Noel

Christmas Eve was quite a day of morning church, evening church, and opening presents at Grandma’s house in between. We got home late, made a spaghetti dinner, and then stayed up watching the kids destroy each other in Gang Beasts.

As you do on the night celebrating peace on earth.

Caleb received more than a few train cars at Grandma’s house, as well as an R/C car that Jed and Caleb discovered has acceleration too powerful to successfully pull the magnetic train.

On Christmas morning the kids played contentedly with their stuff (and fed their bunny clientele) until it was pushing 10:00, at which time they formed a conspiracy to wake up their last remaining parent.

The conspiracy plan involved a guitar, a ukulele, and a remote control car capable of doing 30mph.

No fool he, Jason heard them coming and stuffed pillows in the bed à la Ferris Bueller and hid in the bathroom. The band played on anyway.

The girls gave Caleb a painfully boring-looking 544-page book with tiny print entitled The Box (“the first comprehensive history of the shipping container”) that Caleb got really excited about.

Within five minutes he was telling us shipping container facts that none of us ever wanted to know.

Today, three days later, he’s halfway through the book. Did I mention it’s 544 pages of tiny print and no pictures? And it’s a history of the box?

A history of bridges and a copy of The Way Things Work, and Caleb was swooning.

Ada got Jason a set of tiny Super Mario Brothers magnets for his office.

Lizzy got Ada tons of pairs of earrings.

Buck got a bunch of tissue paper behind the walls of his cage.

Lizzy got hair tinsel from Ada.

Ada got gas cards, in hopes of her passing her driving test next week…

Every morning this week since Christmas, Lizzy has fed her bunny friends and we’ve spent a ton of time luxuriating on the new couch.

Merry Christmas!

Pre-Christmas

Just after Jeddy finished finals week, our town held a house decorating contest. The town office provided a GPS-guided route and score cards so we could vote for the People’s Choice Award. 

We did it right, stopping first for take-out paninis and tater tots and then cruising through the list, munching while we rated our neighbors.

The Miller family favorite

The next day…the Lovesac arrived.

Being a modular situation, it arrived in 35. Separate. Boxes.

The moment had come for me to address my anxiety of having chosen an unacceptable fabric. Jason wisely stepped away and let me look at it from every conceivable angle in every conceivable light without making a single comment.

Jeddy helped by impersonating a couch so I could visualize.

With great relief I pronounced the fabric choice acceptable.

The verdict was followed by great rejoicing and then we turned to the hulking task before us.

Three hours in, the guys had the old furniture cleared out and we had a few pieces covered.

We opted for the integrated surround sound system, which meant Jason had to install and hook up a subwoofer and various other components.

The bonus Pillowsac we got for buying on Black Friday weekend was immeasurably easier to set up.

After five hours of hard labor we could go no further. I took a picture of our tiny model and we prepared to live with the unfinished living room for a couple more days while we nursed our sore muscles.

Monday after school I set up a timelapse video and determined to finish if I could.

Pro tip: it is endlessly rearrangeable, but not as effortlessly as the little animation on the website shows. In reality, you will be straining your back and stomping on the clamps to get it to go together.

In other news, Lizzy gained a pair of new clients to petsit over Christmas week, her info having been kindly passed on by our librarian.

Junie and Wally.

On her first day of break Maddie brought Poof and Potato over for a playdate to help Lizzy with her math.  

Poof.

Portrait mode.

Potato.

Maddie also brought presents. She gave Caleb a ship encyclopedia that he carried to bed with him and downstairs again the next morning, forgetting to eat most of the day while he read it and then created sizeable cardboard models in a burst of inspiration.

The finished couch in its temporary configuration until the Christmas tree is gone

Baking day

The kids cruelly had their online classes up until December 22 so Ada slaved away on her math test while I made endless batches of cookies.

It wasn’t until December 23 that schoolwork was done and presents and baking were wrapped, but by golly we had a big ole couch to sit on when we were done.