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.