January picture post

Putting Christmas decorations away isn't nearly as fun as getting them out but my little helpers managed to make it fun!

With the garland off the banisters, they were free to climb on them again!

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Pretty little lady in a coat she got for Christmas 

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Being cute, watching TV

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In preparation for her upcoming First Holy Communion, Lucy made her First Reconciliation - a great chance to wear her Christmas dress again! And we crimped some of her hair with the crimper she got for Christmas from GJ & Grandpa.

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Max, having fun watching Lucy and her team play basketball...
or maybe getting a little distracted taking selfies...

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Next year, as a 3rd grader, Lucy will be able to play on an actual St. Joe's basketball team and participate in the BlueJay Classic. This year, she and Max had fun going to a few games! Hannah and several of Lucy's other friends were on the dance team this year and that team performed at several Classic games so we just had to go and watch them!

Plus...concessions stand!!

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Sweet little sleepers...

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Max said the funniest thing - 

Back in the summer, Donna & Bob had a graduation party for Brady. They had tents in their backyard and they ordered Skyline for dinner. It's a pretty great set-up - a Skyline employee comes with all of the food / supplies and sets up shop wherever (Donna had a space for him right under her deck). He serves everyone delicious Skyline and packs it all up at the end of the night.

Besides the tasty dinner, the party was a lot of fun. They had bounce houses set up and everyone was playing and hanging out outside. My cousins Amy & Charlie brought a bunch of these green finger lights and were passing them out to all of the kids.

Max found his in January and was playing with it and I couldn't remember where it came from and asked him where he got it. He said, "I got it from Donna's house that day they were selling hot dogs at their house under the deck." 

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Cuties reading books together

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Stud

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Breakfast buddies

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Max finally got a chance to play basketball on a team this year! He'd been asking to play since Lucy started playing the previous year. I was about to check into a YMCA team when I heard someone was planning to start a St. Joe's micro league. I found out before Christmas it was true and we were so pumped! Max was pretty shy to begin with but he loved it and he really loved his coaches. He had such a fun little season and we're already looking forward to next year's season! Basketball quickly became his favorite sport. He is so good at dribbling!

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We had Grandma, Troy and Aunt Amy over for dinner and games one night - everyone loves the BINGO game Lucy got Max for Christmas!

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Playing school with her American Girl dolls

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He sleeps a little crazy but at least he stopped falling out of his toddler bed after the first few nights!

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Town & Country fun! The kids can play in this area while I am in the cardio area.

Max kept running through these swinging things yelling, "Make way for Maxyboy!"

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Little Lucy used to play with these clip-dress-girls all of the time! We would make Play-Doh dresses for them and have fashion shows quite often...It had been a while since she'd played with them last but she recently came across the tub of them and had a lot of fun playing with them again!

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Library fun - making friendship bracelets!

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Super cute (with a weird pose!) in a new outfit she got for Christmas

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Catholic Schools Week!

On one day of Catholic Schools Week, parents can bring lunch in and eat with their kid. In kindergarten, Lucy asked me to bring her a grilled cheese from Frisch's. In 1st grade, Lucy asked me to bring her a grilled cheese from Cracker Barrel (which had just opened across the street). In 2nd grade, she totally changed it up and asked for spaghetti from LaRosa's. This year, Dave was able to join us for the first time ever, too - exciting afternoon!

We got to eat in her classroom and spend some time in there. We checked out her desk and her journal and some of her art work. I really liked this assignment where she compared how she keeps warm to how a penguin keeps warm. Her drawing of herself is so good! And the snowsuit she drew looks exactly like her real snowsuit!

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Another Max funny - a serious discussion he wanted to have with Siri...

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Cute little artist at school

Flooring update

The saga continues - the first part can be found here.

Within a couple of weeks of having the new floor finally completely installed, we noticed some issues with the transition boards. The one from the kitchen hallway to the dining room wasn't properly covering the transition and we knew it would get worse over time.

The one between the kitchen and the living room was a much bigger issues. For the moment, the other one was simply visual - nothing was pulling up or causing a trip hazard...unlike the one from the kitchen to the living room. It had flipped up a bit several times and then one day, someone tripped over it and pulled the entire thing up - hence the beautiful blue tape.

Dave called several times - sometimes speaking with people, sometimes leaving messages, waiting to get someone scheduled to come out to fix it. Very frustrating that it was already falling apart before we'd even finished paying it off!

First, they said someone had to come "inspect" it to verify that repairs were needed. We were able to schedule the inspector to come who obviously agreed repairs were in order. 

Finally someone came one night loooooong past the time-frame they were supposed to arrive. It happened to be the same guy who'd come to pour the black tar on the uneven section of our floor before the initial install could even be completed. He was so nice and helpful that night - and seemed so knowledgeable - that we were excited to see him (even though he arrived super late).

We heard him in the phone talking to what we assumed was his wife / girlfriend and he seemed to be in a hurry to wrap this job up. Whether he rushed because he felt bad he was so late, or he just wanted to get home to his family or maybe he didn't know what he was doing...but he did a crappy job. The transitions were installed incorrectly to begin with and he "fixed" them incorrectly, which became evident within a few days of his "fix."

By this point, I was beyond pissed but also really freaked out that this was just something we were going to have to deal with on our own.

Dave called them back a few times but we weren't really getting anywhere. They scheduled yet another "inspector" to come who agreed that the transition boards were installed incorrectly not once but twice. But that put us back at the mercy of the schedulers (who never seem to answer or return phone calls) and the installers (who tend to show up late, if at all, and then do a sh*tty job)...

One evening - a MONTH after the inspection, the installers were finally scheduled to come back. I took the kids out to dinner while Dave hung at home to wait for them. I wanted to be sure the kids stayed out of their way so I took them to McDonald's to let them eat and play in the playplace. They were supposed to come between 3 and 5pm and at 3:00, they'd called to say it would be closer to 5:00. Well, 5pm came and went and no one ever came - and no one ever called back! We called the numbers we had but no one answered since it was outside of regular business hours. 

I found the company on Facebook and sent a message to them detailing our frustrations and someone wrote back immediately! They "sincerely apologized" and said they'd get it taken care of ASAP. I did receive a call the next day and was told they were sending their best guy out right away.

The guy came and was very nice and got straight to work. And he worked hard - I was amazed at all he had to do. On one hand, I was so happy / grateful that he was there and that he was finally doing the job correctly but on the other hand, it was unbelievable how much work he was doing! Very frustrating to see what should have been done not only in the first place but when the guy came back to "fix" it, too!

But...finally! It's fixed, it's correct and it looks great!

Another house update - we decided we wanted curtains in the dining room. Lucy and I looked online and each picked out a few sets. Sometimes it's hard to determine actual colors online so a few of the sets weren't contenders at all once they arrived because they didn't match. But below was my initial favorite and Lucy's favorite. 
When I pulled mine out of the box, I loved it! 
Lucy wasn't a big fan ("We already have enough gray in here!") but was loving hers choice. I sent a pic out to a few family members and GranJan especially agreed with Lucy - "Enough with the gray already!" 

A couple of the voters chose Lucy's chevron stripes and a couple of the others couldn't quite decide because they liked both. I left both of them up there together for a bit but the more I looked at my girl's choice, the more I realized she was right! I sent mine back and ordered more of hers and it's brightened that room up quite nicely!