Advent Calendar: Days 17-20

Tyler's Lego Calendar:

Day 17: A police snowmobile

Day 18: A dog and a bowl of bones

Day 19: A girl with a cell phone and a cupcake or maybe it's ice cream

Day 20: A snowman

Thoughts: These are the same typical pieces that come in the calendar every year, but still fun to build.

Kyle's Mega Blok Calendar:

Day 17: A candy cane

Day 18: A water cooler and a cup

Day 19: A minion and a fart blaster

Day 20: A reindeer

Thoughts: No faulty pieces in this group...so yay! The candy cane and reindeer are nice and festive, the fart gun is funny (I guess) and the water cooler is the odd one out.

QVC Beauty Calendar:

Day 17: Clarks Botanicals Soothing Marine Cream. Value: $17

Day 18: Molton Brown body wash. Value: $3

Day 19: Philosoply Amazing Grace 3 in 1 shampoo, bath and shower gel. Value: $5

Day 20: Color Wow one minute transformation styling cream. Value: $6

Thoughts: Okay, all these samples from brands I've never tried are nice, especially the high end face creams, but where is the contribution from Laura Geller. Surely there's something from Laura Geller in this calendar. Right!? I'm waiting, but meanwhile I'm excited to try all four of these samples.

Snow Days

This week we had our 2nd snow of the season, but really it was the first storm with any significant accumulation. The snow we got around Thanksgiving was maybe an inch, while this time around we got about 5 inches over the course of two days.

Thursday morning we woke up to a decent amount of snow, but the school district was running on schedule with no delays or cancellations. So I shoveled the driveway and took Tyler to school and when we finally got there (slightly late because the roads were a mess) we noticed that only 1 bus out of 20 had showed up so far. I would later hear from Tyler that the buses were about 30 minutes late and also the superintendent came out to say that he had made a bad call that morning and that school should have been delayed (at the least).

It continued to snow the entire day and we ended up shoveling the driveway three separate times in an effort to keep it clear.

Tyler usually walks home from school, but I picked him up on Thursday because of the weather and he was super disappointed with the news that his band winter concert for that night had been cancelled. He was really excited for us to come and see him perform.

It continued to snow overnight and in the morning we had several more inches on the ground and this time school was cancelled for the day.

It was the last day of school before winter break, so Tyler ended up with a bonus vacation day.  Now he's home until they go back the first week of January.

Tyler had the idea to make a tunnel and he worked on it, scooping snow out from both sides until he was able to squirm his way all the way through.

Success! I should've had him move to the side so you could see his work.

And now as I look outside, it's snowing yet again. So there is a definite improvement over last year where we got no snow at all. Tonight Rick and I have plans to go out for our anniversary dinner a day early, since the sitter isn't available tomorrow. We'll see how that goes with the continued snowfall.

Advent Calendar: Days 13-16

Tyler's Lego Calendar:

Day 13: A criminal with a sack of $100 bills and a crowbar. (Sweet innocent Kyle Bear refers to the crowbar as a "hiking stick")

Day 14: The front end of a train

Day 15: The back of the train

Day 16: A deputy marshal

Thoughts: I don't really love the cops and robbers that always show up in the calendar, but at least there are some unique pieces this year such as the $100 bills and a different uniform/hat for the police.

Kyle's Mega Blok Calendar:

Day 13: A lady bug with a shelter?

Day 14: A table with milk and cookies

 

Day 15: An airplane

Day 16: A snowman

Thoughts: Ugh! The quality of these pieces are terrible! One of the cookies on day 14 has an imperfection which prevents it from attaching to any other piece.  And the snowman's face is printed off to the side so he's perpetually looking over his shoulder instead of straight ahead.

QVC Beauty Calendar:

Day 13: A QVC brand makeup sponge. Value: $6 (?)

Day 14: StriVectin neck cream. Sample size. Value: $14

Day 15: Formula X nail polish. Sample size. Value: $3.50

Day 16: Lash Food lash primer. Sample size. Value: $10

Thoughts: All good items that I'm excited to try.

Advent Calendar: Days 9-12

Joining in the advent fun this week, Rick picked up a Starbucks calendar and Kyle has been helping him open up the ornaments each morning. It's a mix of milk chocolate and peppermint bark pieces.

Tyler's Lego Calendar:

Day 9: A chair

Day 10: A Christmas tree

Day 11: A street clock

Day 12: presents

Thoughts: The chair is nice, but the minifigs that have come in the calendar so far are all children and their legs don't bend, so they can't sit. Maybe it's meant for Santa. Also the tree this year is decorated in gold and silver, but I think I prefer the more colorful versions of years past. The street clock and presents are fun and festive.

Kyle's Minion Calendar:

Day 9: A present

Day 10: A sled

Day 11: A stocking

Day 12: A minion (with a top knot)

Thoughts: I like how these are more holiday oriented compared to some of the previous days of utter randomness. Also I've come to wish that Mega Bloks would include extra pieces each day like you get in the Lego calendar since Kyle is prone to losing them.

 QVC Beauty Calendar:

Day 9: A hair texturizing product from Calista Tools. Sample size. Value: $17

Day 10: A mirror compact with a regular and magnifying side. Value: $5 (?)

Day 11: Perricone MD face moisturizer. Sample size. Value: $18.50

Day 12: Josie Maran Argan Oil. Sample size. Value: $16

Thoughts: I'm most excited about trying the face moisturizer. I've also heard a lot about Josie Maran, but have never tried anything from the brand, so I'm interested to see what the argan oil is like. The mirror compact is okay and the hair product just seems strange. You have to dispense the product into your hands and then clap to create fibers. What?

Our Christmas Tree

This year we had plans to get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, while Rick's brother's were still in town. And while we did make it out to the forest, we ended up in a place that was out of boundaries for cutting trees, so we just had a fun snow day with the kids and went to a different area on the following weekend to get a tree.

We had left most of our snow clothes in the car from the first trip, since we'd be using them again so quickly. It was a good plan for the most part, until we were a good 30 minutes into our drive and realized that Kyle's snow clothes were not in the car. He'd fallen asleep on the ride home the last time and was carried into the house with all his things and they were never returned to the car. All he had was his boots, gloves and a regular jacket. Thankfully Rick had his extra pair of snow bibs in the back of the car, so we were able to share what we had to make it work. I ended up wearing Rick's extra bibs, Tyler wore mine and Kyle wore Tyler's bibs. If you look closely at the picture you can see Kyle's pants rolled up practically to his knees.

For $5, I guess going out to the forest for a tree is worth it, but tromping through the rugged terrain in the snow was a lot of work! I shouldn't even talk. I wasn't the one who had to carry the frozen, snow covered tree back to the car.

Back at home, the tree quickly thawed out in the living room (lots of towels required to collect all the snow melt) and we put the lights on that night. It was a school night though, so the ornaments had to wait for another day.

The boys and I were able to put up the ornaments during the week, so now the tree is all finished and pretty. Yay! Now to start wrapping presents!