It's Christmas!

I spent Sunday priming and painting the shed. Monday morning I was able to get up and finish painting. I then took the kids ice skating with my siblings and their kids. The Beals try to get together before Christmas and go ice skating.  We grew up ice skating as kids. I have  a lot of memories of ice skating. It's pretty nostalgic for me. It's fun to take the kids once a year. Afterwards we went to Idaho Pizza Company and it was a disaster. Somehow they were like an hour or two behind schedule...how? Why? They didn't tell us until after we'd been waiting for an hour. I canceled my order and peaced out! It was so annoying! I hurried home because our friend was coming over to put the flooring in the shed. Yay! He was able to finish up that evening and he and Scott put up the light and we were all ready for Karen to stay in her own space for Christmas! Miracle!  That evening the Linquists brought over pizza and we decorated cookies as per tradition. Rachel was sick so she just sent over Nate and Blake. The kids had fun but Piper lasted the longest and decorated the most. She did a great job decorating! 

Tuesday was Christmas Eve! Gabby and I went to pick up Karen from the airport. It was snowing a bit and felt very Christmasy! The rest of the day was spent with dinner preparation and watching Christmas movies. After our Christmas dinner we sang a few Christmas songs and read a few poems. We played some games and then watched Die Hard. Ha. Scott is not into Christmas movies but he loves that one so why not? I spent the entire month watching Christmas movies already. 

Christmas morning we got up and opened presents and had breakfast and then I went back to bed! I was so tired and I slept terribly the night before. I had the longest best nap! After that we mostly just laid around and watched movies. After dinner that night we played some more games and watched Red Eye with our kids. It's a good one! 

Thursday was Karen's birthday. She and I had lunch at Kneaders and did a little shopping (nightmare, way too busy) and came home. Later that evening we went and watched the new Little Women movie which I liked but I still like the Winona Ryder version better I think. That movie is one of my very favorite movies. 

Friday was Corbin's birthday. We had a birthday breakfast and then got ready to go to Jump Time. The kids had a blast at Jump Time and they were so cute playing together. They can be so amazing sometimes. Love them! After that we went to a different Idaho Pizza Company and I called ahead with the order. The food was great and the kids had a good time. Later that night I made Corbin's favorite dinner and cupcakes and then got packed for Utah. 

Karen had to be at the airport at 6:30 am on Saturday and I didn't want to drive to the airport and back and then drive to Utah, plus we were doing such a short trip I figured we might as well get down there. So we got up extra early and headed out to Utah. Last night a bunch of us went to Frozen II and a bunch of people went to the new Star Wars movie. Later that night some of us played a card game that we lost to Janet yet once again. 

Today we've been hanging out. The kids opened their presents. Tonight we will have Sunday dinner followed by a gift exchange and I'm assuming games. Scott has to work on Tuesday so we will head back home sometime tomorrow. Ryan wants to stay for 10 more days.

Also Ryan told me Christmas was two thumbs down and one thumbs up because he got the wrong LOL doll and because he wanted Piper's sloth. When he opened his LOL he was like, "seriously..LOL pet." It was SO funny. I guess he wanted an LOL big sister. Whoops! 

Christmas cookie decorating.

Piper's elf! So great! 

Christmas Eve dinner...the works!

Christmas Eve Games

Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve

Santa brought candy and pringles...why not?

Christmas morning treats

The boys waiting to open presents.

Checking out the stockings.

Karen's B-day cupcake. Nothing bundt cakes...yum!

Birthday breakfast!

Jump Time

Corbin was helping his siblings cross. It was very cute.

Birthday lunch.

Lemon cupcakes

Birthday shades...cool dude.

Utah second Christmas!

Shed with painted walls and flooring. Scott spent SO many hours on the dry wall alone. So many hours! He did a great job! 

So glad Home Depot had stepping stones in December. So cute! 

Ceiling fan/light. I got that on Craigslist. So nice! 

Still need to get a big TV. Can't wait for some shed time to chill out.

