Merry Christmas!

Christmas was a little bit different for us this year.  I had planned to do a more simplified celebration because we are busy getting packed, closing a loan, showing our current house to renters and organizing our move.  What I didn't know was that it was going to be even simpler then planned.  On Sunday afternoon I got sick and that evening Lilah got sick and by the morning Madeline wasn't feeling so well either.  Mike's cold from 3 weeks ago was getting worse.  On Monday Anna Elise got sick and everyone was getting worse, not better.  We all had some kind of stomach flu.  Mike made lots of trips to the store for medicine, gatoraide, crackers, and anything else that we needed.  By Tuesday Calvin was sick as well.  We were not able to go to the zoo for the Live Nativity, we skipped our 'baking day' and didn't make very many goodies or cookies, we didn't deliver goody plates to friends and neighbors, we had to postpone our Christmas Eve party, and we all just laid around the whole week!  We did watch Christmas movies and shows and whoever felt well enough, did some Christmas crafts.  On Christmas morning we felt pretty good.  We were able to open presents and we all felt like eating and had our traditional breakfast of Monkey Bread, scrambled eggs and sausage.  Unfortunately that afternoon Celeste finally succumbed and Mike was getting worse.  On Thursday Mike ended up at Patient First and came home with a diagnosis of severe bronchitis.  The Dr gave him a breathing treatment and 4 prescriptions.  I'm glad that the chest x-rays and blood work came back negative for pneumonia!  On Friday morning I woke up with a severe sinus infection that included the normal congestion and pressure but also had body aches.  It lasted several days.  Lilah was taken down with round 2 as well and eventually Anna Elise also got sick, again.  It was not a pleasant week as far as our health was concerned - however, we still managed to celebrate Christmas, have some fun, and spend lots of time together as a family.  Before we got sick we made a gingerbread train station, saw the downtown lights, went to the Nutcracker, and while sick we had our postponed Christmas Eve party, played with presents, Skyped with and talked on the phone to extended family, and got lots and lots of rest!  
For our Christmas dinner we switched up our normal dinner time family questions.  We asked everyone what their favorite present was and what they planned on giving  Jesus this year.  I'm so thankful that Calvin was the first one to go and that he took the questions seriously and gave the perfect answers.  He said he was going to give Jesus the gift of trying to break a bad habit that he has been working on.  The rest of the kids followed his example and all of them picked some personal habit or characteristic that they were working on changing.  It was a nice ending to a special day. 

 On our way to the Nutcracker

Our train and train station gingerbread kit!

 Mom did a lot of the building

 Celeste took good care of the candy =)

 Everyone had fun decorating

Almost done!

 Christmas morning!

 

Celeste eating breakfast in her new dress up and with her new dress up shoes - she carried them around with her all day!  (ignore the lovely picture of me)

Happy Birthday to Me!

As the oldest person in the house with my birthday on the shortest day of the year - sometimes I'd be ok just skipping it altogether - but I know I'd never get away with it.  I told Mike I didn't want anything for my birthday, just to go out and celebrate with him.   He took it one step further and made it a big celebration the whole day!  I got up early and got my birthday breakfast - donuts!  While I was gone the kids got out the birthday plates, napkins, party hat and card that Mike was hiding away.  I came home very surprised!  After lunch we continued the party with a piñata full of chocolate!  We didn't have time to eat my 'cake' but we finished big with a babysitter, dinner, a movie, and milkshakes.  We watched Saving Mr. Banks and I really enjoyed it.  It left me wanting to watch Mary Poppins again.  If you are going to watch it, watch Mary Poppins first!  I did feel a little bit of guilt because I know it was not Mike's first pick, but he was a good sport.  It was a sad movie, which was unexpected, but it was really good and I loved it.  If it's not an accurate portrayal of what really happened, don't tell me!
Anyway, the party continued on Sunday - we had cake after lunch!  The kids insisted on putting the right number of candles on the cake - they barely fit!  I really appreciated the effort that Mike put into making it a fun birthday.  I also had fun watching the kids have fun with the celebration!

 piñata fun

 Ready for my date!

