December 2019 - It's A Schorr Thing

Merry Christmas 2019: Family Advent Fun

December 26, 2019 8 m read

Hope you are your family had a very Merry Christmas! This season has been such a whirlwind but such a blessing to spend time together and with family. Last year Bailey had asked for more family time so we started doing a Family Advent Activities Countdown and we continued the tradition this year. There were definitely a few struggles to get everything done with a home renovation, a few illnesses, snow and general holiday crankiness on all sides, but we managed to get through everything and looking back I am so glad we did. This is one tradition I hope that we can continue throughout the years because we do have a lot of fun and it brings us all closer.

Advent Day 1: 2019 Hallmark Ornaments

One of our favorite traditions we started when Bailey was born was picking out a new ornament from Hallmark every Christmas. Each year we hang the ornament on our stocking and the following year it will be added to the tree. The girls had a hard time deciding which to take home this year but Bailey chose a Fairy and Sienna chose a Butterfly.

Advent Day 2: Paulie’s Penguin Playhouse

Day 2 we headed over to Paulie’s Penguin Playhouse to check out all the Penguins and donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The girls love walking through all the penguins and we are so fortunate that we live so close!

Advent Day 3: Homemade Bird Feeders

The girls have been wanting to feed the birds for awhile so we grabbed some ice cream cones, peanut butter and sunflower seeds. Then we hung them up on the Fairy Playhouse so we could watch the bird enjoy them.

Advent Day 4: DIY Snowmen

We got a little crafty and made snowmen out of cotton balls and construction paper. The girls loved gluing everything down and designing their snowmen. If we had scheduled this later we could have made real ones.

Advent Day 5: Homemade Grandparent Gifts

We broke out the glitter glue and the girls decorated picture frames for both sets of grandparents. We had glitter everywhere, but they turned out pretty cute. And we didn’t start a fire this year, so we did better than last year.

Advent Day 6: Celebrate Olathe with Santa

Celebrate Olathe is one of our favorite ways to kick of the season and one of the best places to see Santa. The girls had a blast checking out all the lights and both were so good seeing Santa.

It was their second time seeing Santa that day because I decided to take the girls down to Crown Center and Union Station for one of our other favorite traditions. We saw the trains, did a little shopping, saw Santa and enjoyed the day out.

Advent Day 7: Give Back to those in Need

The girls and I spent a lot of time during the week going through old toys and household items to donate to Goodwill. We were very proud of the girls for taking a lot of care getting everything ready and giving back to those less fortunate than us.

Advent Day 8: Spoiling Bubba Day

Bubba’s birthday was actually on Monday but we wanted to spend the entire day as a family snuggling and going on a walk for Bubba’s Birthday. We are so blessed to have spent 14 wonderful years with him and we love him so much!

Advent Day 9: Reading Christmas Books

Our girls love books and Christmas so they really love Christmas books. Their favorites are the Nutcracker and Fancy Nancy.

Advent Day 10: Holiday Light Tour

One of Dad’s favorite holiday traditions is taking a tour of all the Christmas lights. There are a lot of great spots around town and we always end up at Deanna Rose for their light show. The girls really enjoyed the Elsa portion of the show.

Advent Day 11: Holiday Road Trip to STL and Indoor / Outdoor Swimming

After a few last minute doctor appointments because Mom and Sienna both came down with colds (of course), Dad took a half day so we could make the drive to Saint Louis for the first leg of our holiday road trip. We always stay at the Clayton Plaza hotel and go swimming in their heated indoor / outdoor pool. We wore out some energy and enjoyed a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Advent Day 12: Holiday Shopping

We slept in, grabbed some breakfast and then headed to the Galleria to do some holiday shopping for friends and family.

We hopped back in the car and headed to Mayfield. It was a smooth drive and we made good time. We stopped to say hi to Grandma and Grandpa Schorr then headed over to Power Truss to see Uncle Brad and Ms. Lynn. The girls had a wonderful time visiting and playing with the pups. They got beautiful jewelry boxes and jewelry that they talked about all weekend. When we got back we had a special surprise, Aunt Sue came in from Georgia and we got to spend the evening catching up!

Advent Day 13: Spreading Holiday Cheer

We went to Mayfield High School to visit Grandma Schorr, went to see Ms. Granier and spent the rest of the day with family.

Advent Day 14: Celebrating Christmas with the Schorrs at Discovery Park of America

We spent most of the day playing and exploring at the Discovery Park of America with Grandma & Grandpa Schorr and Aunt Sue. It was our first time and we all had a blast. The girls loved the water table, building with blocks, exploring the torture chamber and playing outside. There was a creepy point in the day when we learned about Sleeping Beauty of Obion County while we were inside her cabin, definitely gave us creeps.

