Playing Catch-up

I think I have now caught up on all the blogs, if not my housework. The blogs have taken all morning, as has the search for springs for our sofa sleeper. There are springs that hold the decking, the fabric under the mattress, to the frame. Several of ours have gotten stretched out and fallen off. We were unable to find them all, just 2. There are still some holding on, but I am just waiting for it to tear. The rest of the couch is in fine condition, considering my children, and is only 4 years old so I don't want to get a new one. I finally gave up searching and wrote the company thanking them for the quality of the couch, but that I need new springs and can they help me. We'll see what happens.



We were a bit crowded this weekend. With our 5 and their 9 there were 14! I know every one can add, but I still can't believe I fit that many people in my 3 bedroom house! We had one sister-in-law, her husband and their baby in William's room on an air mattress and in the crib; Oren, Nathan, and their cousins (the sister-in-laws other 2 boys) in the boys on bunkbeds and another air mattress; Mom and Dad Willford on the sofa sleeper, a sister-in-law on a twin air mattress, and another sister-in-law on my recliner. Mark, myself, and William in a playpen were in my room. Can we say a full house?



But everyone had a place to sleep, I just about exhausted my supply of sheets and blankets, and they enjoyed the fact that we use our AC to keep the house nice and cool even at night.



We ate lots of food. I made a beef stew Saturday evening, that took 3 hours to get the meat tender instead of the 1 1/2 hours I had planned on. Never again will I make anything but chicken stock or jam in that stock pot. It will be my very large, dutch-oven style, pot from now on... It cooked the last stew I made, that Irish stew, in half the time because of the bigger surface area, without burning the potatoes to the bottom of the pan. (That didn't come off easy...)



I also made a big batch of Rachel's potato rolls. (Thank you Rachel!) There were 2 left this morning. It made a lot of rolls, but they were that good! I ate the last ones with breakfast. I went the easy route for after church. I had gotten a huge, Oscar Meyer sub kit. 64 slices of ham and turkey layered for your convience. It was actually cheaper per ounce than the stuff I usually get. Nice! So we set out all the sandwhich stuff and let people have at it. Mayo, miracle whip, country mustard, yellow mustard, pickles, meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. Oh, they were good!



So we all ate well, we all slept well, I didn't have to worry about occupying the boys during Sacrament meeting with all the people there, and Mom Willford left some homemade raspberry jam from the berries she grows in the backyard. It was a really nice visit, and I am glad they were able to come down.

I was telling Mark today at lunch that it would take several loads of laundry to get all the bedding washed from this weekend. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "They only slept on it for one night!" I replied, "If someone spent just one night at a hotel, and then we were in that room the next night, wouldn't you want the sheets to have been changed?" Point made. That's a lot of sheets though... And the boys have been dragging around the quilts all over the floor, so those are getting washed now as well. That's good though, I found a large hole in a quilt that I can now repair before it gets too big.

More catch-up tomorrow!