Recovery Week

After the stress of the previous week I decided I was not subbing all week last week! It was glorious. I made me a little anxious because I'm so used to being so busy! Ha. But it was good. I kept plenty busy doing Christmas prep. Christmas for a mom is NO Joke! Wednesday night was Piper and Ryan's Christmas concert. It was in the Elementary gym which was a disaster. Most people were standing. I was there for 2 hours. That is NOT my favorite. The kids were very cute of course but the circumstances were not great. On Thursday we met up with the Beals for a family Christmas party. My mom and dad drove over from Arco as well as Justin and Kelsey. My brother Hart is opening a climbing gym in January and we got to test it out. I made it to the top on a pretty "easy" trail, run? I don't know but I was freaked out and my adrenaline was pumping forever afterwards. Scott, Corbin, and Gabby also did it as well (didn't get a pic of Gabs). On Friday we had a friends Ugly Sweater Party. It was fun. Scott textured the walls in the shed yesterday. He has spent SO many hours working on that thing! It's been amazing. It is looking good. I've been working on painting today. We are trying to finish by Christmas (well at least the paint and floors). It may or may not happen. I had a friends Christmas brunch today. We all get gifts for each other. I think next year we should draw names. Ha. 

Okay, that's all. Going to go paint!

Corbin made it to the top.

So high!

Scott came after work. Work clothes didn't stop him! 

Ryan is middle on the right. He is with the Santas. 

Piper is an elf she is in the middle.

Ugly Sweaters. Gabby decorated Scott's. 

Ryan had a birthday party yesterday. Bowling! 

I have the greatest friends! 

Stress Week

I'm too lazy to hash out the details and I am BEAT. I'm just going to copy and paste from my facebook post. Also my body shut down on Friday after it was all said and done. I think stress did me in and I was sick but as soon as I rested for a day it went away. I'm still very tired. I haven't booked any sub jobs for this coming week. I'm going to play it by ear.

Oh man. I’m feeling a lot of feelings right now. Long story short I applied for a teaching job and I didn’t get it. I’ve been working three part time jobs for several years and I really enjoy having flexibility in my schedule. I choose if I want to sub or not and I schedule my morning teaching classes online, but it is tough juggling several jobs too. I was working a ton and thought it would be easier to just teach full time and work one job and make more money than with the three jobs I was working. I saw an opening for a job and I almost talked myself out of applying since it was a life skills class (health: green light my major) and coding (red light: have no idea how to code). With some encouragement from some of my teacher friends at school I decided to go for it. So since last Thursday night I’ve been in a bit of a stress manic mode of gathering letters of recommendation, updating my resume, cover letter. All. The. Things. Looking up interview questions, trying to learn coding…by Tuesday I was a hot mess. Luckily I figured a lot of my stuff out with some help of some peeps, (thanks Lana and Kelsey) and by Wednesday morning I was okay. I went to the interview and was surprised and happy that the Principal didn’t even ask me much about coding since the class is mostly computer directed. I felt like I interviewed well and although I haven’t been in my own classroom in 12 years I have subbed at that school A LOT as well as taught over 2,600 classes online. I found out I didn’t get the job tonight and I have a lot of mixed feelings no doubt, sadness, relief…again all the things. Mostly I would say I’m glad it’s over. It felt good to have people rally behind me and I know I have future support for future positions. I’m also proud of myself for trying. It’s really hard to put yourself out there. Okay if you’ve read this long KUDOS to you! Anyone looking for a Health or Biology teacher let me know!

Gabby had her dance recital on Saturday. She did great! I think this dance was harder than she's used to because she was really focused on doing the steps and wasn't quite as showy in her performance as she has been in the past. Regardless she killed it. Great job Gabby! 

Scott's work had it's Christmas dinner. We had a fun time chatting with his co-workers. Scott has some great people that he works with. I love his boss the most. He's been a really good fit for Scott, praise be! 

Today I've been trying to wrap presents and figure out my Christmas shopping list. It's getting close!

Okay, that's all! 

Hopefully this youtube video link will work...

Update

This last week was pretty chill. I didn't sub much and I finished painting the boys room. We only had one basketball game. We won! So we have won 4 games and lost 4 games. Not terrible. I am so excited to be done! We have two games this week and then the season is over. Yay!

