New Years, and time with Grandma and Grandpa Betteirdge! (and help remodel a bathroom)

Max started off likely his first bath:

  And then he didn't like it:

We all love holding him.

We had one last hurrah with Thom and Brittany before they left and had a Raclette Cheese night.  I loved showing mom and dad this fun Archibald tradition.

 We loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa playing games, watching movies, doing puzzles, reading books, snuggling on the couch.  Grandma and I took care of regular stuff while Dad and Chris tackled a bathroom remodel. I could tell Chris wasn't super excited about this but I just couldn't let a whole week of Dad being here with all his experience and NOT do a project. We're trying to get our house all finished up and in a good spot within the next year just in case its our last one here.  For New Years mom helped make a lot of special foods, like cheese balls, fruit bread, little BBQ smokies, chips and dip. etc. We counted down with a Netflix countdown timer at 10:00 for the kids. We face-timed with Hailey for a long time and actually stayed up till Midnight.  It was nice. I LOVE my parents and were soooo sad to say goodbye to them 2 days later.

Here's more information on the entryway bathroom remodel. The sink was a 4 foot cabinet which took up WAY too much room in the small bathroom and barely gave a small person enough room for their knees as they sat on the porcelain throne.  We had plans to make this awkwardly shaped bathroom feel better by putting in a pedestal sink but we were limited with where the water came out of the wall. We debated on trying to leave the tile in, but ended up needing to take it out. We ran into so bumps as we realized we needed to redo the tile, and had a hard time getting the right tools to cut the tile. Dad was able to change out some of the plumbing that made it easier to get a sink in the right place, but we didn't like any of the pedestal sinks at Loews so we came up with a new plan to build a little wainscoting-looking shelf to hide the water pipes and found a small but nice looking sink. Dad helped us change out the light fixture, replace the broken toilet, install the sink and get the tile down. Unfortunately Chris got hit with the same bug that the rest of the family got over Christmas Break. (only little Max was spared ... breastmilk win!) He wasn't able to help out on Dad's last day here and so we didn't get it all done but we're confident we can finish everything up ourselves.