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Friday, February 21, 2014

January 2014

On the evening of January 1st, my work went "code red" which requires us to do mandatory overtime. I jumped on the phones around 9 pm because, although I had through 11:59 pm 1/2 to complete it, they were paying double time for OT instead of time & a half. 

Because of the system glitch, that cancellation notices were not emailed out as expected and there were so many of us working that we had many minutes between calls. We got silly on our Facebook group page and started posting pictures of ourselves. Here is mine with my work buddy:

Someone even put a whole bunch of our pictures together into this collage!
it was a fun start to the overtime, but over the next few days he got very old and I got very tired with all the extra work and stress of trying to get customers where they need to go when so many flights were canceled.

Here are the photo Christmas cards we received this year:

and I loved Sarah's! On the front was the family picture from their cruise and inside was the picture of their kids' swimming with dolphins adventure.

Some kid art from our wall--Christian made this devil with a sword,

Faith made this great nutcracker at school,

also at school Buddy made this ladybug

and elf.

The second week of January had a few super foggy days. We could hardly even see across our backyard.

Faith made this cool car out of a box for her sixth-grade right of passage "drive in movie" at school. I love the sparkly silver peace sign steering wheel and that the most important features for her were a cup holder, snack tray, and trunk to hold all of her snacks.

Sirui got the news that she had to move in with a different host family on the 21st. We had only signed up to have her for one term and her program encouraged schools to move the volunteers around to experience American life with several different families throughout the year. We were sad to see her go, but it did feel kind of nice to have our house back to ourselves. Tony especially is loving hanging out in his underwear :-)

Skittles had to her old rubber chicken completely apart into two pieces, so we went to PetCo and got her a new one. She loves it!

January 27th was the kids' parent teacher conferences. It's funny that I got the same information about both kids: they are super smart and doing great, but don't turn in their homework!!

In art class at school Faith carved this turtle out of a bar of soap.

And for Chinese new year on the 31st we made sushi for dinner. Christian made this roll all by himself!

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Elf on the Shelf

Last year, on super "after Christmas sale" online, I ordered an Elf on the Shelf." Christian hoped he would visit us from the North Pole when the holidays finally rolled around again.

It was a   l - o - n - g , torturous wait (for him), but on December 1st our little guy finally appeared!

Dec. 1st - he was found hanging out in Christian's stocking and had his book in the railing by him. We read that he was here to watch the kids and would report back to Santa. It also said that we got to name him, and the kids agreed that he would be Hermie :)

Dec. 2nd - he toilet papered our family room Christmas tree

Dec. 3rd - he was in the master bathroom where he'd written "Hi" on the mirror with toothpaste

Dec. 4th - he was in the kitchen drinking syrup out of the bottle with a straw

Dec. 5th - he copied himself on our printer!

Dec. 6th - he decorated the Barbie castle with twinkle lights and was lounging on the couch in there

Dec. 7th - he had a fishing pole made out of a chopstick with a paper clip hook, and was "fishing" in our Beta fish Leo's bowl. I'm so sad that I forgot to get a photo of it!

Dec. 8th - he was sitting on the server behind the couch with an X-box controller and games strewn on the floor in front of the TV

Dec. 9th - he was in the freezer, probably because he missed his cold home town. Didn't Christian capture him perfectly in the artwork on the previous post?

Dec. 10th - he mischievously drew all over our family photos with dry erase marker

Dec. 11th - he was hard to find, on his tummy behind a picture on top of Faith's armoire, and he had a stack of cards with silly Christmas jokes on them

Dec. 12th - another day I forgot to snap a picture! This time he was sledding down our railing on a Tupperware lid

Dec. 13th - he was hanging out in the shower with a wash cloth on his head

Dec. 14th - he was riding the pine cone reindeer in my bedroom

Dec. 15th - he was hanging out above the potty in the half bath off the family room. I think Buddy was too embarrassed to use that bathroom on that day!

