Christmas craziness

Christmas went by in a blur. I worked up until the night of the 23rd, so I slept half of Christmas Eve.

This was our year to have Christmas with the Shepperds. Chris' parents came in and stayed a few days at our house. Christmas morning we woke up at 5AM (now that I work nights it is haaaard to wake up, ESPECIALLY before the sun has) and drove to Jenn and Paul's house in South Houston so we could wake the boys up and have Christmas with them.

This was one of our gifts for Kaden. It's a crayon roll up. I remember having a Precious Moments coloring book/crayon holder when I was little that I would take to church or pretty much any other place I was expected to be quiet.

I loved it, so I tried to find something similar for Kaden. This is what I finally decided on. And it was my FIRST Etsy purchase! She didn't sell them with monogram, so I got that done separately.

Here is Kaden opening his Buzz Lightyear.

He was pretty excited :)

Now he's trying to figure out if he just broke it when he pulled Buzz Lightyear's face shield off. And Kai seems to be helping.

His new bike!

Early that afternoon, we drove to the Woodlands to have Christmas with my parents. They were at my mom's family this year, so we got to see both families!

My beautiful youngest sister, Becca.

My beautiful middle sister, Katy and her boyfriend, Cody.

How stinkin cute is she??? This is my cousin's daughter. This is Leona. Or maybe Sophia. They're twins. And obviously I can't tell them apart very well. Every time you would tell her to smile, she would pose perfectly. SOO cute.

And I THINK this is the other twin. Or maybe the same one...heck, I can't tell.

Chris was throwing her up and catching her and she LOOVED it!

our second Christmas as married people. awwwwwww. :D

reading her a book. she wasn't that interested.

my goofy wonderful family!

That's all the catching up I have for now. Chris and I are going to Colorado with some people from Tyler tomorrow until next Thursday. After that I vow to post about the Pilot, Colorado, and my new awesome amazing exciting Christmas present I got. I KNOW you can't wait.

But you must.

garage makeover

Our garage is tight.

Not a "cool" tight, a "very small" tight.

We were able to fit the Altima and Mazda in there with little room to spare.

Well now that the Altima is gone, we were resigned to the idea of having an SUV parked in the driveway and the Mazda parked in the garage.

With the purchase of our new, bigger SUV (I'll post about that later), we were excited to find that both the vehicles fit in the garage at the same time!

Now we reeeally had to get this corner in our garage under control. I WISH I had a before picture. Just imagine all the stuff in these pictures just thrown up on the left shelf.

We started with buying another black shelf. Then we spent about $60 on bins, drawers, pegs, hooks, etc. So worth it!

Ignore all the newspaper racks. Those will soon be in the Maroon Weekly office and out of our garage.

Be still, my heart. This makes me so happy. I don't even know what half the tools on this are for, but I love how they're all displayed and not piled in a drawer.

TADA! This is my Mazda's corner of the garage. My car is way shorter so I fit easily with the rack at the front wall.

Scout managed to sneak in the pic. :) Like always, where I am, he is.

It's a great feeling to have that organized. No more chaos when I pull into the garage. I just may have a little bit of OCD in me. ;) (my husband might agree)

Now....on to tackle the office. That will be a bigger challenge.

christmas home tour

Christmas is my favorite time of year!!!

Here's a tour of our home as it's decorated for Christmas.

The other wreath I made. Should have gone with a bigger size, but now I'll know for next time. and I looove the Welcome vinyl I got off of LeenTheGraphicsQueen's etsy store.

close up of Welcome vinyl

little table in our front entry. (thanks to grandma for the cute table!) including a picture frame with no picture. maybe i'll get a picture in there next Christmas. ;)

our Christmas tree. can't we leave it up AAALL year???

