2023 :: week 51

December 17

Sunday we celebrated 14 years of Will. After church we opened presents and ate dessert. That evening we had an early dinner with the local family. Later we participated in my parents' annual Christmas sing-a-long. Will is a pretty simple guy, he likes good food and sports. Lauren bought him a yard of Twix bars, Elliott got him basketball cards and Miles got him a Costco pack of Nutella. His big gift from Mom & Dad was an iPhone 14. Unfortunately, we messed up the order and his phone didn't arrive before his birthday so he still has to wait a few days. Thankfully for us, Will is a great kid and isn't complaining much. Anthony and I often talk about how he spoils us. He is a great student, who works hard and is diligent about getting his work done. He is a great brother, spending many hours a week playing sports with his siblings and including them in many of his activities. He is smart and has a great sense of humor. He likes history and maps and uses his down time at school to explore cities on google earth. He thinks he might want to study geography or architecture when he grows up. I think his perfect day would be exploring downtown KC, eating a good cheeseburger and then watching the Chiefs or the Royals. He has an enviable metabolism and will eat huge hunks of cheese, large bowls of applesauce and white bread spread with nutella when he is hungry. Will likes going to church and has a great group of friends there. My biggest complaint about him is that he *hates* bedtime. It is starting to hit me how close he is to adulthood and I am definitely not ready for that yet.

December 18

Anthony was able to take a several days off in December because he had a fair amount of PTO to use before the end of the year. One of the ways he used this extra time was to remove the popcorn texture from our bedroom ceiling. I have wanted to make a few relatively simple changes to our bedroom for while and this is phase 1 of the project. (Overall goals include removing popcorn ceiling, painting the ceiling white, installing a statement wall, replacing the blinds, replacing the ceiling fan, painting the walls and replacing Anthony's closet door). He started Friday, but after a few initial hiccups, things went pretty quickly. If anyone reading this ever decides to remove popcorn ceiling, it is well worth it to invest in a dedicated popcorn scraper. They are approximately $25 and make things so much easier to clean up. Another tip is to make sure the popcorn is very saturated. It is much easier to scrape when it is nice and wet. After scraping we patched the imperfections on the ceiling, which was followed by many rounds of sanding. By the end of the week Anthony painted the ceiling white. Now the room revamp project is on hold until after the holidays.

December 19

We have entered a new era. Will's phone finally arrived on Tuesday and we set it up ASAP. I was the proud recipient of Will's first text. Will has been so patient to wait until he was 14 to get his own phone, much longer than most of his friends. That evening Matt arrived from Utah to spend the Christmas holiday with us. 

December 20

Wednesday evening we did our traditional Christmas in Kansas City excursion, and Matt got to join us! We rode the streetcar to City Market at got dinner at Pigwich, then walked around a bit. I was disappointed that the Santa scooter house people either moved or decided not to put out decorations this year. We headed back to Union Station to walk through the Holiday Reflections exhibit. Miles and Elliott rode the mini train twice. It may be Elliott's last year to ride, we will have to see how tall he is next year. The exhibit was pretty nice, there were many holiday themed photo ops. Please note Miles' pose in this picture. It is the Kevin from Home Alone face that Miles has started making in pictures this Christmas season.

December 21

We finally put up Christmas decorations this week. Wednesday afternoon our Christmas tree arrived and assembled it immediately. The past few years we waited until the local hardware stores discounted trees, however this year nothing was discounted below $45. I fell in love with the 9-foot pre-lit tree for $300 at Costco early in the season and decided I wanted one of those if we could get it on sale. The Costco trees sold out, but I found a similar tree for only $200 at Sam's. We decided to go for it, and if it lasts at least 4 years I can consider it a good investment. Thursday the kids were out of school and Lauren helped me set out the rest of our decorations. I love looking at these photos from past Christmases. Wednesday evening Lauren had her first volleyball practice.

December 22

Anthony painted the ceiling and it is looking so sharp! We were able to move a lot of our displaced furniture and tubs with our stuff back into the room from the laundry room. The room already feels a lot brighter.

December 23

Saturday morning we did our winter trip to the zoo. For the first time ever, in our 8 years of having a membership to the zoo, we saw the penguin march. It was pretty fun to see the penguins waddle. We rode the train, sky safari and carousel. We visited the new aquarium for the first time as a family. The Pacific Octopus was on the move and it was really cool to witness! The weather was great and we had a fun visit. After we picked up Matt and got some Chick-fil-A. Lots of NBA games were watched while Matt was here. Tonight the Celtics beat the Clippers with authority.