When Mama is not on the ball....

this is what happens.

We have a tradition each December of buying the Lego advent calendars for our Christmas countdown.  The boys absolutely love them and love building something new every day. Well, we have learned in years past, that they often sell out and if you don't buy them early in November you may be out of luck.

Well, mama hasn't been on the ball lately, so about 3 days before December 1st, I started looking for one.  They were sold out online and I started the hunt in local stores.   I did find one...the last one at a Red Balloon toy store in Sandy.  There is only 1 problem with it.  It is the girl version.

I bought it anyways knowing it was this one or none and all and took it home, all the while wondering what my boys would say when they saw a pink, girlie version.

They looked at it for a few minutes, questioned me on why I bought the girl one, shrugged their shoulders and thought it was just fine.

Phew!

Another Tree

Last Christmas I had this great idea to buy a smaller, skinnier Christmas tree that would exclusively display all of the kid's hand made ornaments.  I was all gung ho on the idea and went looking for a fake tree.  At some point in this process, my enthusiasm started to wane and I decided that I would just wait and buy a tree after Christmas and get it on clearance.  End of that story.

About a week ago, my idea re-surfaced, but instead of buying a fake tree I decided that we would cut down a tree from our property and bring it home.  We have this area right behind our cabin that we affectionately call the pine tree nursery.  It is so thick with pines of all sizes you can barely walk through.  And honestly, some of these trees need to be thinned to let others grow to full size, so I don't feel too guilty cutting one down.

We decided to pick a nice, small skinny one, about 5 feet tall to take home.  Here you see Scott eyeing a nice "small" one.  You can tell how thick these trees are.  We found this little trail that meanders through them.

 The boys waiting for Scott to cut down the tree.

Scott lopped it down and we hauled it home.   Well, our 5 foot tree, turned out to be an 8' tree once we brought it into the house.  However, we did manage the skinny part and it looks very Charlie Brownish.  That tree is sucking down almost a gallon of water a day.

I bought some fun lights for it and now it is happily displaying all of our hand made ornaments.



I love it.

But that is not the end of the story.  As I was taking out all of my Christmas decorations, I came across a large garbage bag stuck in the corner of my storage room.  Imagine my confusion as I pulled off the bag to see what was inside, only to find a skinny 5' Christmas tree that I had bought last year on clearance.  I had totally forgotten about it.  So now, I have 3 trees and this one is sitting next to my piano with nothing on it.  That is the end of the story.

This and That

It had been three weeks since we had been up to the cabin to see what, if anything had been done.  Really, we hadn't been up since it started snowing and the roads now are slick and dicey at best.  It is now a requirement to have 4 wheel drive and chains to get up there.

Scott tried going up the hill with just 4 wheel drive and it didn't go so well.  So, he backed down and put on the chains.  You like how I took a picture from the warm cab?

 After some slipping and sliding on the roads we got up there.  A few things have been done.  Painters are finished and I love the army green doors and the shake shingles!  I know it's hard to tell in this picture, but the sun was fading quickly.

The inside is coming along as well.  We are so close!

Except for the fireplace.   It will be usable this winter, but will not get stone until the spring.

The real hang up is the cedar siding hangers.  They have not come up to finish the job.  They keep claiming they work in all weather, but I look at the slippery snow on the ground, the siding that is covered in a foot of snow and the ladders they have to climb and both Scott and I have grave doubts that they will come up and finish. 

We also had another task we needed to do while we were up there.  We had our appliances delivered months ago and they have been sitting in the garage ever since.  Our garage is detached and sits a little ways away from the cabin.  It was quite the ordeal pushing a washer, dryer, oven, and dishwasher up the hill, on a dolly, in the slick snow.  That was fun. :)  We still have the fridge that needs to get moved as well. Oh and by the time we left it was a balmy 14 degree outside.  My kind of weather.

That's the update.  Our builder is still hopeful and hasn't shut it down yet.  Scott and I are in a wait and see mode at this point.  So, we wait and see.