More Decorations....

This was the last night we were supposed to have warm weather so we got busy decorating the front of the house. I busted the light in the lantern as I was hanging the wreaths so I'll have to put a new bulb in...probably not tomorrow, supposed to be rainy and really cold.

I had a fight with the grapevine around the door. I didn't take it down during the hurricane so it was a little more mangled than usual so I had to take it down and start over, after some tugging and nailing it went back fine.

Our cute cross and manger....Jonathan says this is the last year for the manger, its sat through to many rains and cold weather.

This is the boys favorite part, filling the manger with pine needle "hay".

More and more "hay".

Its always kinda stressful having "help" from the boys but they love the lights.

The painters come tomorrow to repaint the front room and work on the air conditioning vents. Then maybe I can get my front room and entry back in order, I spent the day moving all the boxes back into the living room. It's like musical boxes to get anything done in the house. I'll post more pictures as the work continues.

Deck the Halls...or your living room....

Ok, so we can't deck the halls, or the balcony, or the front room, b/c the painters have to come back and the workers have a little more work to do on the air conditioning vents....SO, our living room is a hodge podge of decorations that are usually spread throughout the front room. If you know me and you've been to our home at Christmas you know I LOVE to decorate and at first I was pretty upset I wouldn't be able to decorate as usual but God has clearly been showing me that from this Christmas on HE needs to be my focus. Not that I haven't always believed that Christmas was about Him but b/c I like things to be done just right in my decorating, b/c I enjoy it so much, I get stressed if things aren't going like I want or if I can't find the exact thing that I need to finish the "picture" in my head. At the holiday dinner the speaker really stressed that we need to ask HIM what He wants us to do for Christmas for him and that's continually been brought back to my mind. So this year, I'm not stressing that my living room is basically a collection of collections that don't go together, I'm thinking that if I was throwing a birthday party for a friend and they knew how stressed it was making me wanting it to be just perfect it would probably upset them so why would HE want me to do that for HIS birthday? So we've got kids Christmas collection, silver mixed with gold (trying not to gnash my teeth at that one!), country grapevine, jewel toned collection.....its all decoration though for a wonderful birthday party. Don't we go over the top sometimes with decorations for birthdays? That's how I'm looking at our home this year.....over the top, mixed and mismatched decorations!

Enjoy the little bit we've been able to get done. Everyone at church keeps asking how the house is going with repairs and I tell them I think I'm done until after Christmas, I really want to focus on the celebration of Christ. I can paint and install baseboards and put up curtains later...I don't want to miss the greatest birthday party of the year!!!!!

I'm really asking myself how to make Christmas different for the kids, we've always taught them not to focus on the gifts and they enjoy Santa but know that he's not real but that he was a great man, etc.... I really wanted this year to be full of fun for them, like planning a real birthday party so I've bought more kids Christmas music and done something that I swore I'd NEVER do....I bought the Christmas Chipmunks cd!!!! And its playing in my car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I used to hate hearing those whiny voices sing but the boys love it and they sing along to it and I enjoy hearing the boys try to sing along with chipmunks!!!! God doesn't want me to focus on how commercialized His birthday has become, not on how much I hate whiny rodent voices!!! He wants me focus on peace, joy, love, HIM.....fruits of the spirit...interesting decorating ideas are popping into my head!!!! ( I told you I love to decorate!!!!) So part of the joy of Christmas for my boys is Chipmunks singing....I think God laughs himself off the throne when he hears rodents singing Silent Night, Holy Night, and two little boys trying to match their voices to the song!!!!

Ok, sorry this really was supposed to be a quick post of the boys decorating for Christmas!!! So FINALLY here's the pictures!

The boys final masterpiece.

The boys each pick an ornament every year, Jalyn's is a motorcycle.

I had to downsize this year, usually I have a ten foot tree in the front room, but its all good! I just noticed how funny the tree looks...like I only put one ribbon streamer down it...I didn't there are others on the other sides...promise.

I'm still in the process of cleaning up sheetrock dust so the cabinets are a little crazy right now.

Jon Michael's ornament is a video game controller.

I'll post more pictures as we slowly are able to get to other areas of the house, after painting and stuff is done. Have a great time decorating and celebrating at your own homes!!!

More Pictures

These are just a few more cute pictures...we're finally getting some Christmas decorations up tonight since I'm feeling a little better. I'll post those soon.

Uncle Jonathan giving Baby Zeke a ride on the Harley Scooter.

This was Baby Zeke's favorite part, doing wheelies, he kept jerking the handle bars so that Jonathan would do it for him.


This was Sunday, after we got home from church I was so sick I told the boys I was going to bed they could play or do whatever but they had to leave me alone...they played and ate snacks and watched cartoons...basically had free run of the house...this is what I found when I finally came downstairs that afternoon.

Sewing the Night Away

Ok, so yesterday Court and I went to Hobby Lobby to pick up some Christmas decorations. I found some awesome fabric for a Christmas Tree skirt...I was gonna just bunch it up under the tree but Court suggested we make a real skirt.

So began our adventure!!!!!!!!!!! We started at 5pm and ended at 12:30am this morning!!!!!!

This is the antique sewing machine that would be our biggest challenge.


This is us trying to figure out how to get the bobbin holder back into the machine...

Pinning the pattern on.