Then we got home, opened Christmas presents and had a wonderful dinner with everyone. Throughout the day we had been getting updates on the snow that was heading towards KC on Sunday so we decided to leave Saturday evening to beat the impending storm. Good thing we did because we got 8″ of snow that started a little after 7am. It definitely pays to be cautious. But we had a wonderful time in Mayfield and can’t wait to see the family again soon!

Advent Day 15: Pancakes in our PJs

Day 15 was supposed to be a road trip home in our PJs but thanks to the snow we got in at about 2:00 am so we decided to do some Pancakes in our PJs instead. Then spent the day enjoying the snow globe outside while cuddling under blankets inside.

Advent Day 16: Hot Cocoa Tea Party

We were snowed in all day with no school or dance but the girls loved getting dressed up and having a Hot Cocoa Tea Party.

Advent Day 17: Homemade Gingerbread Men

Another one of our favorite traditions we started last year was making homemade gingerbread men. I found a great recipe for the chewiest and tastiest gingerbread cookies and the girls love cutting them out and decorating them.

Dad also got the girls out for some night sledding in the snow!

Advent Day 18: Family Movie Night

It was a crazy day that started with decorating Gingerbread Men in Bailey’s class, an invite to the Wednesday night dance class holiday party (since ours was cancelled due to snow) and just a whole lot of sugar. We needed a relaxing night and watched the Trolls Holiday movie while eating dinner. There was definitely a sugar crash!

I had a lot of fun bringing one of our holiday traditions to Bailey’s preschool class. The kids loved decorating the Gingerbread Men with tons of icing and candy!

Advent Day 19: Rudolf Headbands

Another busy day with Bailey’s Holiday Party at school, we had fun making Rudolf hand print headbands and the girls loved chasing each other around with them on.

Sienna was so excited to be invited to Bailey’s school party. She loved eating treats, making Play Doh Christmas Trees and watching Frosty with all the big kids. We had a little trouble leaving, but overall it was a great time for all.

Advent Day 20: Ice Cream Social

Who doesn’t love ice cream? Keeping with the sugar filled week we had an ice cream social with our favorite Belfonteice cream!

Advent Day 21: Plaza Lights

After a fun filled Saturday we took the girls down to the Country Club Plaza to see the lights. It was a beautiful night so we walked around and did a little shopping.

We even saw Santa! Then hit up Winstead’s to get some dinner and a Skyscraper!

Advent Day 22: Holiday Baking

Tis the season for holiday baking! Usually I decide to do this during the week, but I was smart this year and planned it on a day when Dad could help wrangle the kids and help with the cleaning! The girls loved adding some sprinkles to the Scotcharoos and walking around the neighborhood delivering the goodies! They loved wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and Go Chiefs!

Advent Day 23: Gingerbread House Competition

Our Gingerbread House Competition keeps growing and gets better each year, but one thing stays the same…Grandma’s construction struggle. The girls enjoy counting down the minutes before the house collapses and just laugh and laugh. This year we added Aunt Janet and Aunt Carol to the party. Janet definitely had the more superior house and as always, Grandma’s started collapsing before we took the picture. But we had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs.

The Adult houses…guess which one is Grandma’s

Advent Day 24: Christmas Eve Fettuccine

Christmas Eve is always busy and super chaotic and this year was no different. Both Brian and I had to work in the morning so the girls had fun playing at Gigi and Pop Pop’s house while we finished up. Then we spent the afternoon enjoying the beautiful weather outside at one of our favorite parks.

We always make homemade pasta every Christmas Eve and the girls love helping out. This year we tried a new pasta recipe and we had some major struggles getting it through the Kitchenaid press – I’m not going to say there wasn’t a lot of frustration and tears, but we got through it.

Once the pasta was complete we settled in to watch The Holiday and open up our Christmas Eve presents. The girls loved their new PJs and new books. We spent the rest of the night snuggling up with our stories and getting ready for Santa’s arrival.

Advent Day 25: Merry Christmas

Spending the day with family is our favorite tradition of all. We woke up, went to Gigi and Pop Pop’s house to have breakfast, open presents and cook a wonderful turkey dinner. The girls got to play outside a ton to wear off some of that pent up holiday energy. Then we came home and opened the presents from Santa and each other. It was definitely a Christmas to remember and we are very blessed with all the love we have.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! We will see you in the New Year!

