Holiday Fun

As we geared up for the Christmas holidays, Kaitlynn and I enjoyed some time shopping together. We also were excited to attend Lily's winter dance recital where she could enjoy the amazing performances and holiday songs. An extra bonus was seeing her beloved longtime teacher, Mrs. Hebert, who was there with her own tiny dancer as well.

Also before Christmas, Connor was invited to attend Tim's birthday party where a big group of boys played paintball. I'll never understand how getting shot over and over with huge paint pellets is anyone's idea of fun, ha!

House Updates

As we continued to settle into our new house in Katy, it was taking me a long time to figure out how to decorate and truly make it feel like home. Little by little we have been moving furniture around, hanging wall decor, and considering new paint colors. Once I started working from home, I decided my priority was to get the home office decorated. We needed new furniture and I was hoping to find some secondhand items for sale. I managed to find a set through Facebook Marketplace that I thought would work.

Once I started using the furniture, however, it just didn't seem substantial enough for what I was needing like file storage and supplies. I kept looking online and never could find what I envisioned, so I ended up buying a new set from a local furniture store. It was exactly as I pictured and so much more functional than the previous set.

Once I had organized the desk and credenza drawers, the only thing left was to paint the room and hang some wall decor. The end result was exactly what I was hoping for and definitely makes it more enjoyable to spend long hours on work calls and web meetings.

Once the office was finished, I finally had the perfect solution for the entryway directly outside. It was my favorite furniture piece we bought in Dubai, one that I had admired for a long time and bought myself for Christmas last year. I still have some decor shopping to find the right items for the shelves, but I love being able to see this from the office and every time we enter the house.

Another room that I had trouble with was the living room. The biggest issue was the rug, because our existing rugs were a bit small for the space and seemed to make the furniture arrangements feel confining. Once I realized that I needed a bigger rug, it didn't take me long to find the exact right size and color scheme that I was wanting. It brought a much needed pop of color into the space and made the furniture flow so much better. We also added curtains to the breakfast room which tied in the red color from the living room.

I also struggled quite a bit to find new bar stools for our counter-height counter top. Our old ones were bar height and didn't leave much room to sit down, ha!

I probably visited my local HomeGoods store 3-4 times per week for 4 months before I finally found the exact right bar stools for our kitchen. I never would've guessed that they would've been so hard to find. Hooray!

I still have a LONG way to go, but we're slowly making progress and looking forward to putting our stamp on every room so that it truly feels like home.

Fall Updates

In mid-November, I was excited to take a day off from work to spend some much-needed girl time with Julie and Michelle. It was Julie's birthday and she celebrated by having us sit on Santa's lap for a photo, ha!

As the room parent for Kaitlynn's 5th grade homeroom class, I was in charge of decorating the teacher's classroom door for his birthday in early December. Creativity and crafts have never been a strong suit of mine, but Kaitlynn helped me and we felt pretty good about the finished result. We hoped that Mr. Harris was pleased with the outcome. Truth be told, he is not much for showing emotion on these types of things so we had no idea if he enjoyed it, ha!

Also in the fall, Kaitlynn and her sweet friend Sumaiyah were attending weekly choir practice early on Friday mornings. In December, the choir performed in a winter concert and the kids all sang beautifully.

Finally, these photos actually came from earlier in the fall when Grandma Cheryl and Grandma Jerry sent the kids a super cool surprise. It was a gift box FULL of snacks and candy - and the kids LOVED it!

8th Grade Spelling Bee

Based on a preliminary spelling test in his junior high, Connor qualified for the campus spelling bee which was held in mid-December. Prior to the Bee, he studied a list of 500 words and he knew how to spell them all. But as usual, the judges tend to call words that aren't on the list after several rounds, and that's when the participants start dropping like flies. Or should I say, bees? (ha ha)

Jeff and I attended the spelling bee and enjoyed watching Connor participate. He had some nerves but he did great. He spelled words like obstacles, aspersions, looming, violate, requirement, attainment, and assertion before he made it to the 8th round. His final and disqualifying word in the 8th round was "prolusory" which I had to look up in order to know what it was or even how to spell it myself. One measly little word and then he was out. (That was an inside joke; ask Connor about it!)

As 8th grade is the final year of eligibility for students, we were so proud to witness Connor's participation in the spelling bee. And for the record, even spell check thinks the word "prolusory" is spelled wrong, and the online dictionary states that this adjective is rarely used. I tend to think, however, that it may become more of a household word for us, now that it has infamously ended Connor's spelling career. For his part, Connor was just happy to get out of class for an hour or two, and then it was back to English where he could continue working on his prolusory writing assignment about Huck Finn. :-)

Thanksmas

Now that we were back home in the States and Jeff was enjoying his new status as a retiree, he was quite enthusiastic about having so much free time to enjoy the holidays. As Thanksgiving approached, he decided to plan an epic road trip for all of us to drive up to Michigan for the annual Thanksmas celebration with his side of the family. As excited as we all were to see our extended family and resume our Thanksmas traditions, the 20-hour road trip was not something that the rest of us were looking forward to.

We took 3 days to reach our final destination with several stops along the way. First up was an overnight stay at my parents' home in White Oak. It was really nice to visit with them but for some reason I only managed a single photo during our stay. It's not surprising that the one photo shows both kids on their devices, because it was device overload during our LONG trip to Michigan and back!

Also not pictured is another reason that the road trip didn't quite go as planned. Since I had recently returned to work, I had quite a few work conferences and video calls to conduct during our drive. I tried to do most of my work in our hotel rooms while we were stopped, and I'm sure that was pretty miserable for the rest of the family. Because of those work calls, we weren't really able to do any sight-seeing on the long drive which completely defeated Jeff's expectations of the road trip. We finally arrived in Chicago after a couple of days of driving, and we picked up Kevin at the airport. Then it was another few hours to our destination in Michigan, where we were finally reunited with family. Let the fun begin!

What a blessing that we could reunite with the family and catch up after our time away! As usual, Aunt Patti was such a gracious host for our rowdy group, and there was no shortage of delicious food and hearty laughter. The only downside to the entire trip (well, besides the long drive) was that several of us came down with a nasty cold. I was so miserable that I wasn't able to help much on the drive home (thank goodness for Kevin!) and I ended up being sick for 2 entire weeks in total. There's nothing like the holidays to bring out the germs, but it was a small price to pay for the family fun.