We bought a couch.

I don't think I've ever formally introduced our master bedroom here on the blog.  That's mostly because I've never felt like it was finished.  And it still isn't.  Far from it, actually.  So I'm still not introducing it today but you will get to see a big ol' glimpse of it.

Our master is HUGE.  We had a big master in our old house so I didn't think we'd ever find another house with one as big, but low and behold we did.  This one is even bigger.  When we had the carpets shampooed this past summer, they charged us the price for two rooms for our master.  

It kinda is two rooms, really.  We have the half where we sleep - it has our bed and nightstands and dresser.  And also my wrapping armoir.  Then the other half is where we live.  It's where we watch tv at night after the kids have gone to bed and when they're awake, it's where we spend lots of time on the floor playing.  The two areas are divided by a partial wall and a big arched opening.

Up until about two (or three?) months ago, this is how it looked since we moved in.  

See why I've never given you a tour of this space?  Those chairs look so pitiful!  But, they are both the most comfortable chair ever.  I know, it's impossible for them both to earn that title, but they do.  They're comfortable in different ways.  The one on the left is soft and fluffy and you just sink right into it.  The one on the right reclines so far backwards that you could sleep all night in it.  And they were both bargains!  The white one was given to us (for free!) by some friends and the brownish one was purchased for a whopping 40 bucks.  I've had it recovered twice since it's former white pleather days.  (Yes, I'm aware those arm covers are hideous.)

So if they are both simultaneously the most comfortable chair ever, then why get rid of them?  Well, I'm glad you asked.  First off - check out that ill-fitting slipcover on the white chair.  Don't ever listen to any blogger that tells you an Ikea slipcover will fit on a Pottery Barn basic chair.  As you can clearly see, this is a lie.  (And what you can't see is that the slipcover is completely cut all the way up the back!)  But at just $30 for the slipcover, it was worth a try.  Lesson learned.  I have a big pile of swatches of fabric that I can purchase a Pottery Barn cover for this chair in, but the prices start in the $400 range.  I could get a whole new chair for that!  Secondly, my husband didn't like that we were always in our own separate chairs.  Call him a sap, but on movie nights, he wanted to be able to cuddle up on a couch.  Can't say I blame him - it'd be a heck of a lot easier for him to rub my feet if we were closer together! ;)

We initially shopped for a love seat to replace just one of the chairs with, but we never found what we wanted.  We eventually just bought a full-sized couch and I'm so glad we did.  It has a chaise too and that's something I've always wanted!  After having it for a few months, I'm surprised we ever survived without it.  There's plenty of room for all four (five plus Lolli) of us to pile on while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on a Sunday afternoon.

No, it's not the fanciest couch in the world and that photo above would never show up on a design blogger's page.  But it's big and comfy and easy to clean and that's exactly what we need at this stage in our life.  It's got to be able to withstand a dog and two small, sticky kids.  Plus the drool from when I nap.  :)  

Those pillows are sad and pathetic looking but their days are numbered.  I'm currently shopping for new bedding and fabric to finally spruce up our bedroom like it deserves.  Maybe this will be the year to formally introduce it on the blog.

One of my favorite Christmas gifts was that cute little sofa table.  We had the couch for less than a week before I decided I had to have something.  My spot is in the corner with the chaise and I never had anywhere to put my drink or empty ice cream bowl.

It's wood and metal combined and came from Ballard Designs and is just the most darling little table ever.  I heart it.  It's the perfect size to hold my drink and phone and whatever I'm reading at the time.

Just for fun (seriously, no judgement please!) here's a full view of that side of the room.  It's like a daycare up in here.  I dream of the day when colorful toys won't line the walls of my bedroom, but if having the toys means my kids will stay little forever, then I'll keep 'em!

So that's our three-months-ago update.  I feel like this couch and I have been friends for much longer than that.  We've done some pretty serious Sunday afternoon bonding.

Anyone looking for a new chair?  I've got a couple just hanging out in our playroom.  Wanna play Let's Make A Deal?

Do you want to build a snowman?

Neither Mom nor I had anything to hang on our front doors after taking down our Christmas decorations, so they were looking a little sad.  We needed some winter door hangings STAT!  Friday we were in Hobby Lobby shopping around and bought the materials needed to make snowmen to hang during these next couple of winter months.

I actually had the idea for these last year but didn't execute it.  This is one of those things that I don't know if I've seen somewhere or saw something similar or came up with it totally on my own.  I'm not sure, it was just in my head!

We gathered up all of our supplies: cheap embroidery hoops in three different sizes, buttons in varying sizes, and different colors of felt.  The buttons and embroidery hoops were purchased from the Hob Lob, but we already had the stash of felt.  

