We spent an weekday evening working with the three oldest kids and got a surprising amount done in a few short hours.

The obligatory vacuuming, of course. Everything is SO dusty. You can even tell the difference in the photo from the area she’s vacuumed and the area she hasn’t yet.

And the obligatory mowing. Sorry, no photos of that. Despite it being marvelously exciting and all.

Matt disappeared down the crawlspace/cellar and started spraying termite protectant on all the foundation edges of our wood. It’s a static product that just sits there and kills the termites if they come along and sample it at a future date. Or, as he explained to the kids, “It kills the bacteria living inside their stomachs and then they can’t digest their food anymore.”

“So they starve to death?” Our middle kid didn’t miss a beat.

[I guess I deserve that for marrying an animal nerd and then having smart kids. -Esther]

Esther broke out the sawzall and started removing the bottom of the old drywall around the master bedroom/living room area at a consistent height (yay laser levels!), to prepare for new electrical installation.

Our oldest was set to work taking apart some old dead receptacles with some directions from Esther, the most firmly repeated of which was “We always check for live wires with a tester first. Always,” but then followed with detailed directions on how to take it all apart.

After the poor kid’s disassembling his first outlet for several minutes, Matt checked in and said, “Oh. None of that is necessary. You already checked it’s not live? Good. You do it like this [yank drywall off wall], and so [bang on the electrical box with a hammer a couple times].”

We laughed over that. The next outlets definitely came out faster.

The kids were eager to demolish the strip of drywall. They had to be reminded to not get too crazy!

Esther masked-and-gloved up and started removing insulation from the openings. Some of the cavities contained the remains of plants that had grown up inside years ago.

We finished cleaning out the exposed cavities and then vacuumed (yes, again). Ready to start on electrical!