Merry Christmas!

So this little family blog has over 4000 views! Should I be nervous that we have stalkers or flattered that we have so many friends?

Abby and Bryn both come home for winter break today. Glad it's today as snow is predicted tomorrow and Thursday and I surely wouldn't want Abby to have to drive 3 hours in that. Their rooms are all ready for them: unopened mail and clean sheets on their beds. Paige is really looking forward to not being an only child.

My regular freelance client base has all but fizzled out the last two weeks, so I signed back up with my staffing resource and was able to help fix some timely website issues at Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha for a half day last week. And this week I'll be going in to Rockwell for a half day on Friday. I've alerted the staffing agency of my more-than-available status after the holidays so I can get busy again.

It's an awesome time of the year to have the extra time on my hands. The tree is up and decorated, Christmas shopping done, presents wrapped, house clean.

Paige has been very busy at Hallmark. When she works, she typically works til close. Closing up shop is taking way longer than usual — almost an hour after they lock the doors! So some of the employees are volunteering to come in each night an hour before close in order to get everyone out of there quicker.

Paige came home from her Hallmark Christmas Party with the announcement that she'll be attending UW-Whitewater next fall. She's been talking to a lot of people (kids and adults) and concluded that Whitewater is the choice for her. She's excited and now we have to look to see what forms and payments we need to send in.

Last weekend, we got see Bella sing and dance with her Crescendo group, the youngest group in Accompany of Kids. We had to have Bella there early, so of course, I came prepared with crayons and paper and we made cards. It kept Lucy entertained! The show was really impressive! Amazing that 1st graders can remember all those words and dance steps! And the skills were elevated with each age group! Kristin and Carlo had a work party to attend that night, so we kept Bella and Lucy overnight. We watched Elf, ate ice cream, and colored.

And the weekend before Jeff, Paige, AJ and I drove down to Miller Valley and got to see the Miller Holiday Lites display that's set to music. Didn't realize how popular it was—had to wait about 45 minutes til the next show. But it was pretty cool to see—and it was free.

Couldn't pass up the opportunity to get some outdoor Christmas decorating in with the warm weather we had this first weekend of December. Paige had to work all weekend, so Jeff and I had to get the tree without her. (We ended up getting the one on the left.) Paige requested to have colored lights around our windows this year and Jeff obliged. Now all we need is snow to make the decorations look picture perfect!

I turned another year older Nov. 19th and was treated to Cold Stone Creamery for my birthday treat. Super yummy!

For Thanksgiving this year, we opted to trek down to Indy since no one had to work over the weekend. We arrived very late Wednesday night, and had to be up bright and early the next day. Bryn came up with the idea to enter a Thanksgiving run/walk, so I worked with Meg to find a run nearby and sign up those who wanted to. Bryn hurt her hip flexor in October and was just cleared to run by the trainer, so she was really happy to have everyone join her. Jeff had some turkey prepping to do before he could leave. Glad he did, because the turkey was delicious!

We sure had fun staying at Meg's and playing with their puppy, Diesel, picking out new Scentsy scents, listening to how much Lucy loves us (not!), playing BlackOps on that ginormous screen, playing "hide Lucy's blankie", and eating leftovers.

Black Friday sales beginning Thanksgiving night kind of threw our annual shopping trip off. Paige got word (via text) that Hollister and other mall shops were opening at 12midnight and offering 40 – 60% off. Jeff volunteered to take the older kids out for that sale. Me, Mom, Meg, Kristin and Abby opted to stick with our usual plan and head out early in the a.m. We left Meg's house at 5:30am. It was really weird not fighting crowds, searching for a parking space, or waiting in long checkout lines at the big box stores. None of us complained though. We recharged with breakfast at Panera and capped off the trip with margaritas for lunch at Abuelos.

We left Indy Saturday night, called Craig on our way through Chicago and were able to meet him and Clark at Culver's for dinner.

Jeff's work website finally launched after my 3 years of redesigning it, submitting estimates to meet their budget, and aligning it to their requirements. I visited Ring & DuChateau to pick up my check and was able to visit with a few of Jeff's colleagues. Sad there aren't Christmas parties anymore.