The Ants Go Marching 1 by 1...

Hoorah.

Hoorah.

Saturday morning, I discovered ants.  In my pantry.  Everywhere.

More like ants go marching 2 million by 2 million.  

Hoorah.

Hoorah.

We've had ants for a while.  The little sugar ants...at least that's what my mom called them...have been in the playroom and the kids bathroom for a while.  Not a lot of them.  One or two at a time.  But honestly, kids are kinda sticky.  They put things in their mouths.  Rhys sprinkles chocolate milk all over the place.  Ants aren't all that shocking.

But with the drought, the numbers have risen sharply. 

Last weekend, I took a nap and woke up to find Chris cleaning out the playroom.  We cleaned every single toy, washed every stuff animal, threw out more junk and sprayed around the baseboards.   It was a massive project.  So far, we've seen one or two but nothing huge.

So I wasn't surprised the ants found their way to my pantry.  Just super de-duper annoyed.

I cleaned out every item in the pantry and investigated it for ants.  We lost one box of Honey Nut Cheerios but that's it.  Sprayed everything.  Let it dry.  Cleaned it all.

And that took three hours.

At that point, I figured, ah, heck, might as well paint now.  

We bought the paint for the pantry and laundry room when we moved in the house.  

Almost three years ago.

It's been on the bottom of the "To Do" list.  But with everything out and clean, why not?

I now have a gorgeous pantry.  

Here's the before picture.  I took this because LOOK MA, IT"S FULL!  I like full pantries.

This is the empty pantry.  I painted the shelves when we moved in.  They were in horrific shape.  I just couldn't put my food on them.  But the rest of the walls were the builder's grade beige flat paint.

Chris went to Lowe's to have them mix the now three year old paint.  While there, he saw a more turquoise turquoise and grabbed it.  I painted it first but then when I put the original turquoise next to it, I liked the original paint better.  It's probably more "teal" or "aqua" than turquoise.  But it doesn't glow as much.  This is the two colors together.  

Painting all done!  It was so clean.  I almost hated to fill it.  Almost.  

My pantry is sort of in the middle of my living room.  When I open the door, pretty much everyone can see in.  When I thought about that, I decided to decorate it.  I keep all my serving stands in a cabinet so why not put those out and hide all the junk in the cabinet.  

And so thus...

Now I leave the door open because PRETTY!  

Trying to use the wall space to hang a couple of things.  Just one now but I've got more coming.

This is just because Rhys wanted me to take his picture.  He just hasn't figured out how to look at the phone long enough for me to do that.  And please notice the now empty shelf on the bottom.  Amazing the space one can find when forced to clean out.

Other than the Great Pantry Adventure, we had a great weekend.  Friday, I bribed AK into letting me cut her hair.  It had gotten so long it was getting caught in the car seat buckle.  And she was ripping it out.  Not a good idea since that lead to crying and drama and general carrying on.  She finally admitted she didn't want to go get her hair cut because she didn't want the "tight cape" on her neck.

Sigh.

So I offered up a bribe:  Let me cut your hair and I'll let you pick out a new tutu or dress.  

Winning.

Here's her hair at lunch before the cut:

And just because they are too CUTE, here's another picture:

The haircut was painless.  Took all of four minutes.  Then we loaded up and went to the consignment shop.  She tried on six different tutus and three dresses.  All had to be tested out and judged based on their "Twirl Factor."  That's a real thing.  This dress won.  And it does supply maximum twirl.

How cute is that girl!?!?!

And that door right behind her?  My pantry.  So see.  Kinda right in the middle of the room.  It's so pretty and clean now.  Come see us!  I'll let you walk in and admire it.