Painting

After the water damage fiasco in July, our homeowners' insurance funded the repainting of our living room. This is the only room in the house I hadn't repainted. I am really not up for all these crazy heights and angles. As promised, here are some pictures of the work.

Here are Jonah and his dad preparing the room for a fresh coat of paint. They did a fantastic job for a fair price. I now have a local carpet cleaner and a local painter to recommend. The whole time they were working, I was so thankful for what they were doing...probably because I've done the rest of the painting in the house and appreciate their attention to detail. Did I mention I was glad it wasn't me? (Jennie, they had to take down the wonderful "Faith, Hope, Love" that you gave me, but I reordered them. Jeff works with and Uppercase Living demostrator!)

Jonathan was fascinated, of course. He spent a lot of time watching and staying out of the way.

Here's what it looked like at the end of day one. Take a look at the cutting in waiting to be done on the far wall and the painting/cutting in on the wall shaped like a triangle closest to the camera. It took three guys a half day to finish. I didn't take pictures because Jonah and his dad and brother were doing scary things on ladders and I don't think they needed my interruption. At one point, Jonah's brother was upstairs in the playroom, leaning over the windowsill, holding up the ladder. The ladder was only leaning on him, not the wall. And Jonah was on the ladder. Painting. Oh my goodness.

This is the only tall room in our house, and it was a crazy room to paint. I hope we never have to do it again. I'll take an "after" picture soon. Whew!

Fall Colors

Jeff does a wonderful job of keeping the yard looking nice. This is what it looked like last weekend. I forget every year that it's the prettiest in late November and early December.

We've just had a hard freeze, so most of those pretty leaves have fallen off of the trees all at once, and the flowers have fallen over, too. Not to worry, though-begonias come back year after year here. We'll trim them back, and they're start blooming again when the weather warms up. I love that about our climate.

Yesterday was the first day I've had to bundle the kids up in jackets and hats. Here's to you, anyone who puts a kid in a puffy coat and then buckles him/her into a car seat every day. You don't have a fun job! I am very spoiled that I don't have to bundle very often.

Neil and Allison's Wedding

My cousin, Neil, got married! Since I am so much older than any cousin on this side of the family, he's my first cousin to have gotten married. This picture is blurry, but you can still tell how excited Neil and Allison are, can't you? We are so happy for them. Jeff and I have been married 10+ years now, and it's a real treat to go to a wedding together, witness another couple's vows, and relive and reaffirm our own. (And yes, we went sans kids. My mom took care of the kids, and we were so thankful. She gave dinner to them, played with them, and put them to bed...everybody did great.)

Here we are with my grandma. I think this is a great picture of her.

This is the third and final picture we have of the wedding. You might be amazed that I took so few! But, isn't their cake gorgeous? I think it might be the yummiest one I have ever tasted. It had cream cheese frosting and layers of cheesecake in between the layers of regular white cake. Ooohhh, it was good!

About Jonathan

Crayons still work great for building around here.

But, we have discovered that Jonathan likes to color! Color by number, that is. I don't know why I didn't think of it before...it's so obvious now that this would be his thing. He also likes dot-to-dots (mostly the dots and not so much the coloring.) It works well that he's a lefty, because he likes to sit down and do the left hand side of the picture while I do the right.

I have gotten into the habit of writing a message for Jonathan to read when he comes downstairs in the morning or after getting up from a nap. (It is really challenging to write this big with correct letter formation!) After he reads it, sometimes I'll have him trace over the whole message, and sometimes just a few words. (Writing is still not his favorite thing, but he's willing.) After he traced over this message, he told me that he was going to add an exclamation point to show that he was so excited! I just love his exclamation point, don't you?

The Spoon Game

Perhaps if I let her play with spoons, she'll figure out how to feed herself at a younger age than her brother did. Or, perhaps, she'll just look cute.

First Haircut

We made the controversial decision to trim Grace's hair. It's hard to tell here, but the hairs that had not fallen out had gotten really long and started to get in her eyes and just be crazy in general.

I was too scared to do the job myself, so my mom did it. Yes, I saved her hair for her baby book. Her wispy locks were 2-3" long. OK, they weren't locks. There were only about 15 hairs. But they were long.

