Merry Christmas!!

Christmas setup mayhem

So the pre-lit tree setup this year has been delightful!  We pulled it out,  set it all up and plugged it in.  Most of the tree wasn't lit.  Karl spent several hours down in the floor with a multimeter and got one strand mostly happy.

 I jiggled a plug and the top portion popped on,  but still left with a chunk gone.  It was after 11pm,  so we found 3 strands of working white lights and flung them up on the tree.  It is far from perfect,  but for tonight it'll do. Maybe tomorrow I'll get a strand of colored ones to help it blend in.

I added some of the first round of ornaments when Karl yelped for help.

 He was trying to fix the glasses Emily had just broken in the center, snapping them in half, and managed to glue his fingers together when the super glue exploded.  I got him freed with 100% acetone, and he is back working on repairs.

 After he patches the glasses,  he is going to fix the broken stocking hanger, and the 4 broken pieces on the Christmas village.  These are definitely first world problems,  and I'm going to stop complaining now!

Soapy fail

A gallon of laundry detergent spilled on the floor is nasty business.  After a quick google search I am opting for the kitty litter method.  Sadly it is under the machine.  No clue how to best get that out without pulling it out which I'm not gonna do.  Argh. Welcome to Monday.  And what do I do with the towels I stared soaking up all this mess!  They are gonna be fun to put through the machine.

Let it Snow!

First snowfall equals cocoa, marshmallows and homemade cookies!

Josh just now-"I need ice to cool ym hot cocoa down.  Wait,  is it supposed to be hot?"

Awesome Halloween costumes

Despite the fact that Karl seems to utterly  dislike Halloween,  I absolutely adore it!  I love costumes,  as long as they are creative and/or adorable.  We don't do scary at my house.

So this year I made the girls their choice of costumes, a vampire for Sydney, and Mavis from Hotel Transylvania for Emily.  She was a vampire mid way into turning into her bat self.

Josh wanted to be Bumblebee the transformer so I bought his.  I had grand plans to make hima transforming car costume, but reality kicked in and I scraped that idea.

I was Snow White, from theTV show Once Upon a Time.  No one got my costume, but I think everyone should wear a cape and awesome boots.  It's very fun!

We actually carved real pumpkins this year. Um,  ewwwwwww! Pumpkin guts are nasty!  But it was fun to use a chisel on a pumpkin.

Awkward Halloween

That awkward moment Halloween morning as you're dropping off your late child at school and you see someone in the school building wearing a bathrobe looking like she has a blackeye and you don't know whether that's a Halloween costume or her normal appearance but since you're wearing a pajama top and fuzzy slippers you can't really say anything.

Water pump sensor error

Clearly we need to consider putting in a bathroom in the basement.  Our genius sin decided to pee into the sump pump closet, because he was playing in the basement and didn't want to run upstairs.  Apparently we hadn't told him the water closet we have is just not that kind of closet!

Never thought we'd need to spell that out,  we found out because he set off the emergency water sensors we put in place to warn us of floods.

He passed his test!

Yahoooo!!!!

Karl has been studying for the licensing exam for the last two years we have lived in NY,  and today he took the final monster test and passed!  It is such a relief to have that huge ordeal lifted off our shoulders.  We went out to celebrate tonight. 

English teacher snarky

We were having some pre birthday cake for josh and Sydney corrected a minor grammatical mistake Josh made.  Emily promptly chimed in that Sydney should be and English teacher because she is always correcting mistakes made by Emily and Josh.  Syd sent her a dirty look but didn't shoot the idea down.  I think Grandma Hicks is proud of her!

Birthday boy

EHe wanted cereal for his birthday breakfast, the meal where I'd let him pick anything!

Karl laughed and said "he is so my son!"  Gotta love Cold cereal! 

Karl  has a night shift this week so we did birthday celebration last night and it was so fun

This morning Josh is been running up to anyone who would listen and saying, " it's my birthday!"

Life lessons from Frozen

Josh: could there ever be Aven with a last name of Pilz?

Me: only if you marry her

Josh: marry her??

Me: then she would have the same last name.

Josh: and she would live here with us??

Me: (laughing) yep!

Josh: (grinning) and she could sleep in my bunk bed on top.

Me: yep.

Josh: and would we kiss?  

Me: yes, and hold hands and snuggle.

Josh: And bow? And dance? Like in frozen at the party for queen Elsa?  I like that part. 

(Excited) That would be my first time getting married!

Me: well you really only want to get married once.

Josh: not ten times,  that would be silly.

Birthday time!

My little munchkin turned 12 this week!  Ahhhhhhh!  I can't believe for fast time has flown. 

We had her birthday party yesterday with a friend from school, and friends from church.  Sadly Karl and Josh had to stay home because josh was running a fever! I scheduled it at a place called Wonderworks,  and the kids had a great time! It was also the longest party ever!  By the end of the day, I was tired,  but they had such a good time it was totally worth it!

Seriously confused weather

Yesterday morning I sent Emily out to the bus stop in the rainy drizzle.  I didn't check the school website because the blizzard we had been warned would come at 5 am clearly was no where in site.  After a few minutes out alone, she texted wondering if she missed the bus.  I checked the website. Yup. Snow day.

I grumbled for the first rainy hour or two and then the flurries started and didn't stop until after dinner.

Tuesday we rode bikes in the lovely 45-50 degree weather.  Thursday we shoveled still more snow-we got a foot for sure off the sidewalk and driveway so the kids and I could get to the bus.

The snowy mountain is at least as tall as Josh!  Sydney walked a little too far to the left and fell in up to her knees.  Sigh. And of course she said,  "why does it always happen to me?"

Emily said this morning, "yeah! I have a white birthday."

  I miss spring! I got some bulbs from wegmans to lift my spirits!

Pantry organization!

I should have really taken a before picture,  but imagine an overflowing pantry with stuff piled higher and tending to fall over.  So Karl got me some mdf boards to fit in my closet.  I had half depth boards,  but saw double depth at Meri's house (my neighbor) and loved her baskets and extra storage space!

So Karl cut down the mdf boards and emptied the closet of all the food and bins we had.  What a mess!

We picked up a few bins from the dollar store.  I still need to find a good deal on one or two really deep ones, but the box will work for now. After an hour or so we have this!!!  Hopefully it will work for us.