Breakfast with Santa

Our little high schools basketball team had a fundraiser, Breakfast with Santa. It included pancakes, sausage, hash browns, eggs and of course, pictures with Santa.

The team sang happy birthday to their coach as well as a few other Christmas carols                 

                          

Then it was time for Santa! 

Santa gave each of the kids a candy cane. At first I wasn't going to open Es, but she kept sticking it in her mouth. Turns out she loves them :-)

                                

Cocoas Surgery

I found a little bump on Cocoas head. When I called the Vet, he said as long as it didn't get bigger or harder, we could probably wait until her next round of shots to take a look at it. Well, as luck would have it, it got bigger and harder. So, I take her in. 

She is quite the talker and had even more to say on the short car ride in. Once there, she was weighed and I answered some general questions about her. Much like a well baby check up ;-)

She checked out the room until the Vet came in. They shaved off just a little bit of fur to get a better look at the bump. (It is a little bit nasty, so if you don't want to see it, skip the next picture)

It was decided that it should be removed. It cost a pretty penny, but I wanted it gone and wanted her to heal. I did decide not to send it off to the pathologist, that was an extra $80 and I really didn't need to be spending a couple hundred right before Christmas. If she is get another bump, I will have it sent off. 

Anyways, so that night, she could not have anything to eat after 8PM and I was to drop her off at the vet the next morning between 730 and 8AM. It was a quiet day around the house and we sure did miss our little Cocoa B. 

All went well with the surgery, the vet wasn't sure what it was and would have liked to have sent it off, but I just couldn't. 

David and I went to pick her up, but she was still too sleepy, so we went home and 2 hours later I went back to grab her. 

She is healing nicely, taking her medicine okay and still a fun and cuddly kitten

We'll go back in about a week and have the stitches taken out. 

Tacos!

Tonight we had tacos for dinner. D was so funny. He would get lettuce, cheese and build a burrito

He cracks me up and I love his little personality and funny things he does on a daily basis! E was loving on her tacos as well.

Hope your week is going well, and that all your Christmas/Holiday preparations are going well.

Paintstick Mini

I was really excited when Homeright said they were going to send me the Paintstick Mini: 

(picture compliments go to Homeright)

I had been wanting to paint a wall in my mudroom. But first, I had to decide on a color

                          

I ended up deciding on the green. It is the same green on my kitchen wall. So, anyways, the box showed up with the mini! I put it together and went to town, with Marks help.

It was a little difficult to suck the paint up, but it was so nice not to have to have a tray laying around. 

In action!

And first coat is on

So, what are my thoughts on this? I think in theory it is a really good idea! I guess I just wasn't as coordinated to fill the tube up by myself. It is really nice that it has a clear tube so you can see exactly how much paint you have left.

It was hard to get it completely clean though. We took it all apart and started washing and rinsing. To get the tube clean, you do the same thing essentially to put the paint in.

Thanks again Homeright!

**I was not paid by Homeright to review this item, this is my solely my opinion**

Tis the season

The Christmas season is for sure upon us. D and I went to town and baked up a storm. We started with plates for all the people M works with. I also made mini loaves of almond poppy seed bread (yum!) This is what my kitchen looked like during the process. It looked like a bomb went off…a delicious bomb though :-)

D was great helper. There was dough eating and a little bit of squirminess on my end (thank you OCD).

E played happily as D and I baked and only tore open one present and knocked off one ornament.

                      

House Update

Like I said in my last post, we have been in our house 7 months. Our house. OUR HOUSE. I can't even tell you how much I love and am beyond grateful that we found this house.

We updated Ds bed (he had a low to the ground twin size bed-it was the perfect transition bed). Anyways, there is a little bedroom furniture place that is going out of business and having a huge sale, so we went and bought a few things. Including a real bed/head board.

Tonight is night 1, we'll see how it goes. Side note, I don't like stuffed animals. I think they are germ hugging things. Haha. However, D has a plethra (all that is pictured + maybe 10 more). Although, E brought him the Spiderman when he had his tonsils out. Precious. 

For the last 13.5 months, E has been sharing a dresser with D. It was fine at first, but the bigger both of them get, the harder it has gotten. So, we bought her a dresser as well. 

Notice that cute lamp? We got it for F-R-E-E! It was originally 80+ dollars. Hemming Village was going to be doing a sale for a company in the complex that went out of business, but M had been doing maintenance work there, and the lady just gave it to us. Sweet!

It is also nice to have a whole room dedicated to the toys. This is what the room was before (an office): 

And this is what we did with it, 

It is so great to have space, though we plan to add on to the house in the next couple years.

We went for Tithing Settlement on Sunday (if you want to learn more, go to lds.org.) Our Bishop asked  how things were going, etc. He asked if we had a tree. We didn't. We had been planning on getting one that week. He then offered us a tree that another member of the Bishopric had. 

We have vaulted ceilings in the living and kitchen rooms. The tree is so tall, but fits just perfectly. 

Tall. M had to trim it just a little so we could fit the star on top. D helped M decorate it. 

While Coco checked out the tree. 

The kids and C have been having a fun time with tree. 

      

 It's amazing what the tree did. Made it really feel like Christmas. 

(and for the record, there are 5 stockings. My MIL is coming for Christmas. That is all :-))

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week and is getting in the Christmas spirit. 

SteamMachine

Homeright sent me this sweet little steam machine. Christmas came a little early this year :-)

Inside the box, lay this beauty :

It comes with all that you could possibly need: wallpaper steam plate, floor steam mop WITH microfiber cleaning pad, brass brush (can't wait to try it out on the grill when the snow melts), two nylon brushes, jet nozzle, squeegee, measuring cup with funnel, 

and a perfectly detailed instruction manual (just enough information and pictures, but not super overwhelming)

We have been in our house 7 months. There was a lot of cleaning that happened as we were moving in, but there are still some little things around that I am slowly getting to. I think you have been slowly making progress on. 

One of those little projects was the ice maker. It was nasty! 

See all that gunk in there? Gross. I was super excited for the steammachine to arrive and use it on this. 

It was exciting to pull the little trigger and get my steam on. 

It was pretty caked on there, but it did a pretty good job and a smile was brought to my face the next time I walked by the fridge. 

Some Pros and Cons to it:

                       Pros                                                                             Cons

       -it kills 99.9% of germs                                               -takes 8 minutes to heat up

-all those little brushes/squeegee/jet nozzle                                        -loud                                                                    -small & portable unit (with a nice, long hose)           -you cannot open the storage container                                 

                                                                                                       while it is in use

                                                                                                       

-can get into really tight and odd areas

-can use to steam out the wrinkles in your clothes

                                                -distilled water (I put this in the middle because it could either way). You don't have to use distilled water, but it is recommended if you have hard water. If you chose not to use distilled water, they have instructions on how to clean out the tank.

-easy to pour out the old water

The pros outweigh the cons by far. Thank you Homeright-can't wait for the next package!

**I was not paid by Homeright to review this item, this is solely my opinion**