After we finally decided to make a late night run to Walmart for new thread and a new machine, we finally finished....the skirt itself wasn't hard it was all the evil machine!!!! Mr. Singer was not on our list of favorite people last night!!!

Finally! A finished skirt!

This is what the fabric looks like up close, it goes along with us wanting to bring the focus back to Jesus this Christmas.

Thank you Grandma and Mom for the late night phone call consultations!!!! What do you think?

Thanksgiving

Since I couldn't make the drive to Tulsa this year (I'm just to worn out from working on the house), Bob and Court and the kids came down for Thanksgiving. Excuse the mess, we are still unpacking boxes and painting.

Court working on Bobs dreads.

Zeke stealing dressing from Uncle Jonathan

Aunt Court in invisible mode....amazing huh?

This was the quietest the kids had been all day!!!

Aunt Carrie having girl time with the nieces.

Poor girls, only boy toys to play with...they make do.

Ok, so officially Thanksgiving has occured so that means.....BRING ON CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Normally as soon as Thanksgiving lunch is over I start decorating for Christmas and putting up the tree...this year I'm just exhausted and had a headache so those pictures will come soon.

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, we have tons to be thankful for, God's grace is truly amazing!!!

And The Work Goes On..and on...and on!

Last Thursday we got carpet. That's what we've been waiting on so that we could get things moved back into the house. So yesterday Jonathan, Jalyn, and I emptied out our storage unit and as you'll see we basically turned our house into a larger storage unit.

Jonathan and I were moving the armoire upstairs to our bedroom and he said he was proud he had such a strong wife....I said, actually, he has a strong father in law that taught his daughter how to be strong during their moves, so thanks Dad!!!!

I'm completely overwhelmed right now, I don't even know where to start, there's so much to do and I still haven't finished painting, which won't get done now until I can get everything unpacked or at least put into the appropriate rooms.

Those of you who got my insane e-mail last week to pray for me can see why now...its literally like the hurricane has hit our home again...very stressful, but we'll get thru it and I know that we have so much when others have nothing left...we are blessed.

Jalyn had to try and get into every picture, this is his room.

Our bathroom filled with closet, bathroom, and bedroom stuff.

Last night was the first night we've slept in our room in a real bed since the hurricane hit. The room isn't finished still missing baseboards, no window sill, etc....

The boys bathroom, they haven't been able to use in weeks.

This is the front room, aka the storage unit, at the moment...crazy, huh? Makes me cringe even looking at it in a picture...never mind actually trying to walk to the front door!

Ok, so we'll keep posting our progress, thanks for all the words of encouragement.

Holiday Dinner

Last night I was invited to attend The Met's Holiday Dinner for women. The boys taekwondo instructors wife (confusing enough?) had a table and she invited taekwondo moms to join her. I had been to this type of dinner before in College Station, through Central Baptist, it was so fun to see how another church did it.

Every table was decorated differently by the table hostess, some pictures of them are below. There were 750 women there, we were served salad, bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, steamed veggies, new potatoes, rolls, and dessert. Their womens ministry leader spoke on Inviting Jesus to Christmas, she said that when she was asking God what she should talk about God seemed to be saying that he wanted to actually be invited to Christmas this year. She asked how many times we've actually thrown a birthday party for someone and forgot to invite the guest of honor. She challenged us to ask Him how He wants us to celebrate this year.

Everyone was dressed VERY nicely and there was even a red carpet for us to walk in on.... I dug out a shear red top over a black camisole, black dress capri's and black high heels...it was fun to dress up in something other than shorts and t-shirt that are covered in sheetrock dust and paint! I even blowdried my hair straight and flat ironed it and parted it on the opposite side and wore it down....VERY different for me but I loved it...in fact I liked it so much I stopped to see Christy, the girl who does my hair and showed her how I had done it so she could cut it so I'll be able to fix it like that more. She was even shocked that I could were something besides flip flops or tennis shoes!

Jonathan was off yesterday and we moved things out of storage and looked at mattresses and got errands ran so I was exhausted....in fact I said earlier in the day that I wasn't gonna go, I was just to tired and we still have so much work to get done. BUT my husband insisted that I needed the night with women and he was right, it was so nice to forget about the house and all the work we still have to get done.

Here's a few pictures of some of the tables...

So pretty done in black cherry red, black and copper...it was the MOPS table.

This was a door prize won by one of the ladies at our table. The lady looking at the camera is Mrs. Humphries, her husband is a black belt and she was my Titus woman at MOPS last year.

Noah's Ark Theme...there are real goldfish in the vases with blue stones.

This really appealed to the florist in me...super cute.

Such a fun Thanksgiving theme.

There were others I didn't get pictures of b/f my camera batteries died...a gingerbread theme, with aprons hung on every chair as chair covers, princess theme with boa's and tiara's, our table was done in black and white and had jeweled cones and christmas ornaments in bowls, there was a candy land theme....it went on and on.

Ok, so that was just something a little different that I wanted to share, I'm so excited about the holidays! I'm trying very hard not to stress b/c you know how I like to decorate the house and carry on decoration traditions that Debbie used to do but with everything torn up I don't even know where decorations are. It will get done though and we'll definitely be inviting Jesus to his own birthday party this year and asking him how he wants us to celebrate.