I decided to apply for a teaching job. It's a long shot. My certification is expired and half of the classes are coding and I don't know how to code. I figure it's worth the try. If they are desperate enough they might hire me and on the middle school level I'm hoping I could teach coding??? Maybe??? If not it's fine. The best part is that applying for this job has forced me to update all of my resume information so I will already be ready when another teaching job comes up. So we will see. I'm really anxious thinking about the whole thing. The interview process stresses me out. I'm worried if I actually get the job how I will be jumping in head first. Anyway like I said I probably won't get it but at least this way the principal at Lewis and Clark knows I'm looking and she will hopefully consider me the next time there is an opening. This week could be interesting. Ha.

I've been on such a project kick but I'm forcing myself to take a break so I can focus more on Christmas stuff. It's already such a busy month I don't need to be painting my bathrooms right now. Ha.

Nothing much else is going on. Just trying to enjoy the Christmas season. We are watching Elf right now!

It snowed last Sunday. Fun! 

The kids got cozy after playing in the snow.

The blue wall is done .It's hard to get a good picture with the windows. It looks good! 

We had a favorite things gift exchange at book club. It was fun!

I forced the kids to go outside for 30 minutes on Friday (they didn't have school). So they just went out and sat. Ha. I died. The were doing some fun games together at least and then at some point they got out leaf bags and were having a "potato" sack race. So funny.

Bad picture but I saw them playing their game with the leaf bags and tried to snag a pic.

Thanksgiving Break

We've had a great Thanksgiving break. It's been mostly filled with lots of movie watching and episodes of Holiday Nailed It. I managed to do some projects. I spent the entire day Tuesday cleaning and spot painting all of the trim, doors, doorways, and walls. Oy! That is the worst job! Only I will really be able to tell the difference but I get so much satisfaction when I stare at my baseboards!

On Wednesday we got a late start to Arco. I didn't even look at the weather like an idiot. Luckily it was only bad for about the last 50 miles. The stretch through the Craters can be really bad. The roads were bad and it was snowing and dark. I was driving. I did good! Ha. It helped that there was basically zero traffic so I just drove really slowly. We got in and had soup and pies. Later that night we watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles as per tradition. We went to bed fairly early. It snowed a ton over night. It was very beautiful. I was worried about the drive home and I didn't pack my kids snow stuff. Fail! They put garbage bags on their feet and managed to have some fun with the sled and four wheeler. Thanks Kelsey for driving, I did not want to go out there! We got Thanksgiving all prepped early as usual and had our feast at 11:30 am. Ha. As per tradition. We got a good nap in and headed home. It was a short trip but it was fun to visit and my mom's Thanksgiving dinner is my favorite! Also luckily we had clear roads and clear weather on the drive home. Phew!

My dad, Kelsey, Justin, Corbin and I all got a bit of a stomach bug. Corbin's was really short lived. I think mine is done I hope. I mostly just felt nauseaous and tired.

I've now been working on the boys room. I'm almost done! I just need to finish up some painting. Hooray!

Our Christmas stuff is all up and I've even managed to finish some of my shopping. Yay. Christmas shopping stresses me out! I hate thinking of gift ideas. I'm not very good at it. I only have two more weeks of basketball. Can't wait to be done!

Cuddled up watching Holiday Nailed It!

Scott has been working up a storm  on the shed taping, sanding and whatever else. Tough stuff! 

The kids all crammed together for a minute while watching a movie at my mom's house. They all wanted in on the cuddle action.

Thanksgiving dinner. Yum!

Corbin wore his bags on his feet for hours waiting until they went outside again. Ha.

So Beautiful! 

Kelsey pulling the kids on the sled.

Our view on the drive home.

I took the kids to Burger King for lunch on Friday.  It got crowded fast. I was not the only one with this idea.

New Decor on the walls.

I'm painting a blue accent wall. Still need to finish. I kind of love the way their tree is twisting and turning. It makes me think of a Dr. Suess tree!