Trip to North Liberty and to see Santa

This past weekend we headed to North Liberty to visit our friends, the Lerdals.  They were gracious enough to even let us stay overnight!  Aiden was delighted to see his bestie, Kinley.  They had a blast playing together.  Saturday morning we headed to 'Breakfast with Santa'.  Aiden is NOT a fan of costumed things, and even though he talks about Santa all the time- he was a bit hesistant.  He did stand by Santa and told him 'Thank you' and 'I want CROODS!' (a movie)

Holding hands and cheesing! 

I couldn't get one of them both looking at the camera...

Silly faces

Excited faces

Kinley did great sitting with Santa!

Just chatting for a bit

Standing by Santa (he did give him a high five)

For some reason the inflatables didn't bother Aiden.

The rec center (with the breakfast was held) also had an area to play

Driving on a date (supervised of course)

Chuck-E-Cheese

Doug's cousin Brandy and her kids Donavon and Valerie were back visiting from Colorado for a little bit.  It just so happened to be near their birthdays, so they had joint birthday parties at Chuck-E-Cheese.  Aiden (who is terrified of any costumed person) and never been here before, so it we were anxious to see how the experience went.  He had a blast and was only slightly traumatized by the giant, singing mouse.

Aiden struggled to climb in the 'ladder' so some nice random girl helped pull him all the way up.

The Birthday Girl

The Birthday Boy

A thank you hug

The infamous Chuck-E-Cheese.

Holiday Hooplah

We headed downtown Cedar Falls on Main Street to see the arrival of Santa.  It was literally freezing (I don't think my toes thawed for days afterward) but Aiden was excited.

Alvin and the Chipmunks made a surprise appearance.

Aiden and Doug weren't sure what to make up the Chipmunks.

Freezing our toes off!

Thanksgiving

For some reason, I only have picture of Aiden at Thanksgiving...

He enjoyed wrestling with 'Great-Uncle' Curt.

He also played in a pillow fort with 2nd Cousin Tim.

Basement Remodel

Time for another house project!  One of the rooms in the basement- which is now our office/storage area needed some serious work.  There were some shelves already built in, but they didn't really fit our needs or our design.  So, we got rid of them.  Demolition is fun!

That's my determined face!

Of course Aiden had to get in the mix.  Don't worry- we carefully supervised.

Thank goodness for friends who know what they are doing!  Our good friend Mike does construction for a living, and with the promise of some food- he agreed to help us drywall where the shelves once stood.  If he would have know how long it ended up taking- I don't think he would have done it! Hahaha.  The dry wall wasn't the hard part, it was the mudding after.

After one night of drywall and two more nights of mudding and sanding- we called it good.  And my parents were coming the next day to help paint!

After one coat of primer and two coats of paint- we're done!