Playing Catch-Up

The kids were feeling a little Grinchy.
The kids were feeling a little Grinchy.

Well things are rolling along sometimes fairly normally. The kids are doing great, growing and learning by leaps and bounds. We register Ben for kindergarten next month. I can hardly believe it. Tabby has been having fun with spirit week at her school (see green hair above) and even Ben got in on the action.

My nutcracker sweets.
My nutcracker sweets.

The kids have been enjoying the season and all of the fun things it has to offer. We saw The Nutcracker with some friends last week. Everyone really enjoyed it. Tabby has been studying Waltz of the Flowers in music class and she and her little buddies could be seen doing hand motions as it played. The kids both took home nutcrackers (joy! rapture!) to add to our Christmas decorations.

Tabby baked cookies yesterday and has asked to make apple cider caramels again. She’s also been asking about Elf on the Shelf which all of her friends have. We do not have one and I made an executive decision that this was not the year to get it. I love the creativity behind setting up the tableaus, but I a) don’t have time and b) am not really into the Santa deception thing, particularly as it pertains to manipulating my children’s behavior.

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We have been doing lots on the house situation, particularly as it pertains to getting our house ready to sell. We are finished retiling the master bathroom (a project we should have done YEARS AGO). It was ridiculously tedious because there were tons of things to work around and a diagonal wall. We had a family friend come in and help us knock out the last stage in record time, and despite how the above looks (don’t mark tiles when it’s late and you are STOOPID) …

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It turned out really well. AND I’m so glad to have it done. Well mostly done – still have to put the trim back and reset the toilet. OY.

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We have also been busy picking finishes for the new house. Above is our fireplace surround tile (bottom) and kitchen backsplash (top). I am very excited to see all of this start to take shape … but it will be a while. We had a snafu with our site plan and we STILL haven’t gone to permitting. It is resolved and we got a nice $25k option for FREE out of the deal, but it is frustrating. It should go in by the end of this week. I am anxious to start seeing dirt flying. Hopefully BEFORE we put our house on the market.

What else has been happening?

2013-12-12 16.15.21Matt and I saw a wholly unsatisfactory Broncos game (they lost). At least the seats were awesome.

2013-12-11 07.05.41It’s been cold (this hampered the tile project) … but also warm.

2013-12-10 21.59.32Tabby lost another tooth, but the tooth fairy still has yet to get ahold of one of Tabby’s teeth – she kept the last one and lost this one before she could turn it in. The note was more than fair payment though, I say.

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I made quite a few Sunday dinners, including Pioneer Woman’s pot roast. YUM.

Overall, I’m doing OK and in some ways, improving, I think. I have decided that based on my job right now and our lives that early morning workouts are no longer working for me, so I have been doing evening workouts for over a week now and it actually seems to be sticking. Thank goodness. Not that I’ll say no to a nice early(ish) morning run when it works, but as a rule, this is working better for me right now. Working out just makes me feel good. And I’d been missing it and it seems to be helping.

I’m even looking forward to Christmas a little.