The Holidays....Finally...

This was the most magical of magical Christmases. I wonder if our kids will remember it that way or if it holds more meaning for Doug and I since we have grown out of Christmas magic. Sterling is 5 and, I think, just the right age to know what is going to happen and be excited about it, but too young to have learned the truth behind the fairytale. Evie, who is 3, follows wherever Sterling goes and so it is just the same for her. So this was the perfect year for Grandpa Dewey to grow his beard out, don his Santa suit and surprise the kids with "extra" presents that Santa had in his bag. They were shy at first (who wouldn't be at such an elusively famous stranger suddenly in your house!), but as the toys came out they relaxed. They talked about it for days; how Santa came to visit their house!




Earlier in the season I decided to buy Children's series ballet tickets that would allow us to see three shows: The Nutcracker, Peter and the Wolf, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. The kids have Barbie in the Nutcracker on DVD and it's one of their very favorites, so I thought they would love to go see it live. To make it even better, the tickets were for Christmas Eve day! Sterling was a little wiggly and bringing the binoculars saved us there, but they both really liked it! And Doug and I LOVED it!



Grandma Lynne, Evie, Papa Larry, Sterling, and Grandma Dee-Dee

We then went to my mom's for Christmas Eve dinner with the Fam.

Uncle Scottie, Aunt Brandy & Uncle Wes

Uncle Cassidy, Stephanie, Evie

Uncle Jeremy and Hylton


And the cutest Great-Grandparents EVER! (Although, this picture kinda makes it look like Grandpa either wants to hurt Grandma or give her a smooch...)

We, of course, had Christmas Day at home and the best part was this: I woke up to patter of little feet running past our room to the Christmas Tree and Sterling's & Evie's exclamations of all that they saw. Sterling then runs into our room and grabs my hand and says, "Mom, you have to see this! Close your eyes! Santa came! There's a Bat Cave and a kitchen and candy and Lucky Charms!!" I truly can't remember a time when I believed Santa was real since I found out when I was six, so his unalloyed excitement about Christmas Day was just so enchanting! And do you know? I think it could never have held such happiness for me as a child as it did for me this year as a Mommy.

And I must say, it was so smart of Santa to bring a sled for the kids because later the next week it snowed. A lot.




Doug tried to come home around 4:00pm, but traffic was so bad, he only made it 5 blocks and turned around and went back to work. That little excursion took him 2 hours! He was at work until 11:30 when the roads finally cleared of traffic enough that he could leave. Anyway, I built this snowman for the kids. Probably the first one I've done in 20 years!


I love how the snow makes everything so clean and pretty...and quiet.


To round out the season, we had a White Elephant gift exchange party. I am still surprised we were able to fit everyone into our tiny sitting room! And this was without a finished kitchen, I might add! Our guests were so gracious about it all.




We had so much fun unwrapping horrid things like ugly papiér maché cats and kitchy figurines.


Doug got stuck with a 2-foot-tall 2nd place Pinewood Derby trophy, I scored an awesome pair of pink boxing gloves (thank you, Rachel),

and we sent these relics of our house home with the unfortunate Guenthers...who then regifted to our friends who couldn't be there. I'm sure they were thrilled about being included this way!


To top it all off, I got a free piano off of Craigslist that is so ugly! It plays alright though, which is the important thing. The kids would just mess it up anyway if it was nice. You can see it in the background of this picture with Evie and don't be deceived - it truly is horrid. I think I'll spraypaint it black- you know my partiality for black spraypaint! The point of the picture, though, is to show how attached Evie is to Hylton's Crusoe (the blue seahorse in her hand). So much so, that my Mom bought her a pink Crusoe for Christmas to keep her from taking his all the time. It caused a bit of contention at first because, although Evie was no longer taking Hylton's, he now thought hers was his. Fortunately it wore off quickly and life has been beautiful ever since!

Compelled Blogging

I have been completely uninspired about blogging lately; and now Doug says there simply must be an update. Who's blog is this anyway?! So this is me appeasing The Doug...

I can't even think about blogging about Christmas at the moment! So on another day maybe there'll be photos of our freakin' adorable kids on our freakin' awesome Christmas. Today however, it is only the house, the house, the house...

My lack of enthusiasm might have something to do with our kitchen still looking like we haven't done jack:



Only we know how many hours have been spent toiling to make it look like we haven't done jack. Last week I went to a dinner party with some old friends from high school and I mentioned that I felt like I have been doing everything myself lately because Doug doesn't mud, per se, and that's all there really is to do until that's done. He was unduly upset about that, I thought. :) Truly though, the sheetrocking, taping and mudding has been my baby. When he's at work, I put a little mud up and do a little sanding. He saved my bacon on skim-coating the ceiling though. Thanks, Babe- you saved us some chiropractic bills and potentially a carpal tunnel surgery. As of today, the mudding is all done except for another skim-coat on the ceiling. Now we can sand it and put up texture and paint. This is so exciting since everything can get put in once this step is done. The reality hasn't set in yet... It's been three months; I'm kind of used to my ghetto kitchen and eating fast-food everynight and my new dress size.