We're hoping her hair still looks like baby hair and that you can't tell she had a trim. I think Mom did a great job.

Christmasy Things

Although our tree technically went up the day after Thanksgiving, we hadn't decorated. It's artificial and prelit, and my dear husband humored me and put it up so that I could take a picture of the kids in front of it for our Christmas card. And then, with our tree up, we (finally) got our living room painted, which I'll post about elsewhere. Now, our tree is almost decorated.

Decorating and having a pajama day.

Yes, Jonathan is quite the decorator. The candy canes change locations every few minutes. He keeps talking about hiding them and then having a candy cane hunt. (He may have his holidays a bit confused, but he's enjoying himself!)

More candy cane decorating and wearing a crown from Awana.

Here's a tradition we've started this year that we love and will hopefully continue each year. At the end of November, Jonathan and I collected our books about Christmas wherever they had landed since last year. I wrapped them up and stacked them together. He's been anxious to open them! Each day in December, we open a book and read it together. (We usually end up reading it several times before the day is over.) Here we are reading Mary Engelbreit's Queen of Christmas that my mom gave to me for my birthday in 2005. That was his favorite book today. Yesterday it was The Jolly Christmas Postman that Todd and Corinne gave to him in 2008. I love this new tradition. What's better than the excuse to read books together...and under the tree, too? And it's building our anticipation for Christmas...not that we needed any more. I love Christmas.

My First Christmas

words and music by Carolyn Arends

Well her daddy took a photograph in 1923
She was just a little baby laying by the Christmas tree
And her mama knew she was way too small
To remember very much at all
And so she made sure to write
These words on the back of that black and white
This is my first Christmas

First time to hear the choir sing
Glory, hallelujah to the baby king
And a holy night is what this is
‘Cause this is my first Christmas
This is my first Christmas

She was raising her own babies in the winter of ’44
Trying to make their Christmas merry while their daddy fought the 2nd World War
And she slipped into the chapel on Christmas Eve
Something holy happened when the preacher preached
She went forward and she prayed
She said I never will forget today
This is my first Christmas

First time that I can really sing
Glory, hallelujah to the baby king
And a holy night is what this is
‘Cause this is my first Christmas
This is my first Christmas

And it was just November past
She said goodbye, and breathed her last
And the great grandchildren miss her so
But if she could she would let them know …
This is my first Christmas

First time to hear the angels sing
Glory, hallelujah to the risen king
And a holy night is what this is
‘Cause this is my first Christmas
This is my first Christmas

C 2000 Songs of Peer/Mr. Marley’s Music/ASCAP

This is my first Christmas.

50% off with AAA

Well, we got our pictures taken at JCPenney. Grace was scared, Jonathan was wiggly, I feel like I've been run over by a truck, but I think we got an acceptable shot of them. Huge thanks to my mom for being there and giving me a hand, literally. (You probably already know that when you get pictures taken at JCP, you "get" to purchase your pictures immediately afterwards, when your children or ready to eat or sleep or climb the walls or all of the above.) Anyway, I had to post because I found out that, if you are a AAA member, you get 50% off of your purchase price on your pictures! How great is that! (You can't use any other coupon with the discount, though.)

Not Blogging Much, But We're Still Here!

Hello, patient readers, I thought I'd update you on what's been going on these days!

Monday night, we had company, and our small group is coming here tomorrow night for dinner and white-elephant-ornament exchange. It's our Christmas gathering/party. Yesterday and today, our living room has been painted. Yes, the water damage was in July, but we didn't get the painting done until December. Luckily, our tree did not have ornaments on it. It was amazing to see someone navigate the 20' ceilings...I'm glad it wasn't me. I'm getting the kids' pictures taken tomorrow. It's almost Jonathan's birthday, and Jeff's parents are coming to help us celebrate. Oh, and my cousin got married Saturday, so Jeff and I went to our first wedding since Todd and Corinne's. These are just a few things off of the top of my head. That's in addition to playing Legos with Jonathan and peek-a-boo with Grace, and all the mopping/vacuuming/taxiing that I normally get to do. It's fun stuff, and good stuff, but it's keeping me busy right now. So, my apologies to all that I owe an email or call or picture on the blog. I hope to catch up soon!