Christmas Wrap Up and More

There has been so much going on around here that I almost forgot that I have a blog. But I just remembered, so bear with me as I jump from Christmas to concrete to house. My mind is going in a thousand different directions these days, so even I'm not sure how this post will turn out.

But here goes.

Last Saturday was Christmas Eve and we celebrated Christmas at my parent's house that afternoon. Every year, my kids and my nieces and nephews get together and come up with a Christmas program to put on for the family. In the past, we've heard trumpets, flutes, pianos, and singing. This year was a little more thrown together since my niece, Jennifer, (who is usually in charge of writing scripts and printing out programs for everyone) had just gotten in from college in Oklahoma and has probably had semester exams on her mind instead of who was going to play the part of Grandma in the skit when she gets ran over by a reindeer (even though everyone in the family knows this honor goes to Brandon). This year the kids sang some songs for us, and I must say, any program that includes 'I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas' is a hit in my book.

This is where I would normally insert tons of pictures of the kids doing their thing, but I actually used a REAL camera instead of just my phone and my non-technological self can't get the pictures to transfer over to my blog. I did manage to get one with my phone, and this is it:

I have GOT to figure out how to get my pictures on here.

Maybe next year.

Which I guess technically would be next week.

Maybe I could make this one of my resolutions for 2012.

Just after I get skinny.

Anyway, we opened gifts and had dinner after the program was over. And I got some really good pictures of everyone there, but it was with my real camera, and well....

That night after we got back home the boys were ready to decorate cookies for Santa. I know that some people actually make homemade cookie dough and buy all kinds of things to decorate with. And maybe next year I will put a little more thought into that, but for this year my kids had store bought cookie dough that they got to flatten and sprinkle to death.

And they couldn't have been happier about it.

Christmas morning when I got out of bed and walked into the living room, this is what I saw...

Oh my heart.

I don't know how many times Robbie slept in that chair with Aaron asleep on his chest as a baby, but this is something that hasn't happened in a very long time. It was so precious and it was my very favorite thing that happened that day.

After I wiped the tears out of my eyes, I was on to the task of making cinnamon rolls. And because I am not and have never claimed to be Betty Crocker, I broke open the can, put them on a cookie sheet, and put them in the oven. And I guess the smell of them cooking woke everyone up because my guys were salivating by the time the oven beeped.

After breakfast we opened gifts. Santa had left a note on our Christmas tree that said that his gifts could all be found outside, so we chose to open the gifts in the house before we ventured out to see what Santa had been up to.

(Again, normally I would put pictures on here of all of the paper flying and happy little faces, but again, I used my real camera...)

When we went outside, Santa had left the boys two things: a basketball goal and an air hockey table. Aaron was super excited about the basketball goal, Austin was super excited about the hockey table, and Santa was super excited about them both being on sale at Academy, so I'd say everyone did alright this year.

And now Christmas 2011 is past.

And now Christmas 2011 is past.

Yes, I meant to say that twice because I've been waiting to say that since I saw the first Christmas candy hit the shelves at WalMart just after the last of the Halloween candy was clearanced out. Not that I didn't enjoy Christmas this year, but my mind has been on the new house and buying things for it that I was just ready to focus all of my efforts (and money) into one thing again.

Which could be why some of Aaron's gifts included a shower curtain, towels, and wall hangings.

But give me a break. They were from Cabela's. For what I had to pay for that stuff every single towel should've been wrapped up individually.

Now that we've had a few days to really focus on the house, we are seeing lots of progress. Robbie is doing the electrical himself, with the help of his dad and his friend Randy. He is spending every waking moment he has at home to get light fixtures, plugs, and switches put in. I can now assemble ceiling fan blades and hand you the parts of the fan in the order it is needed. I really enjoy helping Robbie and I know the boys do too. All of us have pulled wire in this house and we've all helped out any way that we could to make this process go FASTER. The guys that work in the lighting department at Lowe's knows when Delisa is in the house because I always end up having to press the button that tells the entire store:

"SPECIAL ASSISTANCE NEEDED IN THE LIGHTING AREA
SPECIAL ASSISTANCE NEEDED IN THE LIGHTING AREA
(series of beeps)...LIGHTING AREA"

And this will repeat until the lighting man comes over and turns the voice off and thinks in his head after he sees me "oh, it's HER again".

It's as if I'm hearing that voice in my sleep these days. But that's what happens when your husband is an electrician and sends you to Lowe's with only a vague idea of what you're looking for.

This is Aaron pulling wire for the garage door.