Here's my lovely new pocket door framing, finally in (oh, the things we get excited about!):


This is the half bath in progress. Notice the pile of blocks stacked up on the floor? That's covering the toilet drain so Hylti doesn't hide stuff down there. We're already missing the rag we used to plug it up initially (we're not talking about that fiasco, hoping it doesn't come back to bite us in the bum later, so to speak...). We're also missing Doug's watch and a couple of toothbrushes...


Incriminating baby prints next to the bathroom:


Hylton has been so helpful, really. Supervising.


Fixing the sheetrock...with a screwdriver...


Mudding.


Also some electrical work. We've had a couple of scares... and some singeing.



Now for the piéce de résistance! I'm pretty sure this is why The Doug wanted me to blog.

You can never have a project without much of it going wrong. We've had our fair share. I don't think I ever blogged about our windows order from a certain orange home improvement center... The chick (yes, chick) who took our order messed up 2/3 of it. At first we thought it was just one window. One day I happened to show my step-dad the window I was so proud of on the side of the house and he says, "It looks too small..."
"Nah..." I say, willing the comment into oblivion since the paperwork is very clear about NO REFUNDS ON CUSTOM ORDERED WINDOWS!
Eventually it got the best of me and I measured only to find that the window was 6" too short, much to my dismay. It took a deal of courage to tell Doug. He couldn't say anything for quite a long time and anyone who knows Doug knows this is really something! Long story short, the manager pulled up our account and saw that we'd been blowing through the cash in his store and was very obeisant about exchanging the window so we wouldn't shop at the blue guys next door (his words). Anyway, disaster averted. So, now, a month and a half later, we decide that Saturday is the day to replace the patio door. Doug spends all day removing siding, the old door, nailing down floorboards, putting up house wrap and finally he and Ben lift the door to put it into place and it is 1/2 inch too wide. It will not go in! Again, Doug too mad to speak. Ben lingered uncomfortably while Doug ate his much belated lunch in fuming silence. Finally Doug told him he could go home since it looked like the door wasn't going in that day and Ben replied with a laugh and a sideways glance at me, "I'm afraid to leave Adrianna here..." Poor Dougie... Anyway, they are going to exchange this door as well, we just have to wait three weeks for the new one to arrive. Meanwhile...

...It's warmer than our patio door was at least...

Our Skillz of An Artist: The Epic Post

I imagine that if I'm heartily sick of postings about the house you must be too, but if I have to suffer through it then so do you! Mwah-ha-ha! (Maniacal outburst.)
Here are a few of the updates:
Since there are several things I am unable to do during the day by myself and I must get the aggression out somehow, I've released my energies into the yard and created this work of art... otherwise known as a burn pile. It is a rare collage of prune tree clippings, leaves, rose bushes, and mounds of eradicated ivy. Beautiful, is it not? The fire should be splendid after all this East Wind has died down... and a little gasoline...


I can also move furniture and heavy boxes to further our settling in which included rearranging the kids' rooms for the umpteenth time to create the optimal storage capacity (with attention to Feng Shui flow) for our little home. I think I am done rearranging.


*Sidenote*
This is one of the things I love about our house: Friday night football games. It's such a nostalgic feeling to hear the band and the cheering and remember when I used to attend my own high school games at the same stadium. (Click to see movie)


Miracle of miracles! my sheetrock is up and my window in! This is due wholly to the fact that my dear, sweet Grandparents volunteered to come over, so while my Grandma watched the kids, Grandpa and I hung the rest of the drywall. You have no idea what this little wall of sheetrock did for my morale!


The window was courtesy of a couple of guys in the new ward (who know how to install windows) coming over to make sure it got done right for our first window installation. Between the experts and Doug (who's watched scads of Youtube videos on how it's done), the window has been dubbed Fort Knox.


Doug has also replaced some floorboards that had dry rot.


One day while I was trying to work and Sterling was wanting to "help" I devised the chore of picking up nails off the patio for $.05/ nail. This kept him busy for at least 20 minutes and he loved earning money, so now whenever he sees a nail he thinks he is going to get paid for it. I'm just not sure that nails under the house count as a safety concern...


Still a pocket door to be installed and then the sheetrocking can be complete!


Doug teases me that I always cut my hair when we are late for something, so of course, one Sunday before church that's just what I did! I have never attempted the entire coiffing before, and even though it's a bit edgier that what I had envisioned and my dear, honest friend calls it an Asian Mullet, I am pleased enough with the results. I have no pictures of this and the tree farm pictures make it look tame. It's definitely more Emo than I was going for, but I have secretly been wanting an Asian Mullet like this one...


Moving on. When I put up our tree this year this is what I saw: No bueno!

I just couldn't bear the thought of another year of coaxing the tree lights to work, so we chucked it and bought our first real Christmas tree in 7 years. So liberating!
I found a place in Buxton that sells any size Noble tree for $10 and the kids had a great time tree hunting and an even better time decorating!





Sterling's happy ANYtime he gets to destroy something!



Strawberry Hill Christmas Tree Farm 2009



(Click to see movie)