Eight Years Old and New Stairs

My handsome Dennis is now the ripe old age of eight.  He was baptized this past weekend into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  All I could think about was how he was just barely that fuzzy-headed sweet baby of mine.  *sigh*  Seriously, like two months ago he started crawling.  Gosh.  What happens to time.  I can barely keep up.  Now he's practically grown.  He is a thoughtful, helpful guy who loves to eat food and still looks like a string bean (he loves those too).  The baptism was so lovely and the two grandpas gave the best talks in the universe.  It was absolute perfection.  I cried.  Mr. C gave the most sophisticated, grown up and beautiful prayer.  I was so proud of him.

We had a plethora of family come down for the baptism.  We stuffed 24 of us into our house (and as per usual with these events, I took little to no pictures).  Our bonus room was filled with kids...kids on bean bags, couches and strewn across the floor.  So fun.   And since I'm crazy, we decided to redo our stairs at the same time.  We had pre-determined to have our brother-in-law help with some trim and finish work, etc.  But once he got here and we got talking, we decided to replace all the MDF stair treads with nice pine ones.  So.  The menfolk ripped off all the stair treads on Saturday.  Remember we had 24 people staying in the house.  My sister said not having stairs is like not having a forehead...which is very true.  Some kids stayed outside or downstairs, some were marooned upstairs and used a laundry basket-elevator to haul up necessities from the loft until we could get the new treads cut and temporarily put in place.  I am so thankful to all of the family members who helped with demolition, figured angles for the curved stairs, fixed the van that decided to overheat and leave me stranded right in the middle of all this, cooked food and took care of kiddies and etc.  Family is great.  I wish they all lived closer.  Plus Miss B was fabulous and organized and set up a water day for all of the many, MANY children.  What would I do without her.

The new stairs are going to look so delightful.  I am currently in the tedious process of staining and sealing each tread in sections so we can still use the stairs.  While they are drying, I am painting all the trim white.  Wait until you see it.  So beautiful (hopefully).  Cross your fingers that I will be successful.