December Daily - Day Six

Hello, Monday. We meet again. I'm on my own for getting out the door because Kevin was still on his hunting trip. The night before I stayed up organizing the chaos to look more like this in case Kevin comes home today.

Even though I got up at 6:15 I didn't leave the house until 8:15. Ugh. 2 hours. Monday.

At work, this travel mug from my Helzberg client makes me happy. Full of coffee from home.

I go to lunch with one of my co-workers Ramsey to talk about social marketing my own dept within DEG. Panera is our usual go-to.

After work that night Anna has swimming lessons. We have been doing some private sessions to try to get past Level II. I let Carter swim also now that we are a member for the winter.

 Kevin gets home and discovers my unfinished project in progress. I'm pretty sure he's pissed but he doesn't say anything. At least my shoes look pretty :)

December Daily - Day Five (Sunday)

Sunday morning. Carter wants to know where the big box of oatmeal is (for home-made oatmeal, not microwave oatmeal - that's for weekdays!) We are out.

Anna is waking up with Baxter.

I make pancakes (not those frozen pancakes - those are for weekdays!) and bacon.

Anna likes her bacon squishy, Carter likes his crispy, I like mine extra crispy - practically burnt. I make all three. Best quote of the day "This is a nice, quiet morning breakfast time." - Carter. Yes, yes it is. Good morning, loves.

The kids don't leave Baxter alone for 5 minutes. They even played some security guard game that involved him. 

I found a new home for that "shoe organizer" in a different closet. 

I sort the tissue paper by color and pattern. Yes, I'm type A. Most of the time. 

We go to the grocery store because we're out of milk and bread. We pick up fresh flowers for the kitchen and I find some fresh greenery I pick up to put in a vase on the mantel.

I also changed out my colored balls for pine cones (I saved these from previous years and just store them in a gymboree bag). I sprayed them with cinnamon clove room spray from Bath and Body works.

The kids had hung the stocking on Saturday with my mom.



And I'm up too late. I'll post today's tomorrow. Still no pictures ordered :)

December Daily - Day Four (Saturday)

Saturday morning. I need coffee.

Lots of coffee.

I get back to work on the final demo. I removed the left wall of the center shelving unit.

 And had my first moment of doubt when I realized it was part of the floor. I realize it shouldn't show because hampers will be here. And Sam is good with wood working, if I need to have him shim it it won't be a big deal.

I roll paint.

After two coats my parents arrive. We begin hanging the first track. We realize we have to remove the trim to get these flush with the wall. Parts will have to be cut to be reattached later so we keep them in tack (except for one that cracked).

After we get shelves in, Anna and I can hardly wait to start putting shoes back. We get the second track and shelves up.



And the third track on Kevin's side.  But on this side, my dad hung it a few inches too far to the right, forgetting that the right panel has a finished side so we can just move it over to the left because the panel isn't cut all the way through. This one really needs to be shifted to the left a few inches, because otherwise I think the hanging clothes will run into that panel. There is also a vent on the floor. We will probably need to install the toe kick board behind the vent on that section. These will eventually have shelves and drawers.

By then it was 5 pm and my parents had dinner plans. Ok, no problem. We still have the largest part to go in on the back wall. I'll text Sam and he can come help.

Uh oh. Sam had surgery on Thursday on his knee and is on crutches. Scratch that idea. Ok well, I'll just do as much as I can on Sunday. Reality sets in that Kevin is going to have to finish this. It won't have the impression I had hoped for. Oh well. There's no turning back now.

The kids had been so good that I took them to Christmas in the Park at Longview Lake. Carter liked it but Anna thought it was for little kids.

Best quote of the day "Mommy, you have too many projects. You don't need to start any more projects." - Anna

Yes, Anna. Lesson learned. Lesson learned.

December Daily - Day Three (Friday)

Friday
Kevin and Tassie left for a hunting trip in the morning and we saw them off.

Tassie was shaking because she was so excited.

I went to work. At the end of the day my mom picked up the kids and we went to Anna's bookfair at school. We came home and I made spaghetti. Then my mom left to pick my dad up at the airport.

Then. I got down to bizness. My project while he was gone was to redo the master closet. Here are the before pictures.

Kevin's side. Yes, there's a nerf gun at the top back.

Looking straight in (I had already starting clearing the floor and shoes before I remembered to take pictures)

My side, not any better 

There's a hamper buried in there somewhere (you can see the shoe storage moved into the bathroom) 

I use the phrase "shoe organizer" loosely here 

So I cleared it out.

And started demo.

 

And spackling.

Where did I put everything? Shoes and bags into the bathtub - where Baxter couldn't eat them.

Everything else I piled into our bedroom. I thought I would sort through it on Sunday when I put it back into the closet (keyword here is thought - more to come later) 

 It left me with a mess of clothes and a mess of boards with nails (I then moved these to the basement to be out of children's way)

I had to make room for 

all of these boxes. 

36 of them to be exact. Luckily they arrived the day Kevin left and my brother Zach came over with a friend to move them into the house while I was at work.

It was then about midnight and I started edging with the paint to match the master bedroom and bath. Nothing like waiting for spackle to dry.

At 1:30 am I decided to go to bed and start in the morning.

December Daily Check In

I'm still keeping up with all the photos and have lots to share! I was going to update the blog last night but the internet connection wasn't working and I was really up to late anyway. It was a sign to go to bed. I plan to update the blog with Days 3-5 tonight. I will probably then order prints and plan to scrap the first week on Thursday. This should give me a good start on the month and perhaps then doing a page each night will work out better - or maybe I will prefer doing the whole week at the end on the weekend. We'll see.

December Daily - Days 1 & 2

Day 1
It was cold. Very cold.

We bought our house for the third time, signing papers to lock in at 4% for 20 years. Shaved 8 years off our current mortgage. A good deal.

Best quote "Mommy, she has a lot of papers." - Carter

I worked on decals that are a work of art in the bathroom upstairs. It's going to take me a few days to finish that project.

Day 2
I slept in, dropped Anna off at school, went to Starbucks, washed car and vacuummed it out. Found old popcorn, fossilized french fries, a jump rope and... surprise... $10! Got gas, headed home to shower. Got dressed and found a $1 in my pocket. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket. Then Carter helped me put Taco Soup into the crockpot.

Did the dishes and cleaned up our mess and then headed out to go shopping. Carter was surprisingly a good shopping buddy. I let him pick a toy to take. He picked a stroller and baby doll. And he pushed that stroller and baby doll everywhere. The weather was nice and I'm so sorry I didn't get a picture of him pushing his baby doll. Lots of comments and very cute. We listened to XM23 holiday music. He loved it. Until he remembered that Alvin and the Chipmunks is the movie in the DVD player in the car and then he just wanted to watch that for the millionth time. After picking up Anna we went to Target to get gifts for two of the kids for the adopted family at the daycare. While there we got new Unbreakable Christmas Ornaments - genius. So then of course, when we got home the kids wanted to put up a tree.

It's a work in progress.

Before bedtime Carter was banging two snow globes together and broke one. Those are fun to clean up. That's the second one that's broken.

I haven't uploaded or ordered pictures yet. Will probably scrap this weekend.

Baxter's First Bath

Washed, blow dryed and brushed. He's not spoiled or anything.