Upstairs Hallway

The upstairs hallway in our house has always been a very bleak scene.  Knotty pine wood paneling just doesn't cut it for us.  My work closed for the entire week between Christmas and New Year's and rather than taking the opportunity to relax and hang with my kids, I decided to tackle this project.  It is a vast improvement and I am glad it is done, but it was not enjoyable.

Here is a picture from before we even bought the house:

Here are some in progress pictures:

And the finished product!  I turned it into a little pay area.  The closet is cleaned out and stores toys and art supplies now.  It's nice to have another spot that the kids can spread out and play together.

 
Eventually we will rip up the carpet and refinish the hardwood floors that are underneath.  Then it will look even better!
 

Christmas 2016

We kicked off our holiday festivities by getting our Christmas tree.  Every year, we say we will go back to cutting one down and just like the last few years, it did not happen.  This year the culprit was some illness.  Nothing major, but it just didn't seem reasonable to make kids with colds go trapsing around the woods to cut down a tree in 20 degree temps.  So, we went to the Victor Christmas Tree Farm to pick one out.

On a Friday evening, we took the kids to Eastview Mall to see Santa.  It went well with no tears!  Parker hopped right up on his lap and told him she wanted a Doc McStuffins toy.  Graham didn't sit on his lap but stood right next to Santa and asked him lots of questions about his clothes, belt, etc.  Graham told Santa he wanted trucks.

After Santa we had dinner at a restaurant attached to the mall and then drove around to look at Christmas lights.  The pictures below are from one house that was amazing!  The whole night went so well.  Everyone was happy!  Parker brought it up weeks later and asked if we could do the same exact thing next year.

We had our annul friends party in mid-December.  The pics below are of all the kids decorating cookies.  We always do a gift exhange for the kids and look forward to it every year!

Here are some videos of Parker singing Christmas carols in the car.  Jingle Bells was pretty solid, but Frosty has some pretty good twists in the lyrics.

On Christmas Eve, we had some fun playing in the snow during the day.  

We built a snow slide

Made snow angels

And walked up to the canal

That evening, we went to Greg's Uncle Al's house for the Goforth Christmas party.  Uncle Al has a great finished basement and is perfect for parties.  When we got home, we set up a table for Santa with some treats (we used rolo-pretzel-pecan treats, rather than cookies). 

We also got Graham to agree to leave his pacifiers (pacis) for Santa.  Other babies need them more than he does now.  He was all excited about it, as you will see in the video.  However, it did not last and he still is using a paci for bedtime.

In the morning, we had a boatload of gifts to open.  Here are some videos:

Otis opening his stocking

Lightsabers from Jack, Charlie, & Nora

Fire truck from Grandma & Grandpa

After the gifts were open, Papa G and Sandy came by on their way to Herkimer.  Then we just had a lazy day around the house. 

Here is a pic of some very proud kids after completing some Christmas puzzles:

 

Thanksgiving in STL 2016

For Thanksgiving, we hit the road for St. Louis.  It was a dual purpose trip because we are also going for Nora's 1st birthday!  

We drove to Columbus and spent the night at the Yohe's new house.  It's always such a nice break on the trip to have a comfy home to stay and to catch up with dear friends.

I didn't get many photos from the trip, but we had such a good time with our family.

Pillow fort in the car

Parker made sure her bear and lovey were cozy

 The most exciting (not in a good way) part of the trip was a visit to the ER with Graham.  On Thanksgiving night, we had dinner at the Claytons and were planning to spend the night there.  The older kids were running all over the place and Parker slid on the floor and knocked into Graham.  He happened to be standing right by the corner of the wall and ended up with a big gash.  Urgent care centers weren't open and after some debate we decided to take him in.  We got right in and the just had to trim his hair a bit and applied some glue.  We were relieved for no stitches or staples!
 

 Bowling!  The kids had so much fun!
 

Greg and I got a night out (courtesy of Grandma & Grandpa) to visit with my best buddies since high school.  We had dinner out and then went back to the Rackers house for drinks and ping pong.
 

Annie had a photo session scheduled for that weekend for their family and Nora's 1st birthday.  We ended up crashing it so we could get a good one of the cousins together.  All the kids were great, expect one.  Graham did not cooperate and the final product had to be photo-shopped to get him in the picture.  

Parker posing for me

Cutest little miss!

And here are a few pics of Nora enjoying her birthday cake at her party!!
 

 

Random Goofy Videos

Winter Indoor Soccer 2016

We signed the kids up for indoor soccer at TSE in East Rochester.  It ran through November and December.  It was perfect for us, because there was a class for Parker and a separate class for Graham at the same time.  

Parker did great.  She seems to already be a natural defender, always falling back to stop the ball.  It is fun to watch.

Graham was the youngest kid in his group.  He did great the first day and then progressively lost interest after that.  At 2 and a half, he was just a little too young still.

Trying on a sweatband after soccer

 

 

Santa came during one of the December sessions

 

 

 This video shows the lack of effort from Graham and then pans over to Parker's side.  It takes me a moment to find her and then I zoom in.