Door Decorations

 Back in July when I asked Camille how she would feel if I applied for a job at her school, she gave me a death stare that would terrify Darth Vader.

I had to reassure her that it was HER school and she could ignore me and pretend she didn't know me. That made her feel slightly better, but she still wasn't happy.

But then something magical happened: She learned I have a key to get into the building early! All of a sudden I became the cool kid!

After about a month of school, she even waved at me.

She has continued to gradually warm to me.

And now, we have some sweet experiences- like her designing and us working together to decorate my classroom door for the door decorating contest.

I think now she's glad I'm there. It's been pretty great.

And she's awesome. Seriously, this kid is incredible. She makes everything better and I love standing on the sidelines to watch her spread her wings and fly.

Breakfast With Santa

 TBE PTO hosted a Breakfast with Santa. It was so cute and so well done! They had a silent auction and I bid on several items but didn't win anything, unfortunately. Maybe next year!

Camille helped sale goodies at the Student Leadership Council. She had fun with that.

New Staircase

 After Camille put her head through not one, but two, spindles, we knew the handrails needed to eventually be replaced. We finally decided to do it.

I talked Ben into tearing out the carpet and installing hardwood stairs. The carpet was SO GROSS and it seemed like we might as well get rid of yucky, gross carpet while we could.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a MUCH bigger job than we ever expected.

We honestly thought the job would take less than a week- which was good after the bathroom remodel.

Instead, it ended up taking close to 7 weeks, and WE had to do much of the work.

The stair guy literally only did the install. We had to hire out someone to tuck in the carpet, stain/polyurethane the stairs, and do the paint.

Ben thought we could do the staining. I thought, "no way!" We hired the staining out, but after there was a death in his family and the job got pushed back yet another week, we decided to just do it. We went to a store that specializes in wood and they walked us through everything. They were beyond helpful and gave us a lot of confidence.

But, it took our entire Thanksgiving break. Between our whole family we put in over 40 hours to polyurethane (we actually ended up keeping the natural color and not adding any stain), paint, and then caulk.

We estimate we saved over $2,000 and it does feel slightly good that we did it ourselves, but if we knew what we were getting into, we probably wouldn't have done it- even if we do love it now.

But, really, we paid the stair guy WAYYYYYY too much money to have to do so much of the work ourselves.

Shake Shack Tradition

 This was our third year in a row buying the Shake Shack Christmas specialty shakes. It's been a fun tradition, but I think it has run it's course. Mostly because they just aren't that great. So maybe instead we pick a different place each year to sample their Christmas treats. We'll see. Our girls love traditions and sometimes it's practically impossible to get them to change their mindsets and try something different.

Work Party

 For my work, they had a "Cookies and Canvas" event, where we got to bring our kids and we painted a picture and ate way too many cookies. I was really happy that Camille and Claire got to go. I wish Audra could have gone, but she is pretty stressed out with school and wanted to have the time to study instead. 

With the kids all in school it seems like we don't get to do fun things together as much anymore. It was really nice to go and do something FUN together on a school night. These girls really are the absolute best- I love them so much! I miss the time we had when we homeschooled. Sigh.

Parade of Lights

Audra was in the Parade of Lights, so we decided to head downtown to enjoy the parade. We went to the Christmas Market for dinner. Apparently, millions of other people had the same idea for it was incredibly crowded! But I got to get a Bavarian Pretzel which I wanted, so it was a win.

We walked over the parade. We loved seeing Audra, but I think Ben's favorite part was getting free lightbulbs that the Excel float was handing out.

Audra was the star of her school, she was all zoomed in on TV and everything! It made up for last year where just her plume was visible. So, yes, I now have a famous daughter!

                                

Claire's Basketball

For years Claire made fun of Camille playing basketball. Nevertheless, she decided to try out for the basketball team. She made the "B" team, but she wanted to be with her friends, so she switched to the "C" team. They didn't win any games, but they did improve. Claire was great at stealing the ball, running down the court, and getting a shot off. And once in awhile the shots went it- she was definitely the high scorer of the team.

Coach Cox was INCREDIBLY patient with the girls- maybe a little too patient ;) 

It was great for Claire to be on a team- she ended up having a great experience.