Dec. 16th - he was in my front room office, embracing the Buddha I inherited from Grandpa Quinn 

Dec. 17th - he was waiting to take a ride in the Jeep Liberty

Dec. 18th - he was on the new credenza in between our entry hall and kitchen, holding the baby Jesus from the olive wood nativity Grandma Tesch had gotten on her trip to the Holy Land

Dec. 19th - he was trying to roast a marshmallow on our electric fireplace

Dec. 20th - he was in our master bedroom blinds

Dec. 21st - he had zip-lined with a mini candy cane down from the loft and into the family room tree

Dec. 22nd - he had apparently been driving around in Buddy's remote control truck

Dec. 23rd - he was hiding in my closet, encircled by glow stick bracelets

Dec. 24th - he was hanging from the chandelier 

That night he left a note (instead of Santa, who usually does it but was running behind and didn't have time to) saying that the kids could do better at minding us and not throwing fits, but were still good enough to get their gifts.

Good-bye, Hermie! We loved your magical visit this year and look forward to your return.

Second half of December 2013

On December 17th Christian got to put on a Christmas program with his 1st grade class.

It was full of songs in English and Chinese, and every kid had a speaking part. It was so darling!

That night Faith showed us the sets for her upcoming Grinch play.

Tony was off on the 19th and got to come with me to see the performance that morning. Faith had auditioned several weeks before and had been awarded the starring role as the Grinch, and she rocked it!

I also love the costume she made.

That afternoon we braved the snow and went to Temple square.


The temple was beautiful through the light snow, but we were disappointed that half of the lights weren't working due to that morning's ice storm. Even worse, we couldn't get in to see the Christus because they sent the missionaries who staff the visitor's centers back to their apartments earlier in the day when the weather was bad.

We started heading to This is the Place, but looked online and found that they had shut down, as well. We ended up picking up some lights at Modern Display and looking at all of their great decorations.

We capped off the night with dinner at Chuck-a-Rama and I got a picture of our fun house lights when we got home.

Here are some fun, pre-Chrismas gifts we've received: Brandi gave me the toilet paper with the label "In case you get crap for Christmas," and Tammy made the subway lettering tile.

On the 21st Sirui left on her cross-country sightseeing trip. She went to Las Angeles & San Diego, New York, Boston, and Las Vegas with a few friends from her program.

That evening we went to candlelight Christmas at This is the Place. It wasn't as awesome as last year, but it was still nice.




December 23rd we finished up our baking and delivered plates to family and friends.


Faith even made these cute tags for them!

On the 24th, the kids finished the last chocolate in their advent calendars.

The kids opened their Christmas Eve gift from us and wore the pajamas which were inside to my mom and dad's party. We ate lots of appetizers and beef burgeoning for dinner, then had a blast with some Minute-to-win-it games. First we stacked nuts using a candy cane,


and then shook plastic ornaments out of tissue boxes tied onto our bums. We sure had some great hip action that night!

Christmas morning started early--5 am! The kids got the Disney Infinity game which they asked for, 

and were also surprised with bows & arrows.

Christian gave Tony a card and me a necklace, and Faith made this cute snow globe with a picture of her with her arms out, looking up into the snow falling.

Faith was super excited about her guitar!

Dusty enjoyed his catnip infused mice,

and Skittles' favorite gift was a new bully stick.
In the background you can see the pots & pans Tony got for me. He also surprised me with some cute clothes and an electric blanket.

The kids immediately went out for some target practice.

My mom & dad gave us some fun gifts, including Lagoon passes. (Eric was wearing a mask because he was recovering from influenza.)


 
  I loved this tee shirt they gave Tony!
 
  We were spoiled even more with lots of gifts at Braeggers' including new dishes and silverware for Tony & I.




Lana beckoned me downstairs to show me how cute Christian was hanging out with grandpa in his office.

We stopped by Grandma Mitchell's to wish her happy birthday & merry Christmas.

Back at home, the kids took stock of their loot and played their new games.

On the 31st we picked up Faith's friends Cambry and Nataly and went to "Noon Year's Eve" at Boondocks where the kids did laser tag,

go-cart racing,

bowling, and playing in the arcade. At noon they did an early New Year's countdown. We stomped bubble wrap and tried to get our hands on some of the prize filled balloons that were released from above, but we were only able to get one and it had candy instead of a gift card or money in it. It was still fun!

That evening we went to Braeggers'. Instead of the traditional Chili's ribs for dinner, we ate soup and bruschetta from Olive Garden. 


Happy new year!