Kicking Off 2016

2016 started with a pancake breakfast at my parents. Everyone started heading home after that including us. Lissy ended up taking Bella and Brady home with her so they could stay a couple extra hours. So Bella came home with us while Lincoln stayed with Brady at my parents. Ellie and Bella ended up playing out in the snow with Grace and Faith until Lissy came to pick Bella up and drop off Lincoln. Then Andrew put the twins down for naps and took the older three out to the ranch to do some sledding. They took the GoPro and got some fun videos of them sledding, including Buddy. I got busy trying to get through the mounds of laundry and starting to put Christmas decorations away. I cleaned as I put stuff away so I could cross those areas off of my purging/cleaning list. I was still working when Andrew and the kids got home. I was able to get the decorations, Christmas china and some of the outside decorations put away and put the “winter” decorations out. Then I started working on the tree but my mom had invited us over to eat leftovers so we went there before I could finish. They had the house all cleaned up when we got there. We stayed for just a bit and then went home. Andrew helped Jackson and Ellie get started giving Buddy a bath and then gave the twins a bath while I worked on the tree. There was a strand that was partially out so I took it off and put a new one on. Andrew helped me get the tree bag up and then he took it downstairs to storage. I put the rest of the totes away, got all the furniture back in place and vacuumed. Then it was bedtime for all of us.

Saturday afternoon Jackson had a couple ballgames in Queen City. My parents came to the first one and then offered to take the other kids home since we still had about an hour before Jackson’s next game started. Jackson’s team did a great job and won both games. I attempted to try to take down some of the outdoor Christmas decorations but wasn’t totally successful because of the ice. So there is still garland on the fireplace out back and the lights out front are still halfway up. I took down the ones over the front porch but the end of the strands was up in the gutter and was in a block of ice. So that also meant the strand over the dining room was stuck too. The kids also had fun sledding out at the ranch several times before their break was over. Buddy even got to join in on the fun. Andrew convinced me to go the last time they went even though I was trying to work on stuff at the house and we brought the twins who had missed out on the previous sledding adventures.

We also tried to start to get my annual purging/whole house cleaning. I got the older kids involved in cleaning their rooms. They had to clean the baseboards, blinds and fans. We worked together to clean out closets, dressers and under the beds and moved furniture around so we could vacuum. I also cleaned out the bathroom and storage closet upstairs and wiped down all the walls and baseboards. Even though we do the purging on a smaller scale several times throughout the year we still ended up with a big bag of trash and 1 ½ big bags of items to take to the thrift store from just the upstairs plus selling a few items on swap shop. I had intentions of continuing the purge on Monday but it didn’t happen. I was starting to feel a bit better and decided to do an hour bike ride. It was the official first day of the indoor triathlon competition I am doing so it was nice to get the ride in. Then I decided to work on my window photo frame that I bought off swap shop. I had ordered prints for a horizontal orientation of the window and didn’t realize until I was cleaning the window that it was going to have to be hanged vertically. I finally figured out what photos to use and Lissy suggested I just print them on cardstock. Thankfully I had 12x12 cardstock and a printer that could print 9x12 photos because that was what I was wanting to use. And it turned out great. I used a French cleat to hang it and it was very easy to do.

Even though the kids didn’t have school on Monday, Ellie still started back with tumbling. I enjoyed having a break from all the activities for a bit especially since things are going to be pretty busy over the next couple of months. While we went to tumbling, Andrew and Jackson did some lifting. We have an old weight set that has been in our basement since we moved without much usage. Andrew has been wanting to start up again and slowly start Jackson on it. So they worked on that several times throughout the week. Then they played some Mario Kart with the other boys. The next morning was a little rough. I was up early to do my bike ride before taking the kids to school. I had to get them up instead of them waking up to their alarms but everyone did what they needed to do and we got out of the door in time. After I dropped everyone off, I went home to start cleaning again but then decided I would look for a new toilet and decided to order one off Amazon. I thought I would use some gift cards we have accumulated but I had trouble using them since they were credit card gift cards. Then I decided to just use the gift cards to purchase Amazon gift cards, but again had trouble with it. At the same time I was trying to sell some stuff on swap shop (since whatever we make off of their goes to our Send a Kid to Kamp fund, we are well on our way to sending a second kid to Kids Across America J). I finally figured out a way to make it work but I spent my whole morning and most of my afternoon working on it. Sometimes the transaction would go through and other times it wouldn’t. I decided to just cash in all of our gift cards for Amazon cards since I do a good portion of my shopping on there and knew it would all be used at some point.