Fun with birthday hats

 I blew out all the candles on my first try - unfortunately I also blew hot wax all over my table!

House!

After verbal and written offers we finally have a contract on a house!  It's a spec house and you can see the builders tour of our house here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB9JVYkK6mU  .
It's almost 2600 square feet with 4 real bedrooms.  It has two living spaces and it's two zone heat and A/C.  We are so excited.  It's in our same ward but a much better elementary school, an ok middle school and it will be in a  new high school once it's built.  It is on over an acre lot.  It's not perfect, the yard is all on the sides of the house and not in back, it's a crazy lot and the garage is actually too small for Mike's shop and it's a bit more of a subdivision then we wanted - but we can work with those things.  We will possibly be adding a third bay to the garage to make it bigger.  We love the neighborhood and we were so excited to find out that some friends from church live across the street and there are more friends from church close by (around here, that means a 5 minute drive).

Our closing date is set for January 15th.  We plan to move on January 18th and hopefully have renters in this house on February 1st.  I have already starting packing, organizing, and selling our stuff.  I'm feeling a bit nervous that I have to get a loan on a house, pack and move, do Christmas and a couple of birthdays not to mention end of year reports, taxes, and payroll taxes for our several businesses all in about 6 weeks.  We also need to move Mike's shop, find a renter for our current house, do some minor fixing and painting on our current house and purchase a few things for this new house.  I can do this!

New House!

 Most of the land in the picture (across the street) is our lot.

 

 

 Views off the back porch.  The black plastic fence is an erosion barrier for the construction.  Once the grass is established we can remove it.

Large, level, cleared side yard with enough trees to explore!

 Some of the boxes I've packed



Thanksgiving

I didn't take a single picture on Thanksgiving day.  Sorry.  We had a great Thanksgiving week.  On Wednesday I made rolls and layered jello.  We moved our afternoon movie to an evening movie since Mike worked all day.  We met him for dinner and then took the kids to Frozen.  Everyone loved it - it was such a cute movie.  Even Calvin enjoyed it despite the 'princesses'.  So fun.  On Thanksgiving we had some friends over.  Their dad had to work on Thanksgiving and like us they don't have any family around - so they came to hang out with us.  It was fun to have them and for the first time in several years I didn't haven to make the whole dinner (yeah).  On Friday we did some shopping (at a sane hour) and enjoyed our day off.  On Saturday we put up our tree and some Christmas decorations and started wrapping presents!  We also spent some time at a new house and made a decision to make an offer. 

We've been house hunting since early October.  We love our current house but we've known for years that we needed to move and we just haven't been able to make it work.  We want more space inside and out but we also need a different school for our kids, especially the middle school that Anna Elise will be attending soon.  The behavior issues that go on in the classroom are too distracting and teachers spend their time babysitting instead of teaching.  I realize that some of these problems are in all schools, but not to the extent that they have escalated to in our school.  Mike finally figured out that if we purchased a house with a large garage he could stop paying rent for a shop and he could run his business out of our house.  That rent money could be put towards our new house payment and make moving possible.  Our unique set of criteria made looking for a house a challenge.  We needed a large garage, 4 bedrooms and a good school district.  We also wanted atleast an acre, to stay in our current ward, and had a pretty tight budget for what we wanted.  After some frustrating and disappointing experiences with financing and house hunting we have finally found a house we want.   It isn't perfect, but we think we can make it work.  We just have to work out a few details with the builder (did I mention it's a new house?) 

On top of all this house hunting and celebrating Mike has been working crazy hours.  He is busier then he has ever been.  He finally hired another employee, but to get caught up he was working 12-14 hour days and 6 days a week - for probably a month a now.  He says that he should have more normal hours now that Thanksgiving is over, but I'll believe that when I see it! 

Now to find some pictures...

Anna Elise got her braces on!  Just the top and just the front few teeth.

 

 

 Crazy hair day at school - it's hard to see but they have green hair wax in their hair

 

 

 

 

Celeste has decided it's time to have hair - she uses her cloth as her 'hair'.  She wears it every day and asks to have it combed and fixed.