Anyway, we had our friend Jerry pour a sidewalk for us that goes from the house to the shop and the boys decided they wanted to put their names and handprints in the wet concrete. I handed Austin a stick and told him that he needed to write small and try to keep his name within about 8 inches as to not take up the entire sidewalk.

Which, now that I can reflect on that, all that sweet 6 year old heard was "get this stick and write your name" and nothing past that. When he started, he wrote a perfect 'A' and I was thinking this was going to turn out better than I thought. But by the time he got to the "i", I wasn't even sure what he was spelling anymore. This is what our sidewalk looks like now.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.  

As far as house progress...y'all, we are close. The painters will be completely finished tomorrow, as will the upstairs floor. The master bath will be completely tiled and grouted by this weekend. And by next Friday, all of the floors will be complete. The next week the applainces will be delivered and all of the other finishing work will be done within the next week or two after that.

We are so close.

I can see the finish line. I'm just hoping to not trip and fall flat on my face right before I get to it.

I will try to get pictures of the house this weekend to put up on here.

And I will also try and remember to use my phone so I can actually post them because I am not an over-achiever who wishes to fulfill a resolution for 2012 before 2011 is even over....

Christmas in Hope, 2011

We spent our day today at Robbie's parents house for our annual family Christmas get-together. We left this morning and got there in time to help get some finger foods together for lunch. Vickie (my mother-in-law) always has her house decked out from top to bottom no matter what time of the year it is, but she especially goes all out for Christmas decorating. She loves to decorate and just has a knack for it, so I couldn't resist taking a few pictures while I was there today.

This is her new elf collection. They all move and are so cute just working away.

Her mantle.

Her lighted Santa collection.

The dining room table.

Another decorated area in the dining room.

Everywhere you look, it looks like Christmas.

After we had lunch, it was time to open gifts. Between our two boys and Robbie's sister's two kids, we had paper flying. Most years I really can't think of much that I want or need when Vickie asks me what I want for Christmas, but when she asked me this year I got very specific. Specific to the point of going into Hobby Lobby and actually taking pictures of what I want and texting the pics to her.

She asked and she received.

And then after I asked, I received.

A new UNO game!

When Austin opened this castle, he said that he had been wanting it his whole life. He really meant he saw it a few weeks ago in Wal-Mart and decided he liked it, but the drama around "I've waiting my whole life for this!" was so precious.

Smurf movie! Yay!!

Vickie got the kids a sled so they'll have it for when it snows. Aaron was SO excited about this!

Another shot of the sled

Vickie got me several things that I wanted for the new house, including some pictures I wanted for Austin's room, a picture for the game room, and a sign that says LAUNDRY for my laundry room. The boys will each have their own bathroom in the new house, so she got them each a towel monogrammed in the color their bathrooms will be done in. I absolutely can't wait to get everything put up in the new house.

In fact, all of our bedrooms are painted now. So would it be weird if I went ahead and decorated the walls without any flooring or furniture in yet?

Just had that thought, but hmmm......

Back to today Delisa. Back to today.

So after we opened gifts, Austin and Brynne (my niece) played together inside while Aaron, Brett (my nephew), Randy (my BIL), and Neil (my FIL) all played ball together outside. We don't get to see Kristi (Rob's sister) very often, so it was really nice for the kids to have a chance to play together.

Then we all loaded up and went out to a fish restaurant for dinner to finish off our day. The kids were laughing and had all of us laughing at dinner tonight. I love that these four kids get along so well despite the fact that they really only see each other a few times a year.

Austin, Brynne, Aaron, and Brett and The Fish Bowl

Before this week started, I had only bought two gifts. One for Aaron and one for Austin. I end this week with my boys gifts completely bought and mostly wrapped, which is a good thing because my kids are now home with me for the next 17 days (not that I'm counting down the days already), so there will be no more shopping alone anytime soon for me.

Wait, did I just say that I'm NOT counting down the days until my kids go back to school? Because that is possibly not completely the whole truth.

Possibly.

Lots of House Pics

This post is for all of you that say I don't post enough pictures of the new house:

This is the built-ins in the game room. The kids will have their own TV in here for their gaming systems.

This is Aaron's room. We have one wall done in a rough oak and put some old tin (from Robbie's grandma's old fence) around the bottom of the other walls. The lighting was really bad when I took this pic, but I love this room.

This is the living room. There is a built-in place for our TV and a cabinet for my scrapbooks on either side.

This is the finished towel rack in the master bath. I love the stain on it and can't wait to roll up some pretty towels to put in it.

