マディソン絵日記/Madison Iwai Says: December Update

Since Thanksgiving happened so late this year we felt like we got pushed into December rather hastily and because we were still working on our dance room we had to wait until mid month to really start enjoying this Holiday season...

Dave wrapping the lights around our pine tree... Totally forgot to take pictures of our outdoor lights this year but it really turned out great!

Let's start with our home improvement report:-) Before Violet started to crawl we wanted to replace the dog pee stained(previous owner's fault) carpet in the addition with laminate and at the same time planned on moving the bed and a dresser into the office/Madison's work space... Let me tell you the whole process took FOREVER! like a month and a half to be exact. Anyhow we painted the new bedroom wall, we put up crown moldings and replaced the ceiling light with a new and modern ceiling fan with a remote... We found out that caulking is your best friend and experience we got from trying to replace ceiling fan ourselves is priceless. Especially the first one we got was broken but of course we didn't know that and thought we did something wrong until our friend Ron who is a contractor came to our rescue with his handy machine and declared the receiver broken:-) After this experience replacing much bigger ceiling fan in the dance room was completed with much more confidence:-)

This was a picture from when the house was listed... Since we moved in we've updated it by removing the panels and painting the wall to be used as our office but I guess we never took pictures of it...

We were so happy when we were able to fit in our huge platform bed and a dresser in here...

Our first crown molding job! Dave did all the measuring and cutting and it was trial and error but he did a great job:-)

Once we were able to move everything out of the dance room Dave got busy ripping up the carpet and I started priming the walls during girls' nap time which was never long enough... It was so much to paint but relaxing at the same time so I really enjoyed it...

Since we walk through this room after using the pool and since it was the cheapest option we decided to use laminate and we were able to get everything under $500... And help from our friends was a must! It took them about a day and a half to finish:-)

As soon as there was a finished space Madison wanted to bring her toys there and nest... Very cute:-)

We originally planned on painting the ceiling too but we couldn't fit it in within the time we had before our xmas party so we will probably hire someone to do that down the road BUT we did replace the ugly ceiling fan with a modern ceiling light:-) Also priming the wood paneled walls was all we could fit in so we will probably tackle that this summer!

Can't start the Christmas celebration without the ginger bread house

"A ginger bread house on a gummy bear lake":-)

Tried the ginger bread house kit from Trader Joe's this year... Probably go back to the Wilton brand next year so I don't have to prepare the frosting...

Around mid November Dave came home with an opening statement and pretty good arguments to convince me that we should get back on the Disneyland wheel and get the cheapest annual passes so I can take the kids during the week but still have our Summer and Holiday times free to do whatever Southern California has to offer... I lost but in my defense I was caught off guard... I guess this will be a good use of our money since we will have some place to go and run around during the week(Yes, I know we have regular playgrounds and parks to do the running around but you never run into Mickey and friends there...:-) and since Dave gets home around 3:30 we can spend plenty of time at the park on those days... Madison has been missing Disneyland sooooo much that we wanted to surprise her somehow, so we wrapped up our 3 passes and hoped her bright little mind can put the two and two together... Here is a video...:-)

We found this out with the Xmas present from Santa that she has some what low key, kind of shy reaction to things she really wanted so that's what we got...

As I previously mentioned, we went to see Frozen in Downtown Disney on Black Friday and afterwards Dave sneaked over to the ticket booth while I distracted Madison with shopping and renewed our passes and we had to keep that a secret until Dec. 7th when Dave was "slightly under the weather" and we got to go to Disneyland and celebrate our getting back on the Mickey wheel...:-)

Oh how we missed you Midway Mania!

That day we had one and only goal to achieve... A Christmas Family Picture!! We dressed the girls in matching white lace dresses and grabbed Madison's princess dress to change into later and we were off:-) The place was same as how we left it and the fast pass line to the Cars Racers as long as before, nothing had changed... We were back!

On the 11th, we hosted the Christmas Party for families with kids mostly 7 and under... It was a lot of fun and we were so glad for the space we have to host a party like this:-) We decided to do "Minute to Win it!" games as the entertainment and it was a hit! Kids got into it and even more the parents! We have a surprise rubber band shooter among us so watch out:-)

Since we were going to be out of town for the actual Christmas, our Christmas took place on the 21st. Madison and I made the cookies for Santa and now that she really understands what is happening this might have been the first year she had trouble falling asleep:-)