Family and Bonding

Most of you know I come from a large family. I actually lost count of the number of 1st cousins I have since I don't know half of them....they are from my father's family as he was one of 18. Most of my 1st cousins live in OK with the remaining in TX and KS the last I heard (we get a yearly update from my grandfather's estate...which is a story in itself). Since my parents were the only ones of either of their families to move outside of OK, I rarely got to see, let alone meet my younger cousins. There were just too many of them to remember. Last count I had 200 some 1st cousins.

Ok...you had to have a background there to know why my family (the IL side) has stuck together. We do things together and get together a minumum of 2 times a year....one long weekend in the summer for a reunion, and to celebrate Christmas. There are other occasions during the year (confirmations, baptisms, communions, marriages, anniveraries, etc) but the 2 times we are all together are those 2 times a year. One of the other occasions we started in our family is what we personally call our own version of "While You Were Out". Basically we take a member of the family and redo their bedroom while they are gone for the weekend. Our first subject was one of my nieces. My brother and SIL and their 3 girls moved into a house and each girl finally got their own bedroom. The youngest (13) happened to get the room decorated in Winnie the Pooh so she became the 1st subject. We painted and updated her room from a child's room into a teen room in the colors she had picked out already (not knowing that it was going to be done that weekend or by anyone but her father). It was a huge hit and all that could helped out. We basically decided on doing between 2-3 rooms a year and would schedule them when most of us could do it and decide on who we were doing based on need.

For the 1st time, last weekend we did one of my sisters. Her husband was in on the plan and had pre-ordered the new furniture with delivery to take place that weekend. My sister had ugly 70's shag carpeting and this ugly avacodo toilet and orange sink in the adjoining bathroom. She wanted wood flooring so her husband also had gotten new flooring for her and we were to install it. Her 2 girls got her to pick out what color scheme she had been thinking on (she was easy since one of her girls was moving back to IL and redecorating). So about 2 months ago, her girls came to Chicago with their kids and went shopping with my daughter for all they would need, including paint. Everyone was assigned something to do for the room (taking pictures of her 3 grandkids and having them framed).

Here are the before pictures:





Here are the after pictures:






I think we did a good job. Luckily for us, there was this gorgeous wood floor sitting underneath that ugly carpeting so we ended not having to lay a new floor. But we did find out that her outside walls were not made of plaster but of something that does not allow hanging pictures so we had to do a repair and repainting of the one wall then a run to the hardware store for something to hang pictures on that kind of wall.

Next up is......nope can't tell you just in case any of my family has found my site here.