Busy Weekend

This will be a mosaic post...I am not going to try to re-create each of the past couple days.
I got our Christmas cards addressed, stamped and mailed today.
We went to our church Tableaux service tonight and then to dinner afterwards.
We baked cookies yesterday for a cookie exchange. The kids and I went and got to visit with old friends we don't see nearly enough.
Rob took care of our shoe storage issue. When I went nuts cleaning the floors awhile ago we started taking shoes off at the front door. Problem is there isn't room for more than 4 pairs of shoes in the tiny hallway. I drew a rough sketch of what I wanted and when we came home from the cookie exchange I had shoe storage. It is seriously awesome - 3 shelves and a top that I was able to relocate our key basket to and will also serve nicely for mail and purses. I painted it this morning and picked up a carpet at Menards to line the shelves for wet shoes.
Bargain shopped with Mom, Dad and Nick on Friday. We took care of a Groupon coupon Mom had. We had lunch at Caputo's and did some shopping. We hit a candy store.
Ellie and Rob had a date night on Friday. They had dinner, did some shopping and went to the Niles North basketball game. Nick and I also had a date night - we went out for dinner and back here to watch Beauty and the Beast.
I've been able to work on my craft projects a bit. I found that a rotary cutter works fabulous for cutting felted wool...I also found that a rotary cutter is extremely sharp. Lets just say I have a few bandages on my fingers.
We stopped by Mom and Dad's last night for the kids to catch up on the advent calendar clue hunt.
I got all the teacher presents (40) for Nick's preschool packaged up. Ellie's (7) and Rob's co-worker (6) gifts packaged. I still have a couple more things to finish up for the week.
Christi is coming over tomorrow so we can work on Ellie's holiday class party prep.
After seeing how quickly my rough drawing turned into the best thing ever - I started thinking of the possibilities. Next, I want Rob to make a shelving unit for the top of the stairs. I am not sure what I would use it for yet but it is un-taped space. Possibly for shoes upstairs or books. I also am looking at a built in seating couch in the back room. Running along the entire wall with storage under - this will replace our crappy couch and seriously give us about 5 more feet of seating.
I am feeling most excellent. A little back pain but I think that was all related to holding Nick through the service tonight. Visualising my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree