I'm still here - more or less

Sorry for dropping off the cyberworld - I promise I'm not lost in the chaos that is my house.  There are now floors in our entry and Family room, new paint on the walls, and a new light fixture hung.  So all that is left is to get the furniture is in today then move everything back to where it belongs.  Oh yeah then decorate for Christmas - and I have exactly one weekend to do it.  It is one of those excited but overwhelming mentally projects.  Thank god for my parents who did all the work - my dad did the floors with help from a family friend, he also hung the light, and my mom did the painting.  I just have so much trouble focusing when my house is a mess like this and that is not good because I don't have time on a school night to lose focus.  So the kids have had way more fast food then I want to think about and I'm guessing Cate will not be getting another 100% on her spelling test this week since we've been hurrying through homework.   (But Cate did get a 100% last week with the toughest words yet - Quick, Quiz, Quit, Who, There!!! Awesome huh!  Granted we had two weeks to work on them because of the Thanksgiving break but we really spent that time working on reading them and writing the 'q' which she had a really hard time doing.)  I'm looking forward to getting the house in order this weekend so next week we will be back to normal.  Cate is also going to do her first exhibition cheerleading performance in preparation for the competitions which start in January.  So I should have some cheer pictures next week and if we are lucky maybe even some video.
Until then here are a couple more shots that didn't make the Christmas card!