The Kassel Family Project Life 365

I have a love-hate relationship with our crawl space.  The door to the crawl space is in our downstairs linen closet underneath the stairs that lead to the upper floor of our house.  It stretches all the way under our entryway and it is a fairly large space.  Where does the love-hate relationship come into play?  Well, I love it because it is great storage and it holds a lot of things.  I hate it because I’m too damn old to be crawling around in there.  I didn’t mind when we bought this house ten years ago, but now….well, it’s different.  Fortunately, I have two children that are 3 feet tall and they think the crawl space is great fun!  It makes it much easier to get things in and out.

It’s time to pack up the Christmas decorations and it’s really slow going.  I had the best of intentions today, but didn’t get anywhere near what I wanted done.  I ended up having to do some work from home (roughly four hours worth of work) and that really cut into my day.  I’m also suffering from a serious lack of motivation.  Hopefully, that will change tomorrow as my house is a sea of boxes, etc.  (The picture only shows about HALF of the Christmas decoration boxes.)

We got snow overnight!  It is not a lot of snow (maybe 2 – 3 inches), but it’s very windy and very cold.  After hearing on the morning news that Columbia Public Schools was cancelled, I said to Laura, “School is cancelled today.”  In a very excited voice, she said, “Alright!  Snow Day!”  Of course, that means that Laura goes to daycare with John for the day while Andy and I go to work and Andy gets to shovel the driveway!

Laura recently began watching the Star Wars movies.  She LOVES them!  Today, we got a catalog for ThinkGeek in the mail.  As she was looking through the catalog, she found ice cube trays that are mini replicas of a frozen Han Solo.  She was VERY excited and declared, “I want Han Solo frozen in ice!”  Yep, she’s a geek.  It’s important that she knows this now.  The earlier she realizes it, the better off she is.  It will give her time to learn to embrace the geek side of herself with gusto!  🙂

As a surprise for Laura, we stopped at Coldstone Creamery for ice cream after I picked her up from school.  Laura had chocolate ice cream with M & Ms and I had the “Coffee Lovers Only” Signature Creation (coffee ice cream, roasted almonds, Heath toffee bar, and caramel).  It was super yummy!  About halfway through eating her ice cream, Laura yelled, “This is a super awesome treat!”  The college student who was working there got a big smile on his face and a good chuckle out of her.  He said, “I think that’s the most excited I’ve ever seen a kid over eating ice cream.  That’s awesome!”

The Hendersons gave us their old LeapFrog Leapster and three games to go with it.  Their sons have outgrown it and Jenna thought that our kids would enjoy it.  After finding a new power cord, we got it out today for the first time.  Laura loves the “Cars” game.  John didn’t play with it as Laura wouldn’t let it go, but I predict he’ll be enjoying it quite a lot as well.

Andy returned home today from his trip to the Chicago area.  He brought a few things with him from Grandpa Blume’s house.  Among them were one of his watches, a coffee grinder, a radio, his bible, Grandma Blume’s wedding dress, and the below.

This is one of those things I didn’t expect Andy to bring back, but I love it.  It’s a shadow box and in the center is a picture of Andy’s great grandparents (Grandpa Blume’s parents).  Surrounding the picture is the bridal veil and a small flower arrangement.  I love this type of thing and I can’t wait to hang it up.  It is amazing and beautiful and I will definitely cherish it!