Merry Christmas!

I’m super late with our Christmas post. But in my defense, our gym is about 3 days shy of opening so we have been SUPER busy at work.

A week or two ago, April and I took our kids (and husbands!) to see Santa at the mall. And this is the best we got.

We paid money for that. For real. Santa isn’t even looking! Oh well.

We passed a stomach bug around my house during the Christmas weekend so we didn’t get to do everything we wanted to (Christmas Eve church service, our tradition of opening a present Christmas Eve, etc.). But we still had a wonderful holiday!

As everyone knows, I am AWFUL at taking pictures. Half the reason is because I hate lugging around my ginormous good camera, so my hubby got me a little point-and-shoot camera for Christmas!

Since I wasn’t feeling well, I was a bad Mom and didn’t take any pictures of us opening our gifts, but Brad videotaped Noah opening his and I took some pictures later on in the day with my point-and-shoot.

  He’s looking at me like I’m nuts! (HA. I just read his shirt.)

 Cheese!

And please excuse the chocolate pudding stain. I promise I do actually wash that thing!

The aftermath. I left my living room like that allllllll weekend long. But Monday night I started to feel like a pig, so we moved everything into Noah’s playroom and took down all the Christmas decorations. I love Christmas, but I LOVE getting back to normal too!

As soon as the gym is finished, I am going to show yall some pictures! It is flippin’ awesome if I do say so myself! :) So stay tuned for that!

Our Christmas card!

For those of you that I don’t know in real life, here is our Christmas card for your viewing pleasure!

Renovations

A few months ago, Brad and I decided we wanted to start looking for a bigger house. Ideally, I wanted to be moved and settled in a new house before we got pregnant again so we wouldn’t have to worry about finding something and moving when the time came.

After looking for a while and getting my heart set on a couple of houses, we started praying and actively seeking God’s advice and will for our next move. Not so long after that, He answered and –as much as I didn’t like it at the time- told me that I didn’t need to have stuff or a big house just to have something to spend money on. We (Brad and I) needed enough freedom with the money that we have to be able to help others in need around us instead of strapping ourselves down just so we could have a big, fancy, new house.

I never wanted to do much to our house we currently live in besides painting because I figured we wouldn’t be there long enough to get to enjoy it. And once we decided to stay, I realized that it was our home and I let myself have free reign to do whatever my heart desired to it! After all, we plan on being there a while. :)

Project #1? Get a backsplash in the kitchen! I searched around for a while on the internet of ways to cut costs and DIY it, but who am I kidding? We McMichael’s are not the handiest people on the planet, and since I knew I would get a discount from the installers anyway because they work for my company, we let the professionals do it!

Before…

And after…

Being 100% honest, I wasn’t too crazy about it at first. It’s kind of busy against the countertops, but it grows on me more and more each day.

Next on my lists of projects: FINISH my laundry room makeover, dedicate a wall in our house for our Honduras feathers (more on that later), and since I’ve looked at these pictures….I’m thinking about painting the cabinets an off white color. I hope my sweet husband is not reading this, because that last sentence probably just gave him a heart attack. :)

Breakfast with Santa

Saturday, we went to the local kid’s museum (CHOM) with Noah, Brad’s mom and one of our nephews. Noah had SO MUCH FUN! The whole morning completely worn him out because he had so many things to do!

At first, he wasn’t too sure about everything going on though. Especially with all the character people walking around.

Nervous smile…

Noah’s Gammy tried to help him warm up to the reindeer, but it kind of freaked him out.

Noah and Daddy waiting for the bid guy in red to appear!

And eating some breakfast. I know this picture is blurry, but I wanted to share it because those two look and act so much alike!

But I’m his favorite for sure! (Notice the busted lip…he’s fearless!)

After breakfast, Santa and Mrs. Claus came in to join the party. Since Noah was afraid of the reindeer and since THIS happened last year…

I just knew he was going to freak his freak once we sat him on Santa’s lap. Instead, he was a total cheeseball. He loved Santa!

After meeting Santa, we were free to roam the rest of the museum. We’ve been there before with Noah but he was barely toddling then. This time, he was able to go wherever he pleased and that is his favorite thing to do! :)

I think we are still going to go see Santa at the mall and hopefully he will still like him! I may be pressing my luck on that though!