Going Through Life One Blog Post at a Time
Andy has been providing our local tree rats, otherwise known as squirrels, with corn and peanuts. At first, only one squirrel repeatedly came back, but we are now up to three. There is always one that sits on our deck to eat. Another one figured out the new squirrel feeder pretty quickly while the third one sits on the ground underneath to eat anything that is dropped. It is actually pretty fun to watch our little tree rat friends because they are pretty silly, yet determined, animals.
Andy and I took the “furniture plunge” today. We took advantage of Ashley Furniture’s five-year, interest-free financing and bought a sofa, two chairs with ottomans, two end tables, coffee table, and floor rug for our living room. The furniture will be delivered on January 7 and the floor rug will ship directly to our house. I was very thankful to find something that we both liked because furniture shopping is not my idea of a good time. I am looking forward to the new look for our living room coming in 2017. Armadillo Drive is finally really feeling like home!
Merry Christmas family and friends! It was great to celebrate Christmas in our new home this year. Our day started at about 6:30 am when John woke up. We sent him to wake up Laura and she bounded out of bed ready to open presents. We started with the stockings where the kids learned that the Santa presents wrapped in silver paper belonged to Laura…
… and the Santa presents wrapped in gold paper belonged to John.
Santa was good to both of our kids this year! Laura got the American Girl Gourmet Kitchen set, Hermione Granger’s Wand from Harry Potter, a Pokémon Plushie, a Lego Elves set, and the Lego Friends Hot Dog Stand set. John got a Mizzou bean bag chair for his room, a Mizzou football, a Lego City set, a Smart IQ game, and a mini basketball hoop for his room!
Once the Santa presents were opened, the kids passed out the rest of the presents and started opening.
They received a lot of great presents. John loved everything with his favorite being the Lego Star Wars set. Laura loved everything too, but seemed to be most excited about her Tiger Academy of Gymnastics sweatshirt.
It took about thirty minutes to open all the gifts. Both kids had quite the pile of presents. Here is Laura’s pile…
…and here is John’s pile.
The kids immediately wanted to play with some of their presents. Laura couldn’t wait to get her Gourmet Kitchen set out. So, we carried that up to her room and got it set up. She was so happy to “introduce” her dolls to their new kitchen.
John just wanted to sit on his Mizzou bean bag chair and use his new Mizzou throw blanket.
The rest of the day was relaxing. We went to church, watched some television, the kids played, and we had a great dinner with Jeremy. The evening was capped off with a Nerf gun battle. I am not sure if anybody won, but John sure had a great time trying out his new “most epic gun ever!”
It was a great, first Christmas in our new home. I look forward to many more!
It was a busy Christmas Eve. We began the day by saying goodbye to our Elf on the Shelf, Chippy. Every year, Santa lifts his magic for just a few minutes so that the kids can hug and kiss him goodbye. We are always sad to say goodbye to Chippy for the year, but it also means that Christmas is tomorrow!
Next up was making cookies for Santa! First, we had to mix the dough.
After chilling the dough for a couple of hours, we cut out and baked the cookies.
Finally, Laura and John decorated the cookies. Laura got more creative this year while John enjoyed “smooshing” the cookies into the different piles of sprinkles and colored sugars.
I spent the rest of the day doing some cleaning with a bit of relaxing thrown in. After dinner, the kids changed into their pajamas and we took a few pictures in front of the Christmas tree. We left soon after for Christmas Eve service at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church.
Once home, Andy read “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
The kids set out milk and cookies for Santa and then headed to bed.
Andy and I stayed up for a bit and then headed to bed too. At some point before midnight, Santa came to visit! I can’t wait for the kids to see the presents in the morning!
After dinner, the kids put on their pajamas and we loaded in the truck to drive around our new neighborhood to look at Christmas lights.
Despite several houses having a lot of lights, this house definitely was the most lighted. What you can’t see is that the back of the house is lighted too.
We all enjoyed ourselves and it was a fun way to spend an hour. I can’t believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve!
Welcome to 2016. I just ordered groceries from Hy-Vee online with delivery scheduled for tomorrow while drinking a nice, relaxing glass of wine. I spent just over $100, so there is no service charge. That world where I used to write checks to pay for groceries seems like a very long time ago…
Laura and John are making foam snowflake ornaments while I replace some family pictures. Two projects completed!
