Doors and hooks!

Following up on our last post...everything is coming together in the foyer! Last night I had to drop off our comforter at the cleaners (because little boy with stomach bug + peanut butter sandwich = ewwwww) so I was out anyway and felt all ambitious so I went to Home Depot and bought some bifold doors. And, to make everything perfect, they even fit in the Accord! They were pretty easy to put up, only 2 hours start to finish.

First we took down the old bypass track, painted, and put up the new track.

Then we screwed in the floor pieces....and learned that we should use a plumb line next time. Oh well, live and learn!

In the process we learned that the left closet wall is bowed...lovely.

Ta-da! Looks great, even without painting and replacing the baseboard.

The much anticipated broom/swiffer/mop hooks!

And umbrella hooks

Are organized closets exciting to you? They are to us!

We're so proud of ourselves!:) We took a terrible foyer closet and turned it into an organized beauty. Those of you who have seen it in person know that it was a great "before" picture - a great space with nothing going for it...except clutter.

Here's how it looked before....

Left

Right

So we cleaned it all out, removed the old doors, rod and shelf....and then had to remove the old wood on which the shelf sat..

A handy little method of ripping stuff out we learned when we fixed the baseboards in the upstairs bedrooms!

Most stubborn closet doors EVER - had to use a drill to get them off the track.

Aaahhh...clutter free!

End of night one! Looks great!

But then...

OOPS! Should have read the instructions for the wall brackets! Had to take all the shelves down and install a third bracket on each shelf

I was going through all the "stuff" we had in the closet and found WAY too many phone books! It's really hard to keep organized when the closet is a disaster.

DONE! Isn't it lovely? Thank you to my wonderful husband for his patience and muscles! And thank you to Auntie DeeDee for her design skills! And thank you to everyone who gifted us with Home Depot gift cards! We'll be adding hooks on the left to hang our swiffer/mop/broom, and new bifold closet doors.

Loooves it!

Christmas morning!

Merry 4th Christmas, Coulter! We had our first Christmas just the three of us this year. Thanks to everyone who shipped their presents for Coulter out to us, it made the day merrier! We've had a wonderful day, and are still in our PJs after playing with toys all day!


First things first....after jumping on the bike, he opened his stocking.

Wow...imagine that...Santa shops in the dollar bins at Target!:)

Leapster! Yay!

Tag reading system! He opened it and said, "TAG!":)

Apron and baker's hat from Auntie Sandi and her family!

Taking another time to sit on the bike.

Santa brought him a Batman faux shaving kit. Daddy had a wonderful time showing him how to use it:)

Getting the hang of the Leapster.

So many presents, so little time:)

It was too cold and rainy to use the bike outside, but the boys made do in the basement!

Christmas Eve

This year marks the first time we've not been in New England for the holiday. We've always had a great system for Christmas - Kevin's family gets together on Christmas Eve, and mine on Christmas. But this year we had to start some of our own activies and traditions. We filled the day with gingerbread houses, cookies, a movie, and getting ready for Santa.


I had assembled the houses the night before, and about 20 seconds after he awoke, he was ready to start decorating!

Concentrating on those decorations!

So proud of his house!

Rolling out the cookie dough with daddy.

Finished products!

After the cookies, we went out to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, then came home to open Christmas PJs.

The men in their manly PJs.

He got some "reindeer food" at preschool, and luckily momma remembered to bring it out right before bedtime!

Spreading the food. He was so fast to dump it, I couldn't get a good picture!

Right before bed, he put out the cookies, milk and carrots for Santa and the reindeer.

Getting ready for Christmas!

There was no preschool the week before Christmas, so we spent a couple afternoons at the Cincinnati Museum Center. It's a really cool place, with children's, history and natural history museums. It's also the Cincinnati Amtrak station, but since there are not nearly as many trains as when the station was built, the vast majority has been converted to museums. The building itself is gorgeous, very 1930s art deco, and the inside is great also.

Every Christmas season they set up a special exhibit called "Holiday Junction."

He sat on Santa's lap, but wasn't too sure about the whole thing...he faced away the entire time and did not say one single word.

"Santa's train" was a cute little train for kids with an engine car and two cars behind. I think he rode it about....oh.....4,000 times. Luckily it was free, all part of our yearly membership!

As it is the Cincinnati train station, the museum is huge on trains. This display was easily 30 times what you see here, and that's just one area.

Look! A model of the Amtrak we took this summer! (the Superliner, if you're curious:))

Christmas card outtakes

While shooting lots of pictures for our Christmas card, we had some bribery and some distractions!

Such as....eating the popcorn garland...

...dressing up in his Halloween costume...

....and dressing up in his new Wolverine costume!

Preschool Christmas Concert!

Today was our preschool Christmas concert! We've been excited about it for a long time, because apparently the only way to get thirteen 3-year-olds (plus all those other classes) ready is to start in September!

First each of the classes did a little presentation by themselves, his class did the poem "Five Little Reindeer," which is this first video...

Away in a Manger

After all the classes were done, they brought them all out together! Our class is sitting on the front of the stage (he's front left in a red sweater), they're the 3-year-olds. The other four classes are the 4-year-olds.

The first song was "Away in a Manger." I dind't know about this one until we were in Kohl's a couple of weeks ago and he said "momma, that's the song from my school!" and started with the hand motions:)

Oh, What a Special Night

The second song was "Oh, What a Special Night," - it's a cute song, and I'd never heard it before a few weeks ago! This is one he's been singing at home lately:)

Jingle Bells

The third song was "Jingle Bells," but only the chorus over and over again. Our guy spends most of the time concerned that he mistakenly has two jingles, and trying to find an owner for the extra!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

The final song of the morning was "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," with a little preschool twist to it... "we all do a little clapping/we all act a little silly/we all give a little waving"!

Our Christmas Tree

Last week we went to get our Christmas tree at a (kind of) local Christmas tree farm. It was "near" us, but about 45 minutes away. I don't remember tree farms being like this one...it was HUGE and you had to cut and haul it out yourself. They just had a pile of saws up front and we grabbed one and walked away with it. Weird? I thought so. But regardless, we had a great time and Coulter was so excited to see all the trees!

Getting started

So many from which to choose!

Helping dada cut down the tree.

No pictures, momma, the men are working!:)

All loaded into the car!

Finished product! We've added more lights, ornaments and popcorn garland, but pretty much it looks the same.

Our outside lights