New House - Trim and Doors

I haven't posted much about the house lately, but they have still been making some progress. They are still working on paint, flooring has been started, and they started the trim and doors just this week.

Here is the tile flooring in the mudroom. They have also completed the powder room tile and linoleum in the basement bath and kids bath.

Here are some pics of the doors, trim, and stained handrails that will be used on the stairs going up.

Youth Medal Nights

This weekend was the Wood City Classic basketball tournament in Cloquet. On Friday night Olivia got her medal for participating in girls basketball and on Saturday night Jack got his.

They were both pretty excited and I was surprised Olivia was not scared to go out there. When Jack was that age, he refused to go out on the court.

Christmas

Christmas was very busy, as usual, going back and forth between so many places. This year it felt like the movie Four Christmases because we literally were opening presents for 4 days in a row. Sunday we had dinner and opened presents at Steve's parents house.

Monday night we went to my parents for dinner and presents...

On Christmas Eve, Steve had the alumni basketball game in the morning and then we opened our presents at home.

After, we drove up to Two Harbors to the same hotel we go every year to celebrate the extended Battaglia family Christmas. We ate, the kids opened presents, and then the adults did their gift exchange. We left there are about 6:30 to head back to my Grandpa's house.

On Christmas Day, we went back to my parent's house for the extended Johnson family celebration. Again, we ate, opened presents, and visited. In the afternoon we went back to Steve's parents for his mom's side.

QOP Christmas Program

Today Olivia had her Queen of Peace Christmas program. There are only about 10 kids in her class, so it was pretty small. They sang 4 songs so it lasted less than10 minutes and then they had cookies and juice for all the parents. Olivia was still shy this year, but much less than last when she stood with her arm over her face and then jumped off stage half way through.

New House - Painting

The painting has finally begun. This is where it gets fun as the colors start to show throughout house. I say this even though all the paint colors are pretty neutral.

Updated move-in time frame...3rd week in January, which means we're delayed from the original timeline by about 6 weeks.

Home for the Holidays

This weekend was the Santa's Home for the Holidays weekend of events in Cloquet. My work co-sponsors the entire weekend of events, so I am very involved with the planning. We ended up canceling the parade because we had extreme subzero temperatures, but we still hosted the indoor events at MCCU.

Santa is one of the visitors...

Olivia asked Santa for a baby set and Jack asked for an Xbox.

New House - Sheet Rock

So here we are with another week of sheet rock. Apparently this takes much longer, especially when you only have one guy working on it. Every day we see progress, but it just doesn't seem to be moving fast enough.

Glensheen Christmas

This year one of our Christmas parties for work was at Glensheen. Spouses were able to attend and Steve just happened to have a basketball game that got cancelled, so he was able to come. We were able to do a self-guided tour, which was fine since I've been there several times and then we had dinner as group of about 25.

It was the start of the first big snowfall of the year, which made the grounds very picturesque.

Olivia's Holiday Dance

Last week at dance class, Olivia's group was practicing for the upcoming Home for the Holidays parade in Cloquet. Olivia didn't know the routine very well because she is unable to be in the parade, so hasn't gone to the parade practice. Regardless, it was pretty cute some of the moves she picked up (especially at the end).