I tried to get creative with my gift wrapping this year. I love tulle!

the twine and the brown wrapping paper surprisingly matches really well!

a couple new ornaments on our tree this year

This one came from the Belgium House's Christmas Village they put on this year

This one came from my mom, but she got it from Hallmark. It's called Hide-N-Seek Pickles and it talks! Have you heard of the Christmas pickle ornament tradition? If not, you should read about it. Maybe you can start a new tradition with your family!

bookshelf in kitchen with singing snowman

countdown that I blogged about before

Another Hallmark specialty that my mom got me. Me telling you about it isn't good enough for this one. Go ahead and watch the video I posted below.

I'm hoping to add to our Christmas decorations after Christmas with a few clearance items. But I'm glad we had a whole house to put these in this year.

now we're cooking with gas

We got a new toy!

We got a grill!!

I'm excited to cook up something on it. Probably won't get to try it out until this weekend, but I bet it will be tasty!

We bought it at Home Depot and were thinking it WOULD fit in the car. (Chris' rent car is a Ford Fusion, so that's what we were in.) Well, we got it out into the parking lot and quickly realized it was NOT going to fit in his car.

So...Chris called up his buddy that drives an SUV and he went and switched cars long enough to haul the grill box home...while I waited on the curb with a huge box. :D

We're looking at buying an SUV after the insurance settlement on the Altima, so we won't have to worry about that next time.

Christmas countdown

I was inspired to make this countdown from Sarah at life {sweet} life.

This is my take on it.

I loved how Sarah did hers, but I didn't want to print it out with that much colored ink. So I just made my own and printed it out on a piece of Christmas scrapbook paper.

Several people have asked if I actually change out the number every day. Really???...who would do that??

I just keep a red dry erase marker behind the frame and ERASE and REWRITE every day.

Here is the pdf of the one I made if you want to print it out and make your own!

sign with trees

sign without trees

another one bites the dust

We had an eventful day.

Chris (and Scout) spent the last 4 days in Longview at my parent's house helping them paint the house. (I had to stay and hold the fort down in CS.) On the WAY to Longview on Tuesday he had two flat tires and a trashed rim. Soo...on Wednesday he got 4 new rims and 3 new tires put on the car...

Then...he was making his way home, after a very tiring and successful few days painting. When I knew he was pretty close to being home today, he called and said he had just broadsided a car and to come get Scout.

Soo...praise the Lord that it happened only about 10 minutes from our house. I don't know what most people would think of when they hear "broadsided"....but I was not thinking of what actually happened!

This is what I showed up to....

So I got Scout safely in my car in his crate and we moved most the stuff from Chris' car to mine. Then we waited for the police to show up.

You may be wondering, "What the heck happened?!"

Well, I'll try to SHOW you. (bare with me. picture NOT drawn to scale... since chris asked why HIS "little car" was bigger than other man's truck. he didn't lose his sense of humor! )

Chris was driving on the main road and was approaching a blinking yellow light.

There was a van stopped in FRONT of "other man's" car (not drawn) and went through the stop sign, cutting it close and forcing Chris to slow down some. Then "other man" decided to come through the stop sign also. Except it wasn't cutting it close, since Chris t-boned him. Chris said he was going about 40mph when he hit him.

Thank the Lord he hit a few inches past the "other man's" passenger side door since there was a passenger in that truck.

I'll leave you with my professional drawing and the rest of the pictures of our car and "other man's" truck.....

before

after

Dark picture taken with my phone. Yes, That is Chris directing traffic.

Nice shiny new wheels and tires huh?!

That is NOT blood. Just a Sonic slushy.

"other man's" truck.

Goodbye our little Altima. You were a great friend to us. (such nice, sparkly wheels...they'll be the talk of the tow lot!)

Chris showing off his battle scar. We think it's a scratch/burn from the airbag. His other arm has lots of red marks from airbag burns. But, so thankful for those airbags. (and for wearing his seatbelt!)

Happy to have my husband home! Thankful he's in one piece. As far as we know he has that abrasion and muscle soreness. Scout's ok too, in case you were wondering.

Now we will most likely be looking for a new car! (we expect it to be totaled)