A Year of Small Adventures

I was looking through 2014, trying to come up with an overall assessment of our year, and that is what I came up with. We didn't have a lot of earth-shattering events--no big moves, or life overhauls, but lots of the little things that keep life exciting. We traveled,  fixed things, learned new things, pushed ourselves a little harder or farther than we thought we could.

It's been a good year, and we're excited about making 2015 even better.

Bathroom is Done!

 Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for ever since I posted THIS photo:

We've been getting questions for the last year about our bathroom and if it is done yet. Well, exactly 12 months later, it was fully functional, and a few weeks later, it is done!

So, the before:

And the after: 

Before:

 After:

(We do eventually want to refinish the tub because it doesn't go with the rest quite as well as we hoped, but we didn't really want to match everything to it too closely because we didn't like it.)

Before:

After:

 And the best part, after a rocky start, where I wondered if I was doomed to take lukewarm showers forever, Daddy-o figured out how to adjust some valve inside and now, using the shower is as awesome as it looks.

Who knew that all of this:

 (Oh, the rot. I'm still so glad that we didn't fall through to the dining room while showering one day.)

could eventually, with a lot of work by Daddy-o, our plumber, the grandparents, and our tile guy, turn into this:

Seriously, I'm in love. Every time I walk into the room, I feel like I'm in a resort or something. It was worth the year of sharing a bathroom with 3 kids.

A Day in The Life: Post Christmas Edition

 Post Christmas, our days are pretty lazy. No school, no work, and not too many plans of any sort. Here's what today looked like:

7:13--Birds wake me up, but everyone else is still asleep, so I stay in bed, reading.

7:45--Stirrings from the boys' room. Escalates in volume within minutes.

8:15--Bean gets up, various people in and out of our bed for the next half hour.

9:00--We finally get some breakfast on the table. This morning, it's oatmeal. We need something healthy before the sugar comes out.

9:30--Kids are busy crafting and playing, being loud, as always. We remind them that they have to actually put on clothing today because they're going to meet up with friends for the day.

10:15 Everyone is dressed and heading out the door. Steve takes the older two to see the Penguins of Madagascar with friends, Peanut and I head to Target to see if they have any good Christmas clearance.

11:30--Peanut and I finished our errands and come home to play Legos and have lunch.

1:00--Peanut is down for a nap and I spend the next hour surfing the web.

2:00--Steve comes home after leaving the kids to go home with their friends to play at their farm.

3:00--Steve and I head out to the garage. It's a relatively warm day and the garage has needed cleaning for awhile now.

3:30--Peanut wakes up and comes out to play. Not as much work is happening, but we slowly get things sorted back into their places as Peanut builds forts and obstacle courses and gets bikes out.

5:30--I go back inside to start making dinner.

6:00--Big kids come home after hours of running wild, playing magic games, and sword fighting. They're going to sleep good tonight!

7:00--Dinner is finally ready. Meals tend to all be later than normal without the school schedule to keep us on track. Bean soup, with ham, because we still have a LOT of ham left from Christmas.

7:30--Kids all run off, trying to sneak more play time out of the day before we wrangle them into bed. I run to Redbox to get a movie.

8:00--Finally get everyone headed to bed. Steve reads to Peanut while I read How to Eat Fried Worms to the older two.

8:30--Everyone's in bed. Bean is reading (and will forget to turn off her light if we don't go back up in half an hour to stop her.) Steve and I watch the latest X-Men movie. We used to be good at keeping up with movies as they come out, but it's gotten harder and harder to fit one in between when the kids go to bed and when I fall asleep.

11:30--I'm still awake, scanning Facebook and reading, which is not normal, but knowing that no one should be waking up before 7 makes me feel like I can afford to stay up. It's going to be hard to get back to normal next week!

Last Bits of Christmas

Gingerbread houses of all sizes were the order of the day.

First, a stop at the Ritz to see their chocolate and gingerbread creations.

Kids were disappointed there was no chocolate eating involved in this outing.

Then, we headed down to the Ballantyne resort for the gingerbread house competition.

The Biltmore, edible version

One of the winners

Cute little train.

 

The houses were all pretty impressive, especially considering most were in the amateur category.

Bean's Bedroom

Bean's room is finally done. She moved in about a year ago, we got the walls painted purple quickly, and then have been adding the accents slowly.

The final touch was her duvet cover that my mom made. They picked out the fabrics together last year when Rara was visiting and then she started it this year, finishing it up on the most recent visit.

It all came together nicely and she's loving it.

There are still a few other things I'd like to do, like refinish her desk chair and we need some type of bookcase to contain all the books that end up in her room. Eventually.

Boxing Day

We may not celebrate Boxing Day in the U.S., but our family certainly has our December 26th traditions, and honestly, it's one of my favorite days of the whole season.

While the weeks leading up to Christmas are full of anticipation and planning, crafting and shopping, wrapping and decorating, and Christmas itself is full of surprises and excitement, the day after Christmas is pure indulgence.

