'Tis the Season!!

Happy Advent season!! I'm sure I'm not exactly unique, but I absolutely love the Advent season and anticipation of Christmas. In our house, it starts Thanksgiving night when the kids get their new Christmas jammies and we put up the tree. It gets easier to control that process evey year! We also get out our Santa mugs for cocoa, read the Christmas books from years past, and snuggle on the couch watching a Christmas video. The kids did a great job with the tree - though we have migrated the ornaments upward as Evan would notice one he thought would be fun to play with!

My husband went way above and beyond this year in helping me decorate the outside of the house to match the excitement we all feel while we await the celebration of the birth of our Savior. The picture doesn't do it justice! We even have one of those machines where the lights "dance" to Christmas carols! The girls are on the porch dancing to the music. On the list for next year, when we have room in the budget, my dream Nativity scene!!

OK, this is just plain a brag picture because my little girls are getting so big and, though I'm prejudiced, even more beautiful!! Rod wouldn't take the picture unless I got in it so bear with me and my "these boots are made for walking" boots! An aside, as we walked into church I noticed that the dress Loren is wearing is at least an inch shorter on her than it was when she wore it a few weeks ago! She's going to be taller than both of her parents by 12!!

Boys will be boys!

Last night I was in the bedroom with the girls when I heard Rod say, "Evan, are you OK?" Then silence for, like, 15 seconds. I was getting pretty nervous when I finally heard a big cry out. By the time I got to the living room Evan looked like this. I post the other picture so you have a "before" nose. He was playing with Rod and ran into the dining room table full speed! I guess we won't be taking Christmas card pictures next Friday after all!!

October Fun

The girls & Evan had fun painting gourds from our garden - thanks for the idea, Natalie! I didn't even realize until yesterday that we never did carve jack-o-lanterns this year. The kids didn't even miss it, I guess!

I think Evan had more paint on than the gourd!

One princess, two drama queens and a frog!



With Great Grandma - Great Grandpa managed to dodge this photo op!

OK, OK, finally I am posting some pictures of the house now that it is basically finished. Notice the snow - crazy for Oct. 10th, huh? We ended up with about 5 inches here. Anyway, here it is! It is very lived in already so please ignore the dust and "stuff!"

Half of "Rod's garage" - the door into the house.

The mudroom! It came in handy today getting ready to go out and play in the snow.

My very used laundry room. Notice the missing cabinet doors - the final piece we're waiting on!!

My pantry! Love this thing! You would think I cook, huh?

The view from the back, from a distance. It's best that way. :)

Half of the half bathroom.

Rod's "locker"

The kids' lockers. My favorite part of the whole thing!!

The bench - notice the 2 doors that open up for storage!!

Just because they're cute.

We decided the girls would get more use out of their Christmas presents if they got them this fall. Loren is still getting used to a bike that is actually her size.

Loren at her soccer game.

After over 10 years of living just a few miles from my parents, my sister, her husband and 3 boys moved out to near North Platte. Exciting for them, sad for the girls. We ventured out to see them one weekend. My Aunt & Uncle from Scottsdale, AZ were at my grandparents house not far away and happened to be watching my cousin's 3 kids. All the kids had fun playing with their cousins from San Fransisco. Of course, I'm realizing now we never lined all the kids up for a nice picture!!

Evan of course loved the Gator the most!

The boys on the end are my 2 youngest nephews. Dane is 5 weeks
older than Paige, and Cauy is 5 weeks older than Loren.

My oldest nephew Cade helping Evan "drive."

Brooke turned 4!!

An early present from Gma & Papa Hall - are you noticing the Sleeping Beauty trend yet?

A new bed for her My Twinn doll.

The whole gang getting ready to go to town!

Modelilng her new Husker cheerleader outfit

Evan in Daddy's work shirt

Hanging out at Great Gma & Gpa's 60th Anniv party

1st day of school - Loren's in 3rd grade & Paige is in Kindergarten!

Brooke's 1st day of preschool - 2nd year, though!

Oh my goodness - a month and a half have flown by since I last posted! Whenever I feel like days are crawling I need to look at this and realize how quickly it's all really going. We are doing well here. Settling into the routine of 2 in school now, making much progress on the addition and overall counting our many many blessings as we add new loved ones to our prayer list almost daily. We are finally officially activity parents as Loren started soccer a few weeks ago - pictures of her 1st game to come in a week or so. Rod is putting in lots of overtime at ADM and I am getting more single mom time, which isn't so bad except when I'm trying to get us all out the door by 7:00 - alone! Thank goodness we have such great kids! I guess pictures say it best so I'll just cut to the chase!

How it looks from the oustside. Not much has changed out here since then, except we have gutters now. Most of the progress lately is in the addition which has been painted and will start being finished next week. Flooring to be installed 9/17!

Taking a ride with Uncle Ryan.

"Helping" dad mow.

Progress on the garage

We've made some pretty good progress on the garage and house addition since my last post. It's so fun to see it coming together!! We have been wishing we could park in there during those few rare rains lately!

The girls standing "in" the bathroom - or is that the pantry? - a few weeks ago.

How it looks today

This is standing in the kitchen doorway looking out into the mudroom. The framed in area on the right is the closet. On the left wall will be lockers for the kids, and under the window will be a long bench they can sit on to get ready.

In the past 6 weeks . . .

Evan turned 2!!

We slept - really well!!

We baked cookies for the 4th.

We Celebrated the 4th of July!!

We chased parachutes.

We decorated 4th of July cookies.

Spent time with Great Grandma.

Smiled for the camera.

Got ready for fireworks.

Evan ate politely.

The girls got new "goodies" for their MyTwinn dolls.