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DIY

Opening Up: Main Room Makeover

December 6, 2019 5 m read

When one door closes, another one opens…or in our case a wall. As we count down the last few months of being a family of four, we decided to focus on making our home fit our needs. So it was time for a makeover!

We love our house and have spent a lot of time and energy making it work for us. It is currently a three bedroom home, which has worked great for us until we found out Baby Boy was coming. We started looking at a few 4 bedroom homes in the area but both of use decided early on that we wanted to stay where we were so we had to get creative.

The Front Room

When you walk into our house we have a large, long room that we have never quite known what to do with. For the last ten years we have had a large sectional and our dining room table housed there, but we hardly use the room. It has always seemed a little hidden and removed from the rest of our space.

When we decided we wanted to try and make our home a four bedroom house this room seemed the most likely, and cost effective room to use. But we didn’t want to make our house seem too boxy, so we started drawing up a few plans. The one that seemed the best fit would be to open the wall between our front room and main living room and enclosing what was the dining room into the new baby’s room. The only problem…we were up against a load bearing wall.

Before we got our hopes up too much, we reached out to a few contractors and construction guys. We needed to know if it was possible to open the wall and how much it was going to set us back. We met with Dewayne at Quality Time Construction and knew immediately that he was the one we wanted to work on our project. He didn’t try to sell us on updating other parts of our home, he was just looking at the load bearing wall and told us we could do the demo and finishing work to save us money. He really listened and had a plan in place. We just needed to wait a few months before starting.

Cleaning Out

Once we had a plan in place, we got to work on purging our unused items. As most parents know, it’s easy to accumulate clutter. With the open concept we were looking for, our clutter would be on full display as soon as you walked through the door. With the added help of my nesting, we got to work selling the big pieces of furniture and a lot of other things at our garage sale this fall. And as an added bonus we made enough money to cover a huge chunk of the cost. We also went through a lot of things to donate this holiday season to local shelters.

The girls have been a big help with cleaning up and deciding what to keep and donate. I’ve been really proud of their effort, because getting rid of things can be hard. They had a lot of fun selling their wares at the garage sale too, and making a little extra for their college fund through cookie sales!

Demo Day

We chose to start the renovation the week after Thanksgiving which meant that not only did we need to get the house cleaned for company, but we needed to get everything cleared out to start the demo.

We had a nice Thanksgiving weekend with Brian’s family and mine, except poor Gigi was stuck in quarantine all weekend with the flu. But after our second Thanksgiving feast on Saturday we got to work on the demo.

The girls loved getting a chance to swing the hammer and take down part of the wall. We started on the west side of the wall since we had everything moved out and waited until Sunday morning to take down the other side and move the couches.

It was messy but once we could see through, we knew it was meant to be! Huge thank you to Pop Pop Ray Ray for helping us take the drywall and paneling down and hauling everything to the trash. Once we got everything down to the studs we said goodbye to Grandma Schorr, Pop Pop Ray Ray and Granny and got ready for Pop Pop to come over to work on electrical and build a temporary wall.

In order to take down the load bearing wall, we needed to build a temporary wall to help support the weight of the roof. We also had 4 outlets and a dimmer switch to relocate. Luckily, Pop Pop and Brian knew what they were doing and got everything completed. Tequila thought we were building him his own room and agility course and made sure to supervise the project. The girls thought everything was really fun and they did a good job keeping out of the way.

Major Construction Zone

Tuesday our contractor, Dewayne showed up and quickly got to work. They were in the attic for most of the day prepping supports for the beam and getting the rest of the electrical squared away so they could start knocking things out. It was loud but the girls enjoyed the entertainment and Dewayne and his crew were awesome!

The next day it was just Dewayne and he got to work securing the electrical work to the floor and finishing up in the attic so he could put in the header. The girls loved the light show and sparks they saw when he was cutting down the nails. He was so nice and even built Sienna a ramp for her cars to race!

I thought a couple guys would be joining him for he heavy lifting, but as we got home from picking up Bailey at school he was getting the header in by himself! I couldn’t believe it because it was crazy heavy and long but he just laughed and said he knew what he was doing. By the time Brian got home he was just finishing up with the last piece .

I couldn’t recommend a contractor more than Dewayne with Quality Time Construction. He was unbelievably fast and efficient and great with the girls. They were sad when he wasn’t coming back again but he built them a wooden snowman before he left.

Now comes the finishing work that we will be working on soon. We will also be removing the temporary wall and using it for the baby’s room. I’ll share more updates as they come, but we have a few holiday parties and events that we need to work around. But for now, here’s a few pics from our favorite cleaning crew…she’s obsessed with the ShopVac!