A Long Six Days

The kids have been home six days with the snow/too cold for school days and the weekend plus the day off for MLK holiday. We've stayed busy but Cabin Fever was building here by Friday and that was the day that Aaron called and said he had to work late -- he got home at 11 pm. Saturday we got the reprieve we needed -- Aaron's mom offered to watch the kids for us and we went out for lunch. Aaron's been dying to go to Buffalo Wild Wings since it's new to our area and we never get any new restaurants. We must be getting old because although the restaurant was nice the music is so loud that you can't hear each other talk. Maybe you aren't supposed to talk since they are 1500 TVs there but if I say "I'm going to the bathroom" I don't want to repeat myself 4 times before he knows what I'm saying. The other problem was we have both ate there before and like hot stuff so we ordered our regular heat tolerance of sauce and we both agreed it was too hot so maybe Grandma and Grandpa Murray better stick with their regular bland places since the music and the food was too much. We hung out at Menards since our children detest home improvement stores and act so horrendous when we are in them that we just get what we need and get out. I had time to linger over the paint samples and have the color scheme for the kids' room. We're going with the main colors of olive/limey green, chocolate brown, and orange.

I'm going to accent with blue and pink in their quilts. I'm going to make some artwork using numbers and the alphabet. It sounds crazy but I think it will come together nicely in the end. I'm actually getting excited about it. I think if the paint is on sale I might start next week.

On Sunday Aaron agreed to give me an afternoon away and I went to Country Fair Mall in Coal Valley. Basically a large flea market.

I found a shelf for my creative space and a frame that I'm making into an inspiration board. An iron grid to use for kid artwork and some very nice pinking shears (I've always wanted a nice pair for sewing -- they were $1.95) and some sheet music and an old bingo game for scrapbooking. It was a really cool place that I am going back to soon to find some kind of better table to hold my sewing machine and maybe some things for the kids' room.

Today the kids went sledding with Grammy and Papa. They had a blast even though it was pretty cold. They came back home and had some cocoa and way too much fun with marshmallows.

We went out to lunch with them. It was nice to get out of the house and I even took all 4 of them into the grocery store to pick up a few things. Once we got home everyone {except Addison} napped.

I have gotten a lot of scrapbooking done during nap time over the last few days. I have 8 layouts completed. Here's a glimpse at some of them (there's more I'm not showing)

and I've worked on my Daily December album some too. I can't believe how productive I've been with my new scrapbook space! I think I finally have stuff set up in a more user friendly way and I have more space to work and I've been taking the time to pick up every single day. Being up in the bedroom helps too -- I'm away from all the other chores and things that need to be done and the computer isn't yelling my name every five seconds.

Reese and I are looking forward to the kids returning to school tomorrow and getting back into our normal routine and hopefully somewhat warmer weather!