The rest of our week was pretty normal. Ellie started back to gymnastics and was excited to move up the level 3. I spent most of my free time cleaning and purging. For some reason it took me longer this year and I wasn’t able to finish all I wanted in the one week.  I put together a couple of big storage cubes for the playroom. I was up late one night doing it but had one part I couldn’t quite finish. I needed to push a side in so that the screw holes would line up and put the screw in at the same time. I tried leveraging my weight several different ways but it didn’t work. Then it took Andrew and I less than a minute to do it the next day during his lunch break. I reorganized the whole playroom and made laminated labels for everything so that hopefully that organization will stick around a bit when we start back to small group in a couple of weeks.

Lissy was able to edit one last picture for me so I could finish my picture window and I love how it turned out.

Jackson and Ellie started back to K-Life on Thursday and then had full evenings with basketball and dance practice. After I picked up Ellie from dance and before we picked up Jackson, we went on a hunt to find peppermint ice cream for our hot chocolate since we are almost out but there was none to be found in Kirksville. What will we do, especially as the temperatures have really dropped?

We did have a little warmer temperatures and rain for a couple days which allowed the ice and snow to melt so I went out Friday and took down the rest of the Christmas lights. It was like a minefield out there with dog poop everywhere. As much as I tried to avoid it, I still ended up stepping in it, I think when I was trying to move the ladder around. I told the kids they had to clean it up :-). Friday we also got out family picture and I was sad when I opened it up and it was so much darker than the original picture. Then it started forming a bubble in it that just kept getting bigger. I sent an email to Nations and will hopefully hear back from them next week. The kids brought home their report cards for the second quarter on Friday and they all did so well. Jackson and Ellie both got straight A’s with wonderful comments from their teachers. The primary school doesn’t do a regular grading scale but instead have V, S, I, N and Lincoln had 2 S’s and the rest were V’s. We were so proud of them.  After dinner that night, Ellie had an extra dance practice for her jazz class since they were performing the next day at the Truman basketball games. So I dropped her off there and then went to drop off a large trash bag at the dumpster at my dad’s office and then dropped off several bags at the thrift store and then went back to pick her up. After I got her home, I gathered my dessert I made earlier in the day and went to Tiffany’s for a Bunco night. It was nice to reconnect with some of the girls. We only got through one round of the game since we spent most of the evening talking. 

The next morning I was able to get a 5 mile run in (my longest one since my accident) and it wasn’t too bad. Andrew took Jackson to his game in Queen City and then I came a little later with the rest of the kids. My parents and Molly came to the first game and Andrew’s mom was able to make it to the second one. They lost their first game but it was close. It was a team they were really hoping to beat though. Ellie and I didn’t get to stick around for the second game, which they won, because I had to get her to Pershing for her performance. They had to be there before the game even though they didn’t perform until half time because Melody wanted them to run through their performance several times. Ellie was very nervous about it and was sure that it would be horrible. I got her to the practice room and then went to watch the first half of the girls’ game.  Their coach is a girl I actually played against in high school. She was an awesome player. I enjoyed getting to watch the game and my parents showed up around the second quarter along with Molly and John. Then Ellie did her performance and she did a great job with an awesome smile.

She got to hang out with us until the men’s game started. Andrew got there around the 4^th quarter of the girls’ game. He just pulled up to the entrance of the building and I met him out there to get the boys while he parked the truck. The twins were there long enough to get some snacks and then my parents took them with them to their house. Mary came a little before they left so Ellie had quite a cheering section. And we got to see several friends that were there too. Lincoln spent most of his time there running around with Ty. I would like to take the kids to more games, it is just finding the time. Ellie’s second performance during the next half time was just as good and we left a little after she was done. Andrew and the boys went home to check on Buddy while Ellie and I went to my parents to relieve my parents so that they could work on dinner. Since John was in town, they were making fried chicken and my kids were so excited. So we had a delicious meal and got to get to know John a little better.

Sunday was very cold but it didn’t stop Andrew and the kids from heading out to the ranch to get some work done. I picked the house, started some laundry and went grocery shopping. I figured it wouldn’t be as busy when it was -1 out and I was right. Then Andrew and the kids got home a little after I did. Andrew went to the office for several hours before coming home to take a bike ride out to the lake which was just crazy. I think it had warmed up into the teens by then. I was able to live track him and I had a warm bath waiting for him when he got back. He said his body was fine, it was just his head and toes that got pretty cold. Since it was so cold, I was pretty sure all the poop around the yard was frozen solid so Jackson and Ellie got to go out and clean up. Then Ellie got to go to Kiersten’s birthday party at the Depot Inn pool in LaPlata. Sharon took her and brought her home which worked out well and Ellie had a fun time. And I trudged through the cleaning and purging a little more. Then we went to my parents again for dinner because my mom invited us over for soup. It was a definitely a great night for soup and Buddy even got to join us.