Projects

The girls finished painting today and got their furniture moved back in place. I got the curtains sewn, but they won't go up til tomorrow, along with the decals the girls selected to provide the finishing touches on their room makeover!

 This was my Christmas Eve project . . . you would not believe how hard it is to find sashes online! Oh wait, I mentioned that didn't I? :) I stayed up til 11:30 last night getting the rest of the patches sewn on. B's doesn't lay quite right. I think Gab started sewing the patches on the wrong side, but he likes it better that way, so I guess he'll make it work. They've got lots of bling, but there's still room for more! We should travel . . .

Grandma J sent these fun stocking making kits to the kids for Christmas. Who knew Little Buddy would be the first to lay out the pattern, cut the stocking shape, sew together the felt pieces, design a snowman and sew on all the details (I did help sew some of the details :) He made this for Chauncey, so he'd have a bigger stocking for Christmas next year :) 

Entreprenurial Update

They made $50 their first day!! Wowza! The neighbors' house with three dogs took nearly two hours, and you can see the result :) The brothers are officially booked Fridays at double their asking price for this particular yard.

AND while they were out there, the neighboring lawn became another business opportunity when Mr. Mark asked, "How much do you boys charge for a yard?" :) They ended up with another trash bag full of "doo" and $10 instead of $6. They worked hard, for sure, and earned every penny--but they were still very excited to get it :)

That's a lot of poo!

Proud money earners!

Entrepreneurs

Oh these darlin' boys! G$ has been wandering around the house with an extensive shopping list, saying, "I need to learn a craft. I don't have skills to make money." I reminded them of our earlier idea to help the neighbors with their puppy poo clean-up (all have little kiddos who can't help yet or no kiddos or grown kiddos who have flown the coop and aren't available to dispose of poop--that's my poop rhyme, did you like it? :)

The boys were amazed that they could launch this business in the winter, and quickly went to work making a flier . . .

"We do doo doo so you don't have to!"

They printed one for each of the five closest neighbors (who we know and) we know have dogs, then went door-to-door letting their new business be known. Within an hour, our new neighbors signed up for their weekly service--offering $20 EACH to get the process started (they have a lot of dogs :)

Graysen yelled, "Brennen, we're RICH!!" when the text came through, hee hee :) They'll start their business tomorrow, and they are very excited. Graysen said, "This fits great with my budget right now." Lol, what a kid :)

Academy Life

Buck's been working an early shift for the past week, so I've been sitting with him while he falls asleep, reading books (mostly for school, now that I've discovered I'm only one ahead of the students!!) The boys asked last night if they could read after lights out until they got sleepy, "Like you do, mom!" Well, of course, I can't say no to that ;)

And just when I wonder if we've gotten anything done this year with all our crazy activities . . . I pull the completed lifepacs out of the closet and have this gigantic stack! This doesn't even represent the other subjects they've worked on or the lifepacs they're working on now. Whew! I feel better! :)

Drum roll, please!Here's my monumental accomplishment!! I've never kept track of the kids' grades . . . I'll score tests and stuff, but in general, they don't receive letter grades. Then, I realized, I've got one heading to high school soon and I will be responsible for transcripts, what?!! I better figure this out! It's been on my to-do list since the beginning of the school year. I started at 9 this morning and printed these babies off at 9 tonight--I made a report card, y'all!!! Whoohoo!!! It's not quite the end of our first semester (two more weeks or so), so these aren't final grades until testing comes in, but I am so excited I was able to accomplish this much (and that I was able to find a pre-built Excel spreadsheet that helped with the ridiculous amount of math it takes to make grades come to life :) The girls have other courses like history, spelling, Web design, Spanish, typing, etc. but I have no idea how to score those things (well, I could spelling, but I think they're too old for spelling grades, right?) It's a work in progress, but I feel like I made major strides today. MAJOR :) Whoohoo!

