Merry Christmas from our New House!

I really haven’t posted many pictures from our new house. We are still trying to figure out where everything goes and whatnot. I always LOVE decorating for Christmas, so I thought I’d show you what I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks. (and so I will be able to reference where I put everything for next year! ha)

 

My new Christmas wreath (The Decorator’s Warehouse)

 

 

LOVE LOVE LOVE this giant Nutcracker that Grammy is letting us borrow! There are sparkles in his beard. He is absolutely beautiful.

 

 

Our entryway…

 

 

The door frames are lined with ribbon and I clip all of our Christmas cards up. I don’t know about you, but I LOVE looking at photo Christmas cards when I walk into someone’s house.

 

 

The entryway hutch

 

 

Our nativity scene (We have had to move furniture around to fit the tree in our living room)

 

 

Our living room tree. Kinda bummed that we don’t have a mantle anymore, but found this cute stocking holder at Kirklands.

 

 

Our kitchen

 

 

Love this built-in hutch! Perfect for all of my Christmas platters.

 

 

My kitchen tree, full of kitchen-y ornaments.

 

 

I LOOOOVE being able to look out of my kitchen when I cook. I have windows everywhere. (In our last house, the kitchen was located at the very back)

 

 

See our Texas ice/snow? Everything shuts down around here for 1/2” of snow and ice. Gotta love it!

 

 

The dining room

 

 

Table centerpiece

 

 

Our dining room tree

 

 

The kiddie tree in the front room

 

 

ADORE this new addition! Isn’t he cute?! (The Decorator’s Warehouse)

 

 

Side table in the front room

 

 

Oops…how did Buddy our elf sneak in here?…

 

 

We’ve been ice’d in our house the last couple of days…the kids have had a BLAST! (Sav, E, Drew, Ben)

 

 

DFW Icemaggedon 2013!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!! (A, S, B, E)

 

 

S, B, E, A

 

 

Warming our little toesies by the fire

 

 

Our trees after Daddy put together the oh-so-important choo-choo trains (He was only asked about 423,991,561 times by 3 little boys)

(Did you catch the show on the TV?…Yep, best Christmas movie EVERRRR)

 

Hope you and yours are staying nice and warm this holiday season!

Thanksgiving 2013

The week of Thanksgiving, I was finally able to drive down to Houston to be with my Mom during her radiation treatments. (I had to keep postponing my trip when we were dealing with strep and the stomach bug…Mom’s White Blood Cell counts have been dangerously low)

 

 

Mom proudly showing off her “license to get zapped” cancer card. (her words, not mine…still has that sense of humor) I’m not going to lie- it was pretty hard for me to sit in that waiting room, watching people go in and out for their treatment. I hate cancer.

 

 

The team of awesome people working on Mom, let me come back to the room and walked me through what she goes through every day. (I blurred out her stomach- pretty sure she wouldn’t be happy about me posting that, heh, heh)

 

 

On Wednesday, I drove to Austin to meet Joe and the kids for Thanksgiving with the Steeces. I was horrible about taking pictures. Must. Get. Better. I snapped this photo of Aunt Jess and Sav at dinner…some crazy guy photo bombing in the background.

 

 

Kate and Paul make an incredible Thanksgiving spread y’all~ the food is ridiculous. I have managed to secure the preparation of the sweet potato dish every year. (I’m not gonna lie, I’ve perfected the recipe~ complete with a brown sugar praline/marshmallow topping! YUMMO) This year, I have taught my lil lady how to make it all by herself!

 

 

Friday morning we took the kids to see “Frozen” with Grammy and Grampy. SUCH A CUTE MOVIE!!! You have to go see it.

 

Later that day we headed to Waco where we met our cousins for the Hoag family Thanksgiving. We weren’t sure if Mom would feel up to making the trip home---but she managed! It was the first time she has been home in weeks.

 

The kiddos~ eagerly awaiting their food. (Thanks for the pictures, Dad). Take a look at Sav’s face.  I see that glare quite often. No tellin’ what she was mad about.

 

 

Ashley and I took over Thanksgiving preparation this year and made Mom rest. Uncle Collin cooked a fried turkey. (If you haven’t tried fried turkey, my friends, you haven’t lived)

 

 

Sav working on her sweet potatoes again, round 2. Nailed it.

 

 

 

Chow time at the kiddie table.

 

 

The kids spent almost the entire weekend outside in the 70 degree weather. Andrew and Ethan.

 

 

 

So much fun.

 

 

It was such a blessing for Mom to spend the holidays with her fam, in her own home…even if it was only for 2 days. Dad drove her back to Houston on Sunday. My sweet Aunt Carol is taking SUCH good care of her.

 

Granna is over halfway done with her radiation treatment! Her last day is December 23rd. Please keep those prayers coming, yall. In January, she will start the maximum dose of chemotherapy for 18 weeks. She is feeling pretty puny, but such a fighter.

 

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!

Much love,

iPhone Pic Updates…

I never thought I would let my blog posting slide as much as I have! SO much to catch up on…life is just so insanely busy right now.

 

What better way to catch up on things than to sift through my iphone pictures?

 

My little Kindergarteners’ school pictures

 

 

A proof (bad quality) of the quad squad. I need to order these. So cute.

 

 

Sav’s Star Student poster

 

 

Ethan came down with strep and had to miss out on his school carnival

 

 

While trying to fill his Rx at Walgreens, he projectile vomited all over my back/rear and on the pharmacy floor. Poor dude! I swear it was like something out of a movie. We were trapped inside a Walgreens bathroom for about 30 minutes until he thought he could make it to the car without hurling. Crazy night. (no one else got it, thank GOD!)

 

 

Joe got the kids a nice hoop off of Craigslist! Not gonna lie~ ‘ole Mom & Dad have enjoyed a game or two of “H-O-R-S-E” on the new digs. Fun times.

 

 

Sav caught the nasty stomach bug going around her Kindergarten class. Thank GOD no one else got it. She had to miss out on her Thanksgiving feast at school. I thought she was never gonna stop puking~ poor thang!

 

 

I was super bummed to miss all of the kiddies’ class parties, but Auntie Liz offered to come to the rescue and the boys were thrilled!

 

 

Apparently the guys thoroughly enjoyed the pumpkin pie. Who knew? (Drew) I’m a pecan pie gal, myself.

 

 

Shiloh dog- my ride along buddy to drop the kids off at school every morning

 

 

Frolicking in the leaves of our front yard…enjoying this crazy Texas December weather (followed by ice storms)

 

 

Ben helping all of the other children in our church stack the boxes to be sent to kiddos in need. (The Magi Project)

 

 

Savannah

 

 

Ice cream with our cousins after watching Carter’s soccer game!

 

 

The carnage that led to us having to replace BOTH of our furnaces and air conditioning units. Downstairs had a unit from 1991, and the upstairs had the original unit from when the house was built in 1981! WOWWWWW! Merry Christma$. We might be broke, but at least we have heat!

 

 

One last beautiful 80 degree day before the Ice Storm…my boys feeding the ducks

 

 

At the park with our cousins and friends

 

 

And this little crazy boy (Drew) is supposed to have ear tubes and an adenoidectomy tomorrow morning. Seeing as how there are 5 layers of ice on our slanted driveway, I’m thinking that is not going to take place. Will keep you posted.

 

I’ll post some pics from Thanksgiving that my Dad took. I’ve been terrible lately about taking pictures! My Mom was able to make it home for a couple of days. She is halfway through her radiation treament at MDAnderson in Houston. Thanks so much for the prayers.

 

Stay warm my friends.