The kids usually sleep in from the sheer exhaustion of Christmas Day. We hang out in our pajamas as long as we like. We eat leftovers and cookies and candy all day. We play with new toys, read new books, watch a movie.

This year, the kids spent much of the day bouncing on the new trampoline which temporarily took up residence in our family room because Santa thought that was really funny. The laziness of the day is pure awesomeness and I look forward to getting to rest after the crazy month previous.

Merry Christmas!

The calm before the storm. I love the tree all lit up when it's dark out. Which was what it was when the kids woke up this morning. We heard Bean, who had slept in the boys' room last night, waking up Peanut at 6:15 with a, "It's Christmas morning! It's Christmas morning!" He may have been sound asleep before that, but he was wide awake once he heard that it was present time.

Santa really stuffed those socks this year. To overflowing. But that wasn't where he overdid it.

The 15 foot trampoline in the family room was where Santa really went overboard this year. Santa thought it would be really funny, and it was (although it now means we get to spend a couple hours disassembling it and moving it outside this weekend). 

 

The kids were extremely happy about the surprise, although they did take the indoor trampoline in stride. With Christmas magic, I guess anything is possible, so in their minds, it's just part of the great day that is Christmas.  

 

There was a whole lot of this all day long.

There were a few other Christmas dreams that came true today. Peanut got his bear slippers he'd been asking for all month, and the new sippy that he randomly asked Santa for last night. I'm impressed that Santa was able to make that last one happen.

These kids were all so excited to have everyone open the gifts they'd picked out for each other. I love seeing their happy faces with each new surprise.

 

More jumping.

 

They took breaks sporadically throughout the present opening.

There was a lot of lego playing today, too.

 

By all sizes of kids.

There were a few minutes of going outside. Bean (with some help from her  Daddy-o) made deer prints to hook to Bug's boots, so he can leave his own prints in the mud or snow.

They work pretty well--so cool!

There was some journal wrecking going on.

Then there was the Lego playing ON the trampoline

 

And the journal wrecking ON the trampoline.

Plus more jumping.

And some napping. Some of us didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night. You know you're tired when you can pass out in the middle of all the crazy, which we both did at some point this a.m.

Peanut made out in the stuffed animal department this year. Huge rhino, thanks to Bug who found it at Costco last week ($10! I couldn't believe it!), a Curious George from us, a sock monkey from a neighbor, and a Pete the Cat, which Bean made for him out of felt.

Pretty cute. And if you aren't familiar with the Pete the Cat books, you really should be.

Of course Bug's Christmas involved dinosaurs. He hopped right on building this model. And he got a few new books from the Dinosaur Cove series he loves so much.

And there was puzzle making for Peanut. It's his new obsession. Unkie got him this cool farm puzzle and Santa brought him a small Mickey Mouse puzzle, so he was a happy camper.

 

We'll leave this post with one last trampoline picture. The older two kids are actually happily sleeping on it right now (Peanut had to be returned to his bed because it was all too exciting and he could not go to sleep.) It's been a good, lazy day, with lots of family time and a few quiet moments here and there to remember the birth of our Savior.

 

Merry Christmas!

The Night Before

 Every year I try to plan for a relaxed, family centered Christmas Eve, and every year, it is a crazy day filled with frantic last-minute gift making (and even some buying by some members of the family), grocery shopping (along with the rest of the city), cleaning, deliveries, and baking.

This year was no exception, and I was a little frustrated with some of the tasks that I felt others were pushing on me, but in the end, I was spending time with my family. Maybe we didn't get to make a puzzle or play games as I'd hoped, but I did get some one-on-one time with each of the kids as Bean and I finished a present for her youngest brother, and Bug and I finished one for his dad, and Peanut and I always have moments through the day.

I snuck away for a couple hours to deliver a few plates of goodies to the ladies from church who I try to visit each month, and it ended up being a nice time alone in the car, away from all the noise at the house which was starting to turn me into the Grinch, and a good visit with the one woman who I found home that afternoon.

Maybe my favorite part of the evening was lying down with the kids, who'd chosen to all sleep in the boys' bedroom, as they drifted off to sleep. I fell asleep for sure before Bean, and maybe before Bug, too, so I got a much needed nap to see me through the couple hours of work I still had waiting for me (I was pulling the last tray of rolls from the oven at midnight), but in the moments right before we all began drifting off to dreamland, it was fun being with the kids as they wound down from the excitement that had been building all day on the most anticipation-filled day of the year.

Maybe next year will be different. Maybe the planning ahead will actually happen, or maybe I'll embrace the chaos and quit expecting anything different, but either way, Christmas Eve will have moments of happiness along with the frustration. Of that, I am sure.

The Annual Cookie Party

I think this is the 4th year that we've had Bean's friends from school come over for a cookie decorating party. It's the little group of girls from her 1st year at school, who are now at 2 different schools, in three different classes, so birthdays and a couple other little parties each year are how they all stay in touch. . These girls are all so great--they get along so well, and are good about including Bug and Peanut, who also love this party.

Another photo dump--of the music, lunch, games, cookie decorating and fudge making.