Decorating

As promised, here's a peek at the cute snowmen the boys designed for Caelan's birthday décor . . .

They cut construction-paper snowflakes for an hour!

In the meantime, the girls have taken the decorating bull by the horns and are re-doing their room with only my input from time-to-time to guide them! I love that they are willing and able to spiff it up themselves! B also helped a bit today while Caelan was babysitting for the neighbor kids (with Graysen in tow, by request :) Here's how it's going so far . . .

Goodbye pink, hello teal!

And where might all of that stuff that used to be in their room currently be residing?? EVERYWHERE ELSE! I have a fainting couch in my closet and a book case by my bathroom; there are also various boxes and clothing drawers distributed across the upstairs. Must.Paint.Faster. Lol!

It's like a Where's Waldo puzzle--can you find Chauncey? :)

And while we're decorating . . . here's how cute the minivan looks in its holiday apparel ;)

Reindeer Kia :)

Merry Christmas!

Ahhh, Christmas morning . . . 5:30 AM.

"Boys--stop whispering! It's still in the 5's."
"But we're awake, and we're so excited!"
"You have two hours, seriously, go back to sleep."

They did :) But it's hard to keep their dad asleep past 7; he's more excited than them all to get up and get coffee rolling on Christmas morn. It wasn't much later when the bright eyes began to appear, one after another (you'll never guess which was last to join the scene :) Buck put the cinnamon rolls I'd bought at the grocery store (we've tried homemade breakfast before and it is always a distracting disaster, so frozen food aisle it is! :) Oh, wait, I take that back--we also enjoyed some of Grandma J's goodie box, which included homemade (but not by us) banana bread, yum!

While the rolls baked, we emptied our Christmas stockings. Everyone seemed happy with the contents, Nerf guns and ammo, peppermint candy sticks, lego minifigures, sashes (woohoo), socks for Buck (stockings in his stocking :), of course their books--Walt Disney (childhood), Clara Barton (childhood), Sassafrass Springs, and Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm; and a box of pins for Caelan--always crafty that one :)


Breakfast eaten, we proceeded through the opening of gifts. Graysen's excitement is top-notch ALL the time! He makes giving gifts so much fun because he is so thrilled with whatever appears under the package wrapping. He also loves to give gifts and was very thoughtful in his selection--including a gift for his buddy, Isaiah (who came by a couple days after G delivered his and said, "I was counting my money last night and I had enough to get you a present too." Too cute!

By 10, the gift unwrapping was complete. The girls had not as much as usual, because we are redecorating their room and most of their gift money is tied up in paint supplies and bedding which they helped pick out (I wrapped a lot of it anyway :) The third sewing project that I did NOT get to is their curtains, but I did let them open up that fabric again anyway ;)

For lunch, the kids pulled leftovers out of the fridge while Buck went to find Chinese food in the city. He forgot his phone. Boy was that weird to text him and have it chirp right next to me! He wasn't gone long though, and the food was okay. We had big plans for dinner, so it wasn't a big deal to not get our fill at lunch. Plus, goodness the stack of goodies from work, from the girls, and from Grandma piled up in what we're now calling "The Dessert Corner." We still have half of C's giant birthday cake up there, and an apple pie that we had prepped ahead of time for Christmas and still haven't even cut into!

His sister surprised him with the bear slippers he's been hoping she'd knit!

The afternoon was rainy---like monsoon rainy! It poured, it thundered, it lightning-ed!! At one point, the kids just need to expend some energy, so when the lightning stopped and the rain fell in sheets, they all ran out to play. The were soaked to the bone! But I had a gigantic pile of new clothes and new bedding to wash already, so we just added the sloggy outside loads to the line-up :) After they dried out, the played a couple of new board games they received and of course built legos and braided hair :)

For dinner we made everyone's traditional Christmas meal--fried chicken and Brussel sprouts! Ha! Mashed potatoes and gravy. Cherry salad and cranberry sauce. It was weird, but it was tasty! We kept meaning to watch "It's a Wonderful Life," but the Broncos were on, so that didn't work out :) Maybe sometime this week, we'll get a chance.

