The final days of 2022 . . .

We had nothing going on the Monday after Christmas and so Ben just came up with the idea of "painting the bathroom." The girls were all for it! It's something that has needed to be done for many, many years.

Here are a few before pics:

Ugly, white cupboards.

Ugly brown wall.

More ugly, brown walls.

The girls had really never painted before and so it was quite fun for them. :)

So us girls helped out mostly that first day, then it was mostly up to Ben to finish it up. I had recently pinned a wall painting design that I just loved. The kids all loved it, too, and Ben at least agreed to it. . . 

So Miles did the stencil painting one afternoon. It'll be fun to have his touch on our bathroom for years to come! And we all love how it turned out! Ben spent the rest of the week doing the finishing touches and completed the project on January 2nd:

Kind of a weird, panoramic picture - but at least it gives you the idea of our new & improved bathroom!

On New Year's Eve day, we kind of let the kids and parents all chose an activity to do. Jonas chose to go snowboarding with friends, haha. He'd already decided on that before we had come up with our plan, so it was fine. We started off by doing Lucy's 2nd choice activity (her 1st choice was going to Amazing Glaze, but unfortunately it was closed): a rice-krispie molding contest! Theme: Wednesday (the show on Netflix). Here's what we all came up with:

This was my creation - Uncle Fester's motorcycle thing.

Haha.

Emmy did "Thing."

Ben did Wednesday's cello.

Miles did Gomez and Morticia.

And, finally, Lucy made Wednesday when she's having one of her visions. :)

Next we were off to Ouray. Miles had wanted to go and just walk around the shops . . . Emmy didn't know what she wanted to do for her activity . . . but she's been wanting to go and get some "cute pictures" of herself (such a teen girl) and so we decided to do that first up in Ouray . . . 

The boys posed for a photo, too. :)

Awww, so cute - daddy and daughter.

She liked some of them and so that was counted as a win!

Then we walked around the shops of Ouray and had fun. We ended our Ouray experience by going to the Ouray Hot Springs (thanks Huband family!!). Awesome.

We drove back into town hungry and excited to go eat dinner where Miles had wanted to while he was in town, Taco El Gordo. But, bummer, it was closed for the evening! So sad! But we all decided on Colorado Boy Pizzeria because it is also delicious and amazing and it did not disappoint. Except that it took forever to get the pizza and it wasn't even that busy . . . However, they gave us our food for free because it took forever! And we didn't even complain to the waiter about it. So that was Awesome. We paid for our appetizers and left a nice tip. :) Fun!

After dinner we played a little championship game of table-top Curling (Ben's choice). Sadly, no pics, but it was fun and Miles won it all!

Then the kids were off doing their own thing for a while - Miles went and hung out with friends, Jonas was hanging out with his friends, and Lucy went over to G's house. Emmy stayed home with us and we all watched Father of the Bride. So great. Everyone came home by 11 and we finished up the year by destroying and devouring our gingerbread houses. Happy New Year!