Back Again

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. Everything has just been buzzing right along, some things more slowly than others.

We picked up our Christmas tree too early and it ended up on the porch a few days before Christmas. Randy was fine but Luke was miserable, congested, not sleeping well, and I had a headache. Not sure why but the tree was really fragrant. We brought it back in on Christmas eve before bed and then moved it back out on the afternoon of Christmas. It looked cute on the porch but Luke was annoyed that it was out there. Next year he wants one under his bed :)

Christmas was wonderful this year. We put a few things under the tree for Luke knowing the real extravaganza would be over at Auntie Tia's. He finally got the Bruder grader that he has been pining over all year.

We did many donations in addition to small gifts this year. Soccer balls were donated to a school in Adyson's name. When this was explained to her she asked where and I said probably somewhere in Africa. She replied, "they have to drink their bath water and it's dirty, you should have given them water". Point taken, next year we'll do a donation to Water.org in her name :)

The house is coming along slowly but surely. We love our contractor and the quality of work is amazing but financially it's starting to add up. We sometimes wonder if we should have just taken out a loan and hired a company to come in and do it all at once. It's becoming more and more frustrating trying to find places to put stuff when we know there is storage somewhere in our future. I want to build organized storage in our attic for shoes, clothes, extra rarely used kitchen stuff, etc. but the attic needs insulation first and the electrician has to make sure all the electrical is upgraded before the insultion and so on.

Here's where we stand, looking good but lots more to be done. Erik, the contractor, worked on the porch today, will then install the columns on the porch and a couple more knee braces on each side of the porch will come down onto the columns. This picture was taken Christmas morning, what an amazingly blue and sunny day for Christmas. Definitely better than rain but snow would have been lovely :)

We love the placement of the new front door and the door itself. Having the big window on the porch was nice too since the tree was lit out there a few nights.