Gifting DIY

We've lived in our house now for four (WHOA!) years. Being a middle aged house we do a fair bit of DIY as various things wear out and we slowly make tweaks to make it more our taste. One thing that has been on my DIY wishlist since we moved in has been to replace the kitchen light.

Old light = terrible blinding light that created massive shadows on the counters and table. Even with the addition of under cabinet lighting it was still abysmal.

This fall Travis created a lighting design for my Mom's basement remodel. Wishing he'd do the same for our kitchen, I moaned and groaned and said, "You know, all I really want for Christmas are new lights for our kitchen!"

Travis cleverly snuck around the next few weeks and not only made a whole lighting design, but managed to buy and hide all the materials he needed for the entire project. Christmas morning I was present with the lighting plan and sample fixture. SO EXCITED!  By New Year's the project was done and dusted, including a new paint job on the icky ceiling.

Cutting holes and pulling wire

Making good progress, waiting for the texture on the new drywall patch to dry so he could finish the paint job.

Ta da!
It's improved so much the light in the family room and dining room got added to the future lighting plan.

Ringing in the New Year Family Style

FFM and I planned to spend NYE in Beaver Creek watching fireworks and hanging out at the resort's family festival. Travis opted to save his vacation time and came back into town at the beginning of the week so we were Dad-less for the Tuesday/Wednesday celebration. The 31st rolled around and we both decided we were tired of being Dad-less so after ski school we headed into town for family NYE.

That also gave us a few days before school started to hang out with local pals, watch movies, and be totally lazy.

Making chalk art in a surprise snow.

Me, "Don't you want to come in?"
Kiddos, "No way!"

 FFM has been asking for years if I would teach him how to knit. Cold, snowy, lazy days seemed like the perfect time. He picked it up really fast and was making rows of nice, even stitches in no time. He ambitously choose to knit a small blanket, and I think once he realized how long it was going to take to make something big enough to cover Gray Kitty he lost steam and gave up.  He has since switched back to rainbow loom bracelet making and our house is again covered in tiny rubber bands.

Going to the Superbowl!

My team, not us. Probably next time the Broncos get to the Superbowl we'll head out to watch them.  Going to the AFC Championship game was pretty durn exciting, though.

Even on game day he squeezes in some practice time

The stadium was very, very orange

Enjoying a balmy 60F day, watching a good football game, life is good!

Final play of the game,
before everyone in orange erupted and everyone in red and blue slunk out of the stadium.

  Final score, Denver Broncos 26, New England Patriots 16.
 Seahawks, here we come.

Fa La La La La

The holidays fell fast and furious this year, for us and everybody else. With one less week between Thanksgiving and Christmas we felt the pinch to get together with everybody we wanted to celebrate with. Luckily we were able to share the season with many close friends and family.

Après Company Kids Holiday Party

Annual cousin fun at Blossoms of Light with Ryan and Skylar.

Christmas lights at Casa Bonita

BFFs forever.
This was Emma's first trip ever to Casa Bonita and it was fabulous (of course).

Hide your loot! They tried to look bad but couldn't muster a good snarl.

Hannah's favorite part of her gift? The tissue paper of course!

Missing one of the three amigos (Matt), who was down with the flu.
A fun evening wearing the kids out at the playground.

Cool Gadget from Library + Snow = Super Fun Sunday

Reading all the posters at the library is tedious, but waiting for FFM one day I noticed that we can now check out various electronics like tablets, e-readers, and video cameras. Most notably, the GoPro camera system. I signed us up on the wait list and a couple of weeks later I had a GoPro waiting for me on the hold shelf.

We were hoping to get out for a ski day with it, but things didn't work out as expected so the boys took it sledding instead. I think they had a good time.

After the test run Travis decided his own GoPro was in order so the following week I figured out which set up would work well and got him early birthday present. He's filmed something pretty much every day since he got it and now we have various time lapse and wide angle movies of all kinds of amazing things such as the walk to the mailbox and the drive to school.