My stylish night-driving glasses, "As Seen on TV" Buck's Christmas tradition in gift giving :)

Gab was very excited to open a pair of boots in her very own size!

Look at G$'s face :) Gab gave him a lava lamp and he's over the moon!!

Guess what C gave Gab? Gum! A Costco-sized variety pack--does she know her sister or what?

In addition to fashion, my cute hubby likes watches. The kids got him that really neat wooden watch (it's actually made of wood!!), so I gave him a watch box to keep them all arranged pretty-like :)

Our newly-minted Cubs fans were pretty excited to get their first official Cubs apparel!

Graysen even bought a gift for the hamster! He noticed the little treats at the pet store, specially designed to mineralize them and dull their teeth (yes, please!!) Pretty neat that he thought of the littlest pet on Christmas morning :)

The only weird thing that happened was Buck needed to go to bed around 9 PM because he had a 3 AM shift the next day. But, that's when the fire trucks started rolling into the neighborhood, then the police cars, then the ambulances! It was warm enough that we had the sliding door open during our dinner cooking process and could keep the windows open at night. We heard alarms going off and the firefighters beating down doors at the condo complex just up the street from us. Then one fireman ran out carrying a person in his arms. He put the body on the ground and immediately began CPR. When the stretcher was ready, the ambulance rushed off with the person inside.




We later heard the man was found in his running car in the garage :( We don't know if he survived or not, but they had to break down doors to clear all the other buildings to make sure no one else was in danger inside. I went to bed at 11:30 and there were still service vehicles flashing on the street. Our neighbors had to carry their baby home on foot and another was delayed more than an hour in his truck because there is no other way in or out than the one that was blocked. Quite a crazy end to an otherwise peaceful, quiet, and pleasant Christmas day.

Christmas Eve

Let's see . . . can I remember back that far? Whew, the days keep flying by! Okay . . . Christmas Eve. Buck decided when he wrapped my gifts that he hadn't gotten me as much as he thought. So (even though I said he didn't need to and it was SOOO foggy!!), he and the girls headed out to shop for me a little more (which resulted in two huge men's sweatshirts, because apparently I borrow Buck's all the time, but this was technically partially because my closet was completely blocked with a tower of boxes and I couldn't REACH my own sweatshirts :). Meanwhile, the boys and I worked on projects around the house, although I can't recall what those were . . . oh, I remember. I had this great idea to give the kids each a book as a stocking stuffer. But, see, I read all their books ahead of time--so the week of Christmas, I realize I have FOUR books to read/edit. Also, I ordered the girls a set of books they've already read, but that I edited when they did, so I had to edit our copies, so they could have them on Christmas. Whew! There was a lot of literary this Christmas--my favorite :) G$ gave me the latest book in my Mitford series (I've been working on re-reading the series all summer . . . I finally got to the book they gave me last Christmas when all these other reading projects took me off task--and then I found out there were two off-shoot books I needed to read before that one because of all the spoilers in the one I got for Christmas last year! So, I bought myself those two with my birthday money from Buck's dad, so with Graysen's gift, I have 3.5 books left to be caught up :) Also, Buck gave me another series that I really enjoyed reading--it's young adult, but I like kid/YA better than grown up literature most of the time, so why not?! The one pertinent thing we didn't get--more bookshelves, lol! Caelan also got a set of Christian fiction books for her birthday and a guitar book and a hair braiding book (which she's been using for hours a day on her patient sister :)

Okay, wow, that was a departure from Christmas Eve!

