Ten on Tuesday This Week

1. We are thoroughly enjoying our Christmas break. Curtis had a four day weekend and then "worked from home" yesterday. We've watched shows, played games, put together puzzles, read books, and enjoyed not having any outside responsibilities.

2. You'd think I would have been able to get a "Ten on Tuesday" post up on Tuesday, but sitting on the computer just doesn't seem to happen when Curtis is home. So I'm getting it written on Wednesday, which, considering I was rarely posting at all, isn't that bad at all. I'm thinking that I should just aim to get something posted each week. As long as it's up somewhere between Monday and Thursday, I can still call it "Ten This Week", right?

3. We totally took advantage of the flexibility of not having anywhere to go or anyone to entertain when it came to Christmas dinner. We bought a turkey early last week and popped it in the freezer in anticipation of a traditional dinner with all the fixins. On Thursday we decided we'd have the turkey dinner on Christmas Eve so we could just enjoy our gifts on Christmas Day while munching on leftovers. We put the turkey in the fridge to start thawing. When we got it out on Saturday it was nowhere near thawed. No problem, we'll just have turkey dinner on Christmas Day after all! When we got it out on Sunday, it was still as solid as could be. Well, guess we won't be having a turkey dinner for Christmas at all! We pulled some other things out of the freezer for dinner and put the turkey back in the fridge. The plan is to have the turkey dinner for New Year's Eve. Next year, we'll either pull the turkey out of the freezer a good week before we want to roast it or we won't put it in the freezer at all. Had no idea that chest freezer would freeze the bird so deep that it would need twice as much time to thaw as the instructions recommend!

4. Zachary crawled in our bed at 4am last night feeling warmer than he usually does (which is already pretty warm!) and the thermometer this morning showed 100.6. So he's chillin' on the couch watching Franklin with his brother. What he really wants to do, though, is play the new Wii game he got for Christmas: Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. That boy is addicted to screen time.

5. We've instituted a payment system where he has to pay 5 tokens to watch a show or play a Wii game. He earns tokens by helping out around the house. It's actually working pretty well: instead of bugging me all day "can I watch a show" or "Can I play a game" he follows me around asking, "Can I help you with something?" He's getting pretty good at putting dishes away and loading the dishwasher, putting clothes in the washer, putting clothes in the dryer, emptying the dryer, sorting clothes, sweeping, vacuuming... It's amazing how many things a 4-year-old is capable of doing when he's motivated!

6. Eli's Christmas present to us was sleeping 11.5 hours straight on Christmas Eve. It was awesome. If only the other children in the house could have slept straight through the night too. It seems there's always someone up in the middle of the night for one reason or another. Eli hasn't slept straight through like that since, but that's okay. We're working on it. At least he's sleeping in his crib in his own room now. He won't nap in there - too quiet apparently. Kid seems to nap better in the middle of the living room amidst all the noise. Good thing, too, since he's got two older brothers! He naps in the Moses basket (sorry the picture is a little dark) and is actually napping there as I type. So sweet. I'll be sad when he outgrows it.

7. Remember last week I talked about our Kindle Fire and how many books I've read? Well, I've exhausted the series I had started and am a little gun-shy about choosing new books and need suggestions. Read any good books lately?

8. The boys has been saving their gift money and we are really excited to be getting a playset for the backyard! The hardware and slide arrived earlier this week and Curtis will be picking up the wood this afternoon. The plan is to stain the wood this week and build it this weekend. I'll let you know how that goes...

9. Speaking of new purchases, I fell in love with a bedding pattern at TJ Maxx and am so, so pleased it was still there when I got a chance to go back yesterday.

However, they were out of the shams and cute toss pillows and such (except one), which is really disappointing. So our bed looks like this:

(Not to mention the lack of headboard or even a bedframe...) Hey, if you're in the Huntsville area and happen to see this pattern somewhere, would you put a couple shams and toss pillows on hold for me, then come watch my kids while I go get them?? Curtis and I searched online and couldn't find it all. But even without the decorative bits, I just love the way it looks. Love it.

UPDATE: When I went back to TJ Maxx to return some other items, I dragged Curtis with me, just in case they had some of the toss pillows in stock. We ended home bringing home another quilt that I get to use as material to make pillow covers! I'm really excited 1) about a fun sewing project and 2) about having a complete, finished bed set when I'm done. Now I need to figure out what pillow forms we want. I'm hoping to have enough material to also cover the cushion on top of the cedar chest Curtis' grandparents gave us for our wedding. The current fabric is exactly the type that our cats like to sink their claws into, so it's always been covered with another fabric.

10. Lastly, how about an update on the townhouse? Our tenant of two years moved out in October. The property manager finally found new tenants who will move in on Dec. 30th. They talked us into lowering the rent but they signed a 2-year lease. There were several things that needed attending to before they could move in, so the property manager sent us some quotes. We choked and decided it would be a significant savings to drive up to Nashville and do the work ourselves. It ended up taking two trips to get everything done, but in the end we didn't spend anywhere near the hundreds of dollars we were quoted. Some of the work was fixing or installing things that we would have liked to do before we moved out but simply couldn't afford it (and the tenant didn't seem to care) and other things were just getting it ready for new tenants.