Christmas Break, or The Rest of the Story

Christmas Break was supposed to be a great opportunity for Mac and me to make some Serious Headway into getting the house ready for putting on the market this spring.  Mac started off with the aforementioned master closet door project, which after many hours and layers of paint and spackle looks OK.  If you don't look too closely, you don't really notice that the door frame is slightly uneven.  And having bi fold doors is a BIG improvement over the unyielding slide things we had originally, years ago.

Mac "fitted" these bi fold doors into our closet opening (we had no doors at all!), and he put up the crown molding.  Crazy how much time this project took!!

Another project was clearing out the play room in the basement. This involved removing a very large bookcase which we called "The Tower of Pisa" because no matter what we did to this bookcase, it would always list over to one side. This bookcase has traveled with us from our first apartment, to the house in Yakima, and then across the country to the basement here. We decided it was time to just get rid of it!! And so we did. We also donated many of the unloved and unused toys, and we tried to declutter the basement play room... It's a work in progress.  Mac repainted the basement, and it looks nice and bright now. Alas, no pictures yet because while it looks nice, it's not quite THAT nice.

We tried to fit in some fun activities for the kids while we were all on break.  Steven and Isabel had a lot of swimming practices, most of which weren't so much fun.  Mac had a lot of trips to Home Depot, and I spent a lot of time trying to stay one step ahead of Mac and his projects... 

But we did fit in some genuinely Fun Stuff.  One day we took the kids to an indoor play area filled with giant bouncy type toys.

Steven's not quite too old to enjoy the slides!

Isabel spent a lot of time trying to capture that yellow flag.

She finally did, after about 15 minutes, and then she gave the flag to some of the younger kids.

Josie is fearless.

Luke was hard to find in this place since he ran around to all the toys so quickly- now you see him, now you don't...

Steven helped Josie climb to the top...

Checking out the view from way up there...

Playing is hard work...  We loved these cute water fountains- great for preschoolers but a tad too short for people over 40" tall.

Over break we also took the kids to Chuck E Cheese.  We rarely go there anymore (so tragic), so it is a treat for almost everyone when we do go.  I didn't manage to get any pictures of Luke there, as he was taking Full Advantage of video gaming and wasn't really in camera range, but I did get some pictures of the others...

Steven is sporting his new hat- University of Maryland gear.

The basketball machine was broken so they could shoot to their hearts content, no tokens required...  But sharing is always tough.

Who is that?  Looks like a bolt of lightning...

Maybe not EVERYONE was happy to be at Chuck E Cheese.

Those were really the Big Outings of Christmas break.  There were some random playdates and what not thrown in there, but mostly it was a working staycation!  Mac only had 7 days off.  No one really complained much about the lack of planned activities although since I'm the Cruise Director, I felt a little bit disappointed that I hadn't forced MORE fun times on everyone.

Mac took call over New Years Eve and New Years Day and he liked it SO MUCH that he kept on taking call for half of January.  Well, he took call all those days because that was the schedule more than because he loves taking call.  But nonetheless...  That's what happened to Fun Family Outings.  Nothing gets planned on a call day... 

So our big New Years Activities involved...  a special swim practice: The New Years' Distance Challenge.  Isabel and Steven both went to the challenge to see how far they could swim in 3 hours.  Fun, right?  Isabel ended up swimming 6500 meters (Woot!  That's a lot!!  She was expecting maybe 3500 meters, so achieving this number is a huge confidence boost for her!) and Steven hit 10,000 meters.  His blood sugar dropped down to the 40s while swimming the first hour (yikes) but after some juice, he kept on going.  He made his goal!  And no ER visits required, which is always a bonus.

Here are some other random Christmassy activities that we did, if not exactly during break...

Before break even started, we went to the Build a Bear Workshop, where they happened to be having a Very Big Sale.  The four kids were able to build their own bears for a fairly reasonable price, and the Super Deal included an outfit for the bears.  Building bears and dressing them up occupied the kids while Kate and Mac were visiting the Apple Store to get Kate's broken iPod replaced.  Win Win for everyone, especially the Visa.

Josie named her friend "Nina", and she was adamant that Nina would have a Tinkerbell Costume and a tiara.  Of course. 

Here is Luke with his friend, the Monkey who is a Padawan, just like Luke.  He named the monkey "George".  The lightsaber was an extra charge, OF COURSE!  But doesn't the little lightsaber just make the outfit?

Isabel and her beautiful polar bear, which she named "Katie".   Everyone say "Ahhhhhh!"

Steven's stuffed puppy dog (named "Harry")is an Oriole baseball player.  Steven prefers Orioles to the Nationals, and so I guess we can call this a souvenir?

Now, you may have noticed Steven's rather impressive hairdo.  This is the way his hair looked from morning to night, and no amount of gel could make it flat.  His hair had so much dried on chlorine from all the swimming.  It was just awful!  But after Christmas, we took an outing to a military base with a commissary and a PX (post exchange- more shopping but tax free HOOAH!), and Mac took The Boys to get haircuts by a real military barber while I took "the gels" shopping.  Happily Steven's hair looked 100% better and felt better after the haircut, but I'm pretty sure it will return to this state of defying gravity soon enough.

Another activity we did well after Christmas break was over (don't judge!) was building a gingerbread house village.  I found a very cute village set at Bed Bath and Beyond which allowed each kid to build their own little villa.  Believe me, getting them all to work on ONE house together would not be advisable...

What do you mean when you say the candies go ON the house?  Do you mean IN my mouth?

Clearly some candies got ON Josie's house.

Luke the character

He REALLY loves building stuff.

After the trauma of trying to get the house to stick together, which required several different rebuilds, Isabel finally succeeded in building a lovely house.

The architect...

And here is the village.  It takes a lot of frosting and a lot of candy to make a village.  Clockwise from the top left:  Josie, Luke, Steven, and Isabel.

And that was what we were up to for much of Christmas and January.  We had a fun Christmas, with a laid back schedule, but we managed to keep fairly busy and make some memories in the process!