Christmas in pictures

Four "Christmases", three cities, two and a half weeks at grandparents' houses, and one redecorated house in one wonderful month-long break. Happy times!!

Reading with Uncle Peter

I love my Nana!

There's a story behind this repainted & redecorated dining room... I have always joked about wanting a chance to redecorate my parents house, since I love planning inside spaces, painting, shopping, and rearranging everything until it's perfect. So for Christmas, my dad asked me to "de-clutter/simplify" their house a bit... and it turned into three very full days of painting walls, cleaning kitchen cabinets, replacing light fixtures and cabinet handles, shopping for new lighting, side tables, curtains, etc, taking down valances, getting rid of old furniture, re-doing Mom's famous (and ever-growing) "picture wall" in the dining room, and on and on. Until Christmas came and we just stopped and enjoyed our work! Unfortunately, I was so eager to get started that I didn't take "before" pictures... I'll have to dig through Mom's pictures sometime to see if I can find some good "befores."

 New storage bench to replace the old china cabinet...

new lights... new paint color... new curtains

You can sort of see the bench... modeled by my sister Emily...in front of our lovely

new curtains (minus the dated valance!)

"Christmas Eve" (#2) at the Aspers - flanel-boarding the Christmas story.

Doesn't this scene looks so peaceful? Good thing it's not on video!

Watch out for toddlers with flanel animals...

 

My baby grew up... her hair is long enough for pig tails!

Studying baby cousin Timmy... I think she'll be a good big sister. :-D

The cousins take some floor time

Two days after we got back from Des Moines, we found out that the University is turning our apartment building into undergrad housing. Because of the timing of school, new jobs, and new baby, the best time to move turned out to be... this Saturday!! So Todd and I have begun to take apart our "old" apartment in preparation for moving into our "new" one. Didn't we just move here?! We are very sad to leave this building... we have great friends here, and it's probable that we won't live in the same building as them anymore. But God is good, and we found a new apartment (still in Seminary Village on campus) with a wonderful lake view and on the same floor with other friends (and with Bethany's little red-headed buddy, Aleah). We'll just have to be intentional about getting together with our "old" neighbors!

I also just found out recently that I was hired as the Eastern Division YoungLives coordinator - which means working from home 20 hours a week, traveling some, and getting to work with all of the YoungLives staff back east that I have to come to love so much! Woohoo! Although sometimes I start to think that I'm going to have to provide for myself... God always does provide.