*december 16th*

Tonight I finally did a project I'd been wanting to do recently. I wanted a place to display the Christmas cards and pictures that we receive. We received several yesterday so I decided it was time to put them all up.

This idea was not originally mine - it's possible you've heard of others doing this. It's such a simple and fun way to display all of the cards you receive at this time of year instead of just letting them sit in a pile (which is what has happened for several years at our house). I just used some ribbon that we had bought on an after-Christmas sale a couple years ago and stuck them all to the wall with the "poster putty".

Thanks to all of you who have sent a Christmas card. I always enjoy them and now I'll be enjoying them even more now that I can look at them everytime I walk through the front hallway in our house :) And I have to add that Christmas cards and pictures are just getting cuter and cuter with each year that passes!

*december 2nd*

I finished up most of our Christmas cards tonight.  I've been working on them since last weekend (but got our pictures printed before Thanksgiving) so it feels great to have most of them sealed and ready to mail tomorrow.  Somehow everything had trees on it this year.  I'm especially loving the new forever stamps that the post office has!

This year I chose to send a photo card with our annual Christmas letter.  I really like getting cards printed to send to our family and friends probably because I love receiving photo cards from everyone else :) And I like the idea of sending a letter to everyone so they know what we've been up to for the last year.  Sometimes it just gets time-consuming.  I guess at least I'm not making a bunch of cards because that would take even longer! 

I do enjoy writing the letter for my own benefit - it allows me to remember the big things from the year and reflect on how God has been working in our life.  And this year was a great and memorable one.  I feel like God really enabled me even though I wasn't in the best work situation while we were in Lafayette.

Well, now that I think about it, I should just do a post on my reflections of this year.  So this will have to be continued.  Plus it's bedtime for me!

Productive weekend

We had a great and productive weekend - Chris' parents came to visit us for a few days for the first time.  They were also a huge help in getting more projects done on our house.

They got here on Thursday night and we had pork chops and potatoes for dinner.  (Thanks honey for grilling.)  We just enjoyed talking and catching up a little...and curling up on the couch that night since it was cold!

On Friday, I was off to work while the other 3 had a long list of other things they were going to do:

- visit to Verizon to get Chris a cell phone! some of you may know that this is quite a major step for Chris...he hates cell phones.  But I wanted him to get one since he was going to be traveling so much (and I didn't want him taking my phone all the time).

- visit to Menard's to buy shelving for the garage

- put up shelving in the garage and try to get it more organized

- mowing the yard

- change lock on the front door (so you don't have to lock it with a key from the inside!)

I was so appreciative when I got home and the garage was looking great, Beth was finishing up mowing the yard, and a yummy pot of chili was smelling up the house :)  I think the garage looked great and Chris is working on it more today!



That night we enjoyed some chili and playing eucher (a card game that we love to play together).

On Saturday, we got to sleep in a little and then got up to do our workouts.  After that, Beth and Chris went in the backyard and starting trimming away at our trees, which badly needed trimming.  They were helping to get it ready so that the fence company can put in our fence this coming week!  (Definitely excited about that!)

Around lunchtime we headed out to get a few more things from the hardware store and we also enjoyed a great lunch at Famous Dave's BBQ.  I don't think any of us had ever been, but it was delicious!  We might have to go back there again.  FYI...if you ever go there, the Devil's Spit Sauce is quite spicy! (I think the name is pretty funny too :)

We found a great and inexpensive kitchen faucet at Lowe's and we decided to get a new programmable thermostat at Menard's.  While we were out, we had also been looking at over-the-stove microwaves.  (There is currently only a fan hood over our stove right now.)  Well, after talking to a nice guy at Lowe's that knew what he was talking about, we determined that we can't fit a microwave in without taking out (or shrinking) the cabinet above the fan hood.  That project may have to wait for a while longer, which is just fine.  (It's just a little annoying for the microwave to take up counter space.)

Then it was time to go back home so the guys could replace the faucet.  It was a little bit of an adventure but I think Chris learned how to do it after this being his first time to replace one.  (His dad was mostly supervising, but stepped into help more when the old one wasn't coming off so easily.)  Chris only got water dumped on his head one time! 

All in all, I think it turned out really nice.

 



Yesterday afternoon, I also got to talk to our next door neighbors (the Hernandez's) more.  I went over to borrow something from them and the little boys took my hand and led me into the house to show me stuff.  It was so cute!  I got to see their Spiderman and Batman costumes that they're wearing today (and some of their toys down in the basement)!  And they also had to show me their pumpkins and bale of hay :) It was fun and nice to talk to our neighbors more.  When I got back home, our other neighbor Jeff was in our house because I had also asked them to borrow something.  So he was just hanging out until the guys got done with the faucet.  He was telling us about the house that they're having built right now.

Well after all that was done, Chris and Beth then started on replacing the thermostat.  It went pretty smoothly (because it's a simple fix) and it turned out great.  It will be so nice to have the thermostat automatically adjust the temperatures throughout the stay...hopefully that will help our utility costs stay down :)

That night we ordered some pizza and played pitch (yet another card game).  We hadn't played that in several years so it was fun trying to remember all of the rules and also the strategy of the game.

It was a great weekend and we really enjoyed having them come visit us.  We really appreciated their help with everything!  They are both hard workers (I wonder where Chris gets it from) and such a joy to be around.  I'll have to post more pictures soon of all of our befores and afters on our house projects.

Scrapbook Sunday XIV

03.14.10

So I have two things to share today.  The first is the front of a b-day card I made yesterday.

Recently, I saw cards with rounded corners and I love the idea!  I think I'll start making more of my cards with the rounded corners.  It's so easy and it just adds that extra something.

And here's a layout for this week.  Nothing too exciting, but it's another page in my Disney/Florida trip album.  I wanted to use this bright green paper, but it is really bright.  I decided to tone it down by using the grey cardstock and the vellum.