Christmas Around Our House-2014

As Christmas season approached, we all looked forward to Elfis' annual arrival. Sure enough on December 1st he arrived and brought Eli a couple of "Welcome Back" gifts with him. Eli had a play at his school coming up where he needed an elf hat and we had not been able to find one at any of the stores in our area. I suggested he ask Santa to see if Elfis could bring him one and Elfis did! Eli was so happy when he read Elfis' letter and saw the elf hat and new pajamas. 

In fact, he donned the elf hat that night while doing his homework. It definitely made doing homework more fun for him :)

Every morning Elfis was in a new spot and sometimes he brought us fun activities to do each day. One morning he brought us a gingerbread house. We love making these every year and thankfully this one wasn't broken like last years! Whew! Last year's house was pretty rough. 

I love decorating our house for Christmas every year. This year we got a new tree for our living room, one that was a little slimmer than last years. I love how it fills the space better.

Our living room looked like a miniature Christmas tree farm with all the trees we had in there, but I loved it so much. 

I did change how I displayed our Christmas cards this year. In one of my magazines I saw how they made a Christmas card display out of a tomato cage wrapped with garland and Christmas lights, so that's what I did. I used mini clothespins to attach all the cards and all the extras that wouldn't fit I lined along the countertop. It was a fun, easy DIY project and I loved how it turned out :)

Life Lately...

Life lately has been crazy for us, and it's only just beginning. In the next month, our lives are going to be completely turned upside down and inside out. We're going to begin building our new house!!!!! YIKES! Can you believe it?! Neither can we! It's something we've talked about ever since we moved here six years ago, but now it's REALLY happening!

Sometime around November we sold our house to a really nice family. They weren't ready to move in and we weren't ready to move out, so we agreed that we'd stay in it until the end of February. Now February is here and we're desperately trying to get everything together.

Over the past few months, my husband has barely slept at all because he's been working so hard trying to find us a place to live while we build our new house. Plan A was to move into a flip house we have a contract on, but unfortunately that's still tied up and we can't get our hands on it. Plan B was to find a house suitable for us to live in for the next 4-6 months, but so far we haven't had any luck there either. Plan C is to move in with his mom, Zue-Zue, until we can find something on our own. We looked at another house today and hopefully that one will work out. I'm trying not to be too picky since I know it's a temporary living situation, but I do want it to be clean, neat, and accommodating for a family with a little boy.

As far as the new house goes, we have plans picked out. Josh has met with several contractors and gotten bids, and the contractor he chose says he'll be ready to go in about 3 weeks. WOW! We went to Lowe's several weeks ago and spent the afternoon pricing everything we're going to need. As with anything that involves planning, money, and budgeting, I'd be LOST without Josh. He is so well suited for this kind of stuff and I'm so thankful that he's the one I have by my side to make decisions. He can make decisions so much easier than I can :) Plus, he LOVES to research, compare, and plan; he's much better at all that than I am.

Once the building process begins, I plan to take photos and do weekly blog posts to document the progress of our house...that's a BIG shocker, I'm sure :) I'm so happy about this next big adventure in our lives. I can't wait to begin!

"Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it:" Psalm 127:1

Best Buddies

Like father like son (in-law)...Dad and Mom came in this weekend to help Josh and me with the kitchen. Dad woke up that morning and put on a yellow shirt with camouflage pants. Josh saw what Dad was wearing and the next thing you know...they looked like twins! Mom and I were rolling! Josh and Dad worked all morning on laying the travertine but they didn't get finished. They plan on finishing today before Mom and Dad have to leave. I can't wait to see it completely finished!