Robbie has his own (much needed) gun closet. Dennis Salisbury custom built the gun rack for Robbie's guns.

This is the laundry room. They have started staining the cabinets in here.

The Formica has been put on the laundry room counter tops. I have a desk in here that is just for scrapbooking, and another that is for a computer and paperwork. It is a very multi-functional room.

This is Austin's favorite thing. The laundry chute.

And another pic of the laundry chute...

This is some of cabinet doors that have been stained and are drying.

The biggest change in the past week has been the stairs being finished.

It's so hard to look in a book and pick out stair parts not knowing at all what it will look like when finished.

But I'm really happy with it.

And I know it will look even better after the painter's get the stair treads stained and the walls painted.

I've had several people ask me how far we live now from the new house. Well, Robbie found us on the google map and it was an updated picture, so here it is.  The new house is the biggest building in the picture and right behind that you can see a little bit of blue that looks a lot like the top of a railroad train car. That would be the house we're living in right now. So when I say we are just a few feet from the house we are building, I really mean it.

As far as when we will actually be moving into the house. Who knows? I've given up on trying to guess a date. All I can say is that we will be moving in after it is finished.

And that will be a good day.

Oh Christmas Tree

Christmas is this month. I don't even know how that happened. I feel like I've spent the last month holding on to a rope that's being pulled by a running horse named Time and digging my heels in the ground is not slowing him down at all. I have been refusing to believe that we won't be in the new house in time for me to be able to put up more than one Christmas tree, decorate the mantle and stairway, and put up lights outside. I feel like this trailer house is busting at the seams and the last thing I have wanted to do is drag all of my Christmas stuff in here.


Why?! Why can't Christmas wait until I'm ready for it??!!

So Tuesday night I let the boys talk me into getting the tree out of the shop. Decorating for Christmas is normally one of my favorite times of the year. I have snowbabies, snow villages, several trees, and cute little Christmas things for all around the house. When we went out to get the tree, I announced that I was only going to put up the tree and stockings, and the tree would only have ribbons and balls on it. Austin talked me into getting the train out that goes around the bottom of the tree, and I felt like I needed to at least do that since I wouldn't be putting all of my Hallmark ornaments on that he likes to play with.

After moving two 4-wheelers, moving the ladder a few times, and deciding which tree we would be putting up, we ended up just getting a few boxes that I very reluctantly brought into the house.

And those boxes sat there all day Wednesday. Maybe because I thought by some miraculous turn of events the new house would suddenly get finished and I would have the go-ahead to decorate like I really wanted to.


But that didn't happen.

Yesterday morning after I took the boys to school, I sat on the couch for a solid hour accepting the fact that it is now December and time to decorate and working out in my head how I needed to rearrange the living room in order for the tree to fit. By around 9:15, I forced myself to get up and start moving everything around. I moved the couch to the opposite wall, moved the TV to a different wall (which included an entire hour of sorting out cords), and cleaning and vacuuming constantly as things were being moved.

Other than stopping for about 15 minutes to eat a bowl of cereal around noon, I was non-stop. I wanted the tree to be in front of the window and wasn't going to stop until it was done. By 2:00 I realized that I was still in my pajamas and probably needed to stop and shower before picking the kids up from school. I had the furniture moved and the tree up, so much progress had been made.

Today as I sit here blogging, I can say that I'm glad that I finally embraced the fact that Christmas is coming whether I like it or not. I actually really like the way my living room looks now and wish I would've arranged it like this a long time ago. And even though I didn't get out my ornaments for the tree this year, it still looks pretty and somehow makes me happier just by being in the house. My boys spent hours last night playing with the train that is around the bottom of the tree, so that extra thing totally paid off already.

I don't think I meant for this entire post to just be about putting up the Christmas tree, but it seems I have succeeded in providing every detail of the process.

On a completely different note, yesterday we were at a gas station and Austin saw a man digging in the trash for cans. He asked me what the man was doing and I told him that he was getting coke cans so that he can recycle them and get money for them. Then he preceded to tell me that that is what he wants to be when he grows up. I said "really, you want to dig in the trash for cans when you grow up?" He said "Yep. Sure do. It's cool that he's taking them to be recycled."


Wow.

Through my eyes I'm seeing a (possibly) homeless man trying to get enough money to buy his next bottle of whiskey. Through a 6-year old's eyes, he saw a man that was doing good for the environment by wanting to recycle.


I'm so glad that God gave me these beautiful children that let me view things through the eyes of a child daily. Reality is only your perception.