The In-laws arrive tonight! Panic, clean, meal-plan, organize! Help!

[kdabbler]

This might be better in the Simplify forum but I think this covers a bunch of forum headings. I'm a WOHM and have this afternoon off and didn't do any planning. I have to put in a long day at work tomorrow. I've been doing nothing but laundry because I'm seriously behind. We need ALL our towels with the arrival of my FIL and his wife tonight and my parents tomorrow. They will be here through at least Sunday.

Help me plan my attack today and for the next few days. And for fun, let's just say my food shopping needs to stay within our stocked pantry, freezer and all our Omaha Steak gifts because dh didn't warn me about how much to spend today until I spent it.

This is my to do list:

• Kill the laundry beast TODAY. I estimate 3 more loads.
• Dinner idea for today, tomorrow, Christmas day: home made pizza, bean soup in crockpot tomorrow, Mom is bringing spiral ham.
• Ready two beds for tonight (we don't have queens), blow up queen air mattress tomorrow
• Bull doze the entryway bench hot spot as this will become landing central for the massive quantity of bags my parents always seems to bring. Right now it's covered with gifts I received from a class I teach. Gah! Must do Thank You notes too!
• Stow all unnecessary entry closet items into bins so everyone can put their coats away.
• Declutter bathroom shelf for guests to put down their toiletries

What am I missing? Can you cheer me on? Any suggestions on how to do all this? I'll come back periodically to check in.

[SquishyKitty]

Have the kids run the vacuum and wipe down the bathroom

Have DH do a final wipe down/declutter of the kitchen and dining room

Go through living room/whatever space people will spend the most time and do a declutter/dust/vacuum

Are you making side dishes/desserts? Prep whatever you can today and stick it in the fridge/freezer.

[kdabbler]

Thanks SquishyKitty!

- two beds are now made
- new task: buy pillow cases to replace holey ones that were about to be used!
- pizza dough one in bread machine
- dd1 decluttered living room. It was all her toys anyways, lol!
- dd1 put away her craft projects in dining room
- new task: finish wrapping presents for guests before they see them on the dining room table, lol

Thank you for the idea of passing off tasks to dh and the kids.

[doubledutch]

Originally Posted by kdabbler

- new task: buy pillow cases to replace holey ones that were about to be used!

uh-oh! just for this visit, can you give guests the pillowcases from your bed and you use the holey pillow cases, since it sounds like shopping isn't such a great idea right now?

[kdabbler]

Just checking in. I did it! First round of guests have arrived and they remarked, "Wow, you guys work full time and have two small kids?"

We did it. All relatively uncluttered and ready for the holiday. I did have to fit in grocery shopping (which was in the budget) and made sure I couponed the heck out of it all. I used the savings to buy some marked down pillow cases.

Thanks again for the suggestions.