We looked down and saw a few drops of blood on dads brand new expensive carpet....WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!  I looked at Jesse and he looked at me and then we both looked down at Belle......yep.......in heat 3 months early.  What luck...........

I think we might have done more harm than good.

Oh did I forget to mention that Jesse dropped a pair of pliers on the granite and took a nice piece out of one of the tiles : )