Kari and Steve: December 2012

Friday, December 14, 2012

Avon Advent Christmas Calendar

If you are here searching for the Avon Advent Christmas Calendar, welcome! I was just looking over my blog stats, and I am getting a ton of traffic from my post 4 years when I first bought my very own 1987 Avon Advent Calendar. I grew up with one of those to count down to Christmas every year, and somehow our mouse even survived all those years, 4 kids, and countless moves (my dad was in the Army)! My husband also grew up with one (sadly their mouse did not survive), and so after we were married we bought our very own. Then, my mom decided she didn't want hers anymore, so she gave it to us, and I gave the one we had bought to my little sister-in-law. Turns out those things must be in high demand right now! Looks like they are going on ebay for $30 for ones with no mouse up to $100 for ones with the mouse! I always loved ours growing up and am glad that I get to carry on this tradition with my own family. It is currently the 14th of December (by the time I publish this post) and so far I have moved the mouse every day! It's always been a contest to see who would wake up and move the mouse first each day, and I know that with another sister-in-law who also has one, it has been the same way in her house. Even before she had kids, it was a contest with her husband to see who would move the mouse first. (Although rumor has it that he would go to bed after she did and move it the night before so it would already be moved when she woke up in the morning- Cheater!) I'm afraid my blog may not be the most exciting thing to see, but we enjoy being able to document the happenings of our family, and if you stick around and check back in after the new year, I'm going to be starting a new blog where I do a sketch every day and once a week will post the weeks worth of sketches on my blog! Should be interesting to see what kinds of things I come up with to draw and share with the world. Stay posted!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Quick Update

I have been wanting to publish a new post on here for a while, but haven't really known what to put or say. I also spend most of my internet time on my Kindle Fire, and honestly, I am horrible at typing on a touchscreen and could never do a full post on that thing. But I was just online paying some bills, the boys are in bed, Steve is at work, and I am sitting here at the computer enjoying the glow of the lights on the Christmas tree and listening to Simon read stories to himself in bed. I can't believe the last time I posted was in May! So much has happened since then, and sometimes it feels not much as all. The most exciting thing is that we bought a house! We bought our first house at the end of July right around the time of my golden birthday! (For the many people who don't seem to know what a Golden Birthday is, it's when you turn the age of the date of your birthday, so this year I turned 27 on July 27th, I've been waiting my whole life for this to happen!)
Having a house has been wonderful. We live in a culdesac, have some great neighbors, a small fully fenced backyard, grass instead of concrete, parks close by, even a picturesque oak tree in the front yard. I feel like all that is missing is the picket fence and the tire swing hanging from the tree, and an American flag hanging up. Our next door neighbors have quickly become family friends, and we enjoyed many days this summer just hanging out on the front lawn watching the kids running around and playing and eating girl scout cookies. The kids are girl 10 and boy 13, but they love Simon and Desi (who doesn't!) and they are amazing kids, and play really well with my boys. They also mow our front lawn! Like I said, awesome neighbors and I feel so blessed to have them.
Having a new (for us) house has been fun. I've realized that decorating ones own home is much harder than decorating a furniture store or home decor store. We've only decorated the front room (mostly) so far, and have no clue what to do with our family room. Plus decorating can be expensive, and the cheap projects I have seen on pinterest typically require a lot of time, and my boys keep me on my toes.
I feel like I have gotten a good handle on being a mom lately, which has been nice. I have been staying pretty much on top of keeping the house picked up and just organized the boys toy room again. I know there are some things I will always be behing on (laundry) but that's okay, we wear clean clothes, sometimes they are a little wrinkly, and I stay on top of washing Desi's diapers, so life is good. I am still breastfeeding Desmond. He turned 1 in September. We are also still doing the cloth diapers, and still love them. Simon just turned 4 and he is such an amazing boy. He will get up in the morning, sneak downstairs and get himself breakfast and turn on cartoons. Even when I try to listen for him he sneaks down. Desi is a wild child and I have realized is really just a very normal kid, I got kind of spoiled by Simon because he is such a calm sweet boy, I had no idea until Desi what most kids acted like, I thought they were all supposed to act like Simon did!
We have stayed pretty busy since May with buying the house, painting and moving, Steve working nights, Club Tahoe, swimming at the lake, football season and going to all the Wolfpack games, a trip to Idaho to see one of my sisters and her family and my parents, having all of them come here the week before, went to Elko for Thanksgiving, and have had lots of birthdays and parties. My birthday party, housewarming/jewelry party, first football game of the year party, Steve and Renee's birthday party, Desi-boo's first birthday (cowboy themed for our Buckaroo), Halloween party, Simon's birthday party (superhero themed)... A lot of parties! We love having people over and hosting dinners, parties, and just company in general. It's a lot of fun and a lot of work, but we enjoy it.
So, just a little bit of catch-up about what we have been up to. We also just bought a camcorder, so I look forward to posting some videos of the boys on here soon too. I ought to go now though, Christmas is coming and we are making wooden blocks for the boys, and since it's a Christmas present and a surprise I can only work on it while they are asleep, so I am off to sand blocks now! Here's a few pictures for fun though! Enjoy!