Christmas with Kortus's

update on our living room project.  Jason finished building and I started painting.  After several coats of paint I learned that the quality of paint matters.. a LOT.  Jason had bought some Behr paint, which we used in our last house and loved.  The quality of paint has changed.  I know this for a fact because I used some of our old Behr paint (6+ years old) and the quality is completely different from the new paint we just bought.  Sad.  The new Behr paint is like painting with a watery glue.  It's sticky, thin and dries really fast, which makes it hard to paint without roller lines.  After some research I bought some Sherwin Williams paint and OMG what a difference!  It's like painting with smooth butter vs watery glue!  It only takes 1-2 coats with the SW since it's thicker.  The Behr paint I used to redo Connor's room took 4-5 coats and was sooo difficult to work with.  I love the SW paint! 

 Our new furniture arrived! 
For Christmas this year we met my brother and his family, my parents and Staci at Red Robin downtown.  I wanted to have a Christmas dinner at our house, but Laura and John wanted a quick dinner downtown since John had to work.   My parents came back to our house afterwards and spent the night.  The next day we did our Christmas dinner with our family and grandma and grandpa.  Then they went home and we spent the rest of the day playing board games as a family.

Christmas

Since we left earlier than planned and came home sick.... I never got all our Christmas decorations up this year.  I never put our stockings out or even put the angle on our tree.  The boys didn't mind though.  Santa left their presents in front of our fireplace, which is currently still being built.  All Connor wanted this year for Christmas was Lego's.  Lots and lots of lego's.  Kaiden wanted more Paw Patrol, trucks and a doll.  I'm not sure why he wanted a doll, but it was on every single list he gave us.  So, he got a little doll.  He was happy to unwrap it, but has since to touch it again.  Silly kid.  He had some dolls when he was younger, but then chose to get rid of them. 

 Piper opened her own gift.  I got her 2 stuffed animal toys, a Kong ball and a costco pack of bully sticks.  She's already shredded all her toys.

 Connor with his Harry Potter spell book.  Kaiden and Connor pretend to put spells on each other.  He was excited to see a book with all the spells from the movies.  Kaiden opening his small doll... which hasn't been touched since. 

 The boys spent the rest of the day playing.  Connor building Lego's.  Kaiden playing with Paw Patrol and Monster Jam trucks.  Occasionally the two would play with their new drone together or have a sword fight with Kaiden's new foam swords.  We also got a bunch of new games.  This is a holiday tradition I started a while back- we get new games every year and have family game nights in the winter.  I bought them 4 new games this year, plus we got 3 new games from the Pirate exchange party at Paul's house!  Lots of family fun to keep us busy on the cold nights.

Christmas Eve

We drove home Sunday, did laundry and put everything away.  Monday we woke up and we were all sick.  We all spent the day in bed.  Thankfully we have a king size bed with adjustable base.  We piled in the bed and raised the head so we could all breath and spent the day watching a Harry Potter Marathon and napping off and on. 

 Tuesday, Christmas Eve Jason spent working on the fireplace.  The boys took naps and slept most of the day.  I cleaned house and made cookies for Santa.  The boys helped me mix the batter but then went back to sleep.  Connor picked the cookie recipe- chocolate mint cookies.   We left Santa a plate with moon cakes (I bought at the store), the chocolate mint cookie and carrot sticks for the reindeer.  Connor also wrote Santa a note.  At this point Kaiden is way better- still coughing once in a while and sneezing occasionally, but nothing like before!  Connor feels awful.  He's coughing and sneezing a lot.  Jason is fine.  He only had a headache and felt sick for 1-2 days.  I was sick with coughing, sneezing and body aches for a good week. 

part 2

When we got to Olympia we stopped at Barnes and Noble to pick up some games for Taylor's family for Christmas.  We had fun looking at all the cool toys and games there.  Barnes and Noble always has a great selection of Christmas gifts.  Then we met Sue at Mark's house.  Connor started to feel sick at this point and was coughing and sneezing too.  He never did get a fever though.  Both boys spent the bulk of their time lounging and watching Harry Potter movies.   Lauren and Brianna came over the next morning to make some sugar cookies.  Everyone had fun making and decorating sugar cookies.  The boys made a big plate of cookies, but they each only had 1 bite from a cookie.  They really weren't feeling good, but they had fun decorating them.  That evening we played board games.  We stayed at Mark's house Friday and Saturday.  I slept with Kaiden in one of the guest rooms with a queen bed.  Connor and Sue stayed in the guest room with 2 twin beds.  Jason slept on a mattress on the floor in the bonus room.  Poor Kaiden was sneezing all the time and every time he would have a massive glob of snot come out.  His fever was gone by Saturday though.  But Jason and I started to feel a cold coming on, so we decided to drive back home Sunday and not stick around for Christmas.  We didn't want to get anyone else sick.   We got lucky with the roads.  The drive there and back were dry- no rain, wind or snow!  We were all happy to get our Piper from the kennel.