Christmas Eve...time to break in the new floors!

 It was such a joy to get the floors done in time to host the Delgado Family Christmas Party!  I love when our home is filled with family and the kids are all running around like crazy.  This year our gift to all the cousins was a cute little MP3 player loaded with next years primary songs and a handful of fun songs the boys love.  It really was a fun project for Oscar! haha just kidding, as always it was down to the last minute and luckily I ordered a few extra MP3's from china because there were a few that didnt work.  Next year I will get the gifts done early for sure! 

Family Christmas Party

 The adults always have fun visiting so we planned a few things this year for the kids to do.  We gave Santa a beard and played a few rounds of minute to win it Christmas style.  There was the candy cane nut stacker, wiggle the jingle bells out of the box, swing the red nose up to stick it on Rudolph and how many bells in the box.  The kids had a great time and even made up their own fun with the left over cotton balls. 

Graham Cracker Houses

We did a little graham cracker house decorting.  The kids loved it as usual.  The houses were all very interesting.   I tried a Pinterest recipe for icing "glue".....epic fail.  It was a joke, nothing would stick together.  I got out the trusty sugar and started boiling.  It always works like a charm and of course, when ever I make anything with boiling sugar I burned myself.  It was ridiculaously painful and took forever to heal and feel better. 

Ward Christmas Party

Our ward Christmas party was a little different this year.  They served the dinner family style and each table was stocked with each of the dishes served.  It really was great because we literally walked in the door sat down and started eating. No waiting in line for an hour to get food. 

 One of the songs in the program was the 12 days of Christmas and each group of tables had something to contribute to the song.  We were eleven pipers piping and we all had kazoos and played Jingle bells when it was out turn.  The kids loved it. 

It was pretty much a nice relaxing evening. 

New Floor....FINALLY.

After years of consideration I finally decided that we needed to do something about our flooring.  I hate making decisions and so I looked all over for what I thought was the best option for our house.  We haven't had carpet since the living room flood of 2010 and the kitchen has been bare since the remodel.  I picked a wood look luxury vinyl for the whole house and some in stock carpet from home depot. 

It was a little tricky preparing for such an undertaking.  We put a bunch of mattresses in Clara's room and the kids had a giant sleep over for about a week.  I ripped out all of the old wood laminate flooring and sold it to a guy on craigslist.  It was awesome getting a little money back from that purchase!  After the flooring was out then came the painting.   It was like a dance. All the furniture to the carpet rooms, paint, new floor.....then all the furniture to the vinyl rooms, paint, then carpet.  Then came the fun task of putting everything where it actually needed to go.  Here are some of the before new floor pictures.

Some day, when the house is actually clean I may get some pictures taken of the floor all finished.  We only had a few incidents with the floor during the move in.  The fridge and the piano caused a few little hitches on the soft vinyl, but we figured out how to disguise them.  I'm sure its gonna be months now before all the molding gets caulked and painted.  Seriously one of my least favorite things to do. 

Here is a picture I found of the kitchen.

Beyond Tired

Clara has been playing so hard lately she has been crashing on the sofa when the boys watch a little TV after homework time.  Jared is awfully cuddly too, so I can't say that I blame her. 

Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving was pretty low key this year. Ryan and Karrie had lunch with her family and came later for desert after we left to go to Juanjos, so we really didn't see them. I was shopping online here and there all day and scored some great deal. All the food was perfect and yummy as always.

 

Some of the kids got a little reading done.

 

The David's carving up the turkey.

 

Nathan said he would just eat the jello for lunch.

Here are all the kids minus Lincoln having a great time away from the adults. Jello is a main dish with this group.

After lunch we headed for juanjos for dinner to celebrate Dotes last turkey day in the states for two years. It was a lot of fun and lots of laughs and MORE online shopping!