Ugly Sweater/Graham Cracker Houses

Friday was my last day of work for two weeks.  That evening my work held their annual holiday work party and ornament exchange at Carvers.  This year they added in an ugly sweater contest and said there would be a prize for the ugliest sweater.  Many teachers set out to make an ugly sweater, some bought one, and some went with festive sweaters.  One of my co-workers suggested that I pin a bunch of my teddy bears to a sweater, and so I did.  While looking for the smallest bears in my collection, I realized most were Christmas bears, so I purposely pinned all of my small Christmas bears to one of my sweaters.  It was awesome!  I walked into Carvers and the people at the front all agreed mine was the best.  One guy walked us to our room and announced to everyone that the competition was over that I had won it.  Awhile later the same guy came back to pick the winner.  Each staff member had to stand and display their sweater.  If you wore a shirt and not a sweater, he disqualified you.  It came down to me and two others, one got disqualified because she took it off and didn't wear it the whole time.  Then it was down to me and the music teacher.  I liked his.  He found a Christmas vest at goodwill and glued silver tinsel around the edges and then spelled out Joy on the back in gold tinsel.  It was pretty awesome.  The guy wanted to call it a tie, but my boss said there was only one prize.....so then he decided that I was the favorite.  Woohoo!  I won bragging rights, a certificate and $50.

Saturday my mom and I went shopping.  I promptly spent my winnings and some more on Christmas gifts, but can say I pretty much started and nearly finished my shopping that day.  I ordered a few things online for the kids as well.  Saturday evening we had cousins over for our annual graham cracker house makings and a trip down Christmas Card Lane.  The festivities got underway a little late, we ate dinner, did Christmas Card Lane and then all the kids fell promptly to sleep.  We divided up the candy and everyone took home their houses undecorated. 

Today Connor and I decorated houses.  I decorated Chloe's and she had a great time eating it afterwards.  Connor decorated his own, let me take a picture and then plucked all the candies off and ate them.  Chloe basically ate the whole thing.

Tomorrow will likely consist of waiting for the garbage truck and making crafts.

An excavator in action!

Connor has recently taken a strong fascination to large machines.  His favorites are garbage trucks and back hoes.  Today we stopped by my work to see the demolition process of the building I used to work in.  At first all Connor wanted to do was play, but then we stood on top of a play structure and got these awesome shots.

 This wall is all that is left standing of the building.

 The demolition workers were carefully going through the debris, pulling out wood and rock materials that could be reused.

 All of the reusable material is going to Mexico to be used in building homes.  How awesome is that?

 After visiting with co-workers for a little bit and watching the big machine, we started heading to the parkinglot for home....then we noticed the excavator was moving...so we went back out to the playground and watched for quite some time.  Connor kept wanting to stay and watch more.

Digging up debris...and a look of the whole area that used to be a "house" for primary and elementary students.  The new building will consist of lower and upper elementary students.

Going into a hole to dig up the sidewalk

Digging up the sidewalk

A new building will be built starting in September.