Tuesday Photos/Catch-Up

Thank you for all the advice, comments, and sharing of your own stories on my last post about Eli's wisdom tooth surgery. We are still kind of stunned by the whole thing, and even though it seems to be more common than I ever imagined, I hate that this happened to him. He wanted to see a therapist (he's pretty traumatized) and he has an appointment today. Aside from that, his mouth is healing well from the surgery, thankfully.

It's been almost a month since my last photos/catch-up post. These pictures are kind of all over the place as far as what I've been up to, but here goes...

My mom and I went to Brian's house to help set up his Christmas tree, and (as always) he was 3D printing something. He makes a lot of really cool things, and I was impressed with these--they're HUGE Lego people! (Side note: I know that Lego should be capitalized and then "Legos" is incorrect--the plural of LEGO is LEGO and it's capitalized--but I just can't get on board with saying LEGO BRICKS (which is what LEGO brand says is the correct term and capitalization. I grew up saying Legos, and I'm cool with continuing that.)

These are a few things he had on his mantel, too. I love all things Super Mario Bros. and these mushrooms he made are adorable:

The small Lego guy is there for size reference.

I didn't notice this until just now, but I was looking for that small Lego guy for the longest time yesterday! While I was at Brian's, I picked up all of our old Legos that were in Brian's basement and brought them home with me. Becky and the kids had sorted most of them by color, and I want to put them back into kits to built again. All of the instruction books are still there; I just need to go through and put all the pieces into each kit.

One of them that I put together yesterday was a pretty big Star Wars kit and for the life of me, I could not find the particular Lego guy that went with it. And now, zooming in on Brian's large Legos, I can see that the small one he has there for size reference is the one that goes with the kit, haha.

I've been super into organizing lately. Usually this happens in late winter and early spring, when clutter has accumulated. I have a LOT of crafting stuff, and I've been trying to condense it down into fewer containers so it's easier to store. Check out this sewing stuff in my living room! I'd pulled it all out to organize/condense.

And this leads me to some shocking news that Noah delivered... he's moving out. He and his girlfriend are getting an apartment together and they are planning to move in on Friday. Jerry and I were stunned because he'd made NO mention of this; he said that he was worried about telling us. He's only going to be about 15-20 minutes away, so at least he's not moving across the country or something!

I really wish he'd wait, but he's 19 years old and he really wants to be on his own. He's super responsible, so I'm not worried about that aspect, but I feel like it would be so much smarter to stay here until he's done with school. He can save up money (we don't charge him for rent or anything like that) and in a couple of years, he could have enough for a down payment on a house.

I understand his wanting to get out on his own, though, because he didn't go the dorm/university path. I moved into a dorm when I was 18 and I loved being on my own (well, with roommates). Anyway, I've accepted it and I'm happy that he did all of the research to make sure he could afford it. He made a list of all the living expenses--even going to the grocery store to price out all the foods he likes to buy!

I only mention all this here because when Noah moves out, I'll be able to put my craft stuff in his room. In the spring, I think I'll build some shelves and a long table for my sewing stuff--it'll be so nice not to have to drag everything out and then put it all away each time I use it. But I told Noah he is welcome to come back and have his room back anytime he wants. It feels kind of wrong to already be thinking about converting his bedroom, hahaha.

If you don't do the NY Times Connections puzzles, then this won't make sense to you. But I was really irritated one day when I realized that it had made a mistake and I wasted quite a bit of time working on it. My puzzle listed "GARTH" as a word and I spent way too much time trying to figure out the last two categories. I was thinking out loud, and Jerry said, "Did you say that GARTH was one of your words?" I said yes, and then he showed me his puzzle--instead of GARTH, it listed Hobbes.

When I finally figured the category out and tried it (with Garth) it said that I got it wrong. And instead of the GARTH square being blue in my results (like HOBBES was for Jerry), mine was black! That's never happened to me before. Anyway, it was weird.

Jeanie sent me this picture and asked if she could commission me to make these horse heads for a girls' weekend. It's an annual thing and they do a theme every year. Next year's theme is Kentucky Derby and she thought these would be a fun prop. I've finished sewing the heads and now I'm just working on the hair, which is taking forever. But it's been a good project!

I've mentioned before how Duck is obsessed with spaghetti noodles--even to the point of running into the kitchen when he sees me take out the colander to drain the pasta. And if I don't watch him carefully, he'll jump on the counter to try to get noodles from the colander in the sink. I made spicy peanut noodle bowls one day and Duck would NOT stop trying to grab Jerry's while he was eating. 
 

This was my very yummy (vegan) Thanksgiving dinner. We went to my parents' house, but I made Jerry's and my food at home and then brought it over there to eat with everyone else. (The thing on top that looks like a muffin top of some sort is actually just the end part of the seitan roast I made. I *love* the end pieces because of all of the seasoning on the outside.) I thought about making a vegan version of sweet potato casserole, but it has SO much sugar and fat that I opted to go with a plain (mashed) sweet potato instead. See? I really am making better choices! ;) 

We brought Joey with us to my parents' house on Thanksgiving. He loves going over there because he gets a lot of attention from my mom. His face in this picture is so funny!

We barely started setting up the Christmas tree before Duck climbed it. Having cats this time of year is so entertaining! Chandler used to love lying under the Christmas tree to sleep, but in his younger days, he also climbed the tree. I posted a video on Instagram of Duck pretty much destroying the decorated tree as he climbed up and then down, haha. 

While my bedroom totally looks like a young boy's room, I love it so much. The ambiance with the lights and the essential oil diffuser is super relaxing. I even like the fish screensaver on the tv. It's fun to lie on the bed and watch the cats run up on their shelves around the room, chasing each other.

I already posted pictures of the Altoids tin toys that I made for Luke and Riley, but I wanted to send them a couple of other things as well. When I saw these monster keychains on Pinterest, I just had to make some. They were fast and fun to make, and I think they turned out cute.

I didn't start Spanish lessons on Duolingo until May or June, but I got this "year in review" in my email and I was pretty surprised at how much time I spent on Spanish lessons! The total was 2188 minutes, which is 36-1/2 hours (I do at least one lesson a day). I'm actually really impressed with the Duolingo app; I use the free version and I have learned *so* much. 

I saw a "Couples Challenge" that someone had shared on Pinterest and I thought it would be super fun for my family to do for Christmas. The original couples challenge said to pick any store, but that could get super expensive, so I specified that we shop at the dollar store. Jerry, Noah, Eli, and I are going to do this for each other and I think shopping at the dollar store will make it even more fun--we'll have to get creative. And have a sense of humor of course! Basically, we are going to buy each of the eight items for each other. It'll be interesting to see what everyone picks out!

My nephew Hunter and my niece Shelby--aren't they so stinkin' cute?! And their hair is so blond. It's funny how both of my nieces and nephews have the blondest hair. I love Shelby's smile.

And this is Shelby's school photo--she couldn't be any cuter!

Well, I'm going to work some more on organizing the Legos. Hopefully it'll go quickly now that I have all of the colors sorted into different bins. I'll be interested to see how many of the kits I can put back together; there are about 15 different instruction books.