I think we ended up ordering pizza for lunch. We only  had a few hours before our Christmas Eve services at church. There were like 4 or 5, but we went with the earliest one. Turns out--so did EVERYONE ELSE! It was so packed that we sat in overflow seating upstairs and watched the service on a video screen :( Super disappointing! The first year we moved here, Christmas felt so lonely because we didn't know anyone at church. This year, we knew loads of people but we couldn't get to them because there was "no room at the inn." I kinda miss our old small church, and so does Buck. We may be doing some visiting around in the next couple of Sundays that he has off :)

After church, we came home and changed out of our fancy duds. We'd planned a tasty meal of parmesan-crusted tilapia, Hawaiian rolls, roasted cauliflower . . . so yummy! Buck and Brennen took care of the fish, which turned out deliciously! Here's a pic of them gettin' it done :)


I had finished the reading, but in all my wisdom I also had three SEWING projects to do for Christmas. Ay-yi-yi. The boys have been wanting sashes (like Boy Scouts) to put all their Jr. Ranger badges on . . . I've looked online dozens of times and all I can find are the princess ones that you would wear for a contest at the fair. Not going to work :) So, on one of our quick shopping dates together, Buck and I ran into Hobby Lobby and found some nice, heavy, brown fabric. I had the sashes cut to size (I measured Caelan :) and ready to sew. My machine would.not.cooperate. At all! I was so frustrated that I was in tears!!! Finally I prayed, and Buck came up to just stand there with me, and the machine worked perfectly. Praise God! My 15 minute project took well over an hour, maybe closer to two, but it got done and the boys were thrilled when they pulled these out of their stockings Christmas morning! Gab and I are working on sewing on the patches, but I'll take a pic and post when they are complete :)

After the kids went to bed (so hard when they were so excited, especially the youngest one :), Buck grabbed B's new snowboard out of the trunk of his car, so we could get it wrapped (now all we need is snow :) and we stuffed all the kids' stockings. Then we rearranged the living room (moved the table, etc.) and loaded the tree! It's amazing how many gifts we pile up for Christmas morning, but in thinking about it--this is what everyone's (?) tree might look like if they had gifts also from three sets of grandparents piled up on Christmas morning :) I try to wrap in coordinating colors, so they can all grab a gift from Grandpa P or Grandma J or mom and dad. This works much better for pictures :) Ooops, I'm off of Christmas Eve again, aren't I? :)

"Not a creature was stirring . . . not even a" hedgehog . . . or a hamster . . . or a giant dog ;)

Christmas Fashion Show

I will post more about our Christmas Eve/Christmas later, but I thought I'd get these quick, self-explanatory fashion moments on here for Grandma J . . . excellent shopping once again! I think everything fit except the black socks (which have become a running joke in our family in general . . . not yours, but the fact that we just can't seem to get these boys in their black pants and black shoes into a pair of black socks, lol!) We'll just run them over to Kohl's and exchange one of these days. Enjoy the adorable new styles!!

Looks cool with the jammies, right?

Buck got a new outfit for Christmas, too! He kind of loves new clothes :) He already got new shoes, and although he didn't put them on, he also got new socks! He's been wanting a puffy vest, but I was surprised at how THICK this one was when it arrived--it's not hunter's orange, but I bet it would keep him warm in the woods. Too bad . . . this one is for style ;) I luv the shirt, and of course, gotta have new jeans for work!

Serious cuteness happening here! He luv'd his khaki pants (as requested!) "I'm a real cowboy now!" he whooped :)

Lots of excitement when the Broncos gear left the wrapping paper! Such cute styles!

That's a little more like it (although he's still wearing his pajama pants :)

He really liked the green!

Technically, B gave this to his sis for his sibling gift draw, but I thought I'd include it in fashion row :)

They dig their new boots (which fit perfectly!) They look nice with the robe, right? Lol! :) It is seriously THE softest thing I think I've ever felt. It almost didn't get wrapped with her name on it ;) Caelan was super excited about the lace top, and Gab was thrilled to get more of the plaid shirts she discovered when Grandma was here at spring break time. Thank you Grandma J and Mr. R for keeping our family looking so good!