First, fill each of your embroidery hoops with white felt.  We did double layers so it would be a little bit more substantial and not see-through.  And the white felt we had had glitter in it...festive!

Then trim off the excess fabric.  Cut right up to the edge of the hoop.  Here are front and back views.

Repeat those steps until you have all three different sized circles done.

Since my mom has double front doors, we were working on three at one time (two for her, one for me).  Use a hot glue gun to glue the circles together in the shape of a snowman.  Do it from the backside and just pile that glue on there!  (You could also wire the outside hoops together before putting the fabric in...might be sturdier.)

Next, I cut out noses from orange felt.  I just freehanded them - no need for precision since real carrots aren't perfect!

Using our hot glue gun, we glued down the felt nose and also different sizes and colors of buttons to make eyes, a mouth, and...buttons.

We planned to tie old scarves of my mom's around their necks, but they still needed a little something else.  Using more felt, we cut out hats for them to wear.  Again, I just freehanded the shape.  To make it stand up, I cut two sides out for the hat and sandwiched a piece of cardstock between them to make it sturdier.  

The last step is to rig up a way to hang it on your door.  I took a small binder clip and clipped the loop of my top embroidery hoop, behind the hat.  Then I was able to hang it on the nail in our door by one of the little tabs sticking out.

Finally, just hang them on your door(s) and stand back to admire them!  

Mine has already been hanging for several windy days and it's still hanging in there!  (And revamping those sad flower beds is high on the priority list for this spring/summer.)

Let me know if you build a snowman for your own front door.  I'd love to see a picture of it!

Christmas in Tennessee

Our last Christmas event was with my mom's side of the family in Tennessee.  We alternate houses each year and since they came our way last year, it was our turn to jump in the cars and travel.  We arrived at my aunt's house mid-afternoon and almost immediately loaded back up in the car to head to my cousin's horse arena.  We wanted to get in some good horseback riding before it got too dark!

By the time we got out of the car, it was a bit colder than it was when we left our house.  Thank goodness for Mimi letting Katie Wynn borrow a warm headband and gloves.  The gloves were a wee bit big, though.  

Ok, the head band was kinda big too.  Katie Wynn was not the most fashionable cowgirl of the day.  (That's not a sad, teary eye...it's watering from the cold wind!)

My cousin was actually sick with the stomach bug so she kept her germs inside and away from us.  That left her husband all alone to saddle up some horses for us to ride.  He was so nice to go to so much trouble for us city folks.  The kids all waited patiently while he readied the horses.

Finally, they were saddled and ready for riders!  Enjoy this collection of People-On-Horses pictures.  Don't we all look like naturals?!  :)

Parker riding by himself.

Barn cat!  Every time we visit, there's a new kitty to see!

Brennie riding the pony by herself.

Jett riding by himself.

Neely helped Roger with leading the horses around.

Yes, even I got on a horse!  I was terrified.  No one would lead me; they made me take the reins myself!

Going fast!

Ramer was the first kid up - he rode with cousin Joel.

Bond salesman or cowboy?  You decide.

Katie Wynn riding with Daddy.

Roany and Bren racing through the arena!

Ramer even rode by himself!

Roger and Raines.

Even Poppy managed to climb up on a horse...

Making sure there is plenty of photographic evidence.

These girls - Roany and Gracie - are like pros compared to us.  Roany isn't even on the saddle!

Bren's turn again.

Roany helped Ramer go for one last ride.

We really talked up the horseback riding to Katie Wynn in hopes that she would at least sit on a horse for a picture.  I was completely blown away when she got up there with no problems at all.  Every time she got off she wanted it to be her turn again!  She rode several times with her Daddy, once with her Poppy, and once with me.  Towards the end of our time there, she was ready to go fast!  Matt let the horse run (trot? gallop?) a few laps with her on it and she loved it!!

When it was time to go, we told her the horses (neigh-neighs) had to go night-night.  Roger told Katie Wynn that the horses don't need beds and sometimes they even sleep standing up!  As soon as we got back to my aunt's house, she excitedly told my mom about the horses going night-night standing up and not even needing a bed!

We had a relaxed evening hanging out at my aunt's house.  Once everyone made it over there we had a yummy dinner of different kinds of chili and all kinds of side items.  The bigger kids stayed upstairs playing and the babies played downstairs with the adults.  

Jentri is the newest addition to the family.  She was just 6 weeks old when we were there!

When I dressed Katie Wynn that morning, I told her she had to wear her vest because we were gonna ride horses.  Now every time she wears it she asks if she gets to ride a horse that day!

I think we were the first to leave that evening so that we could get our babies into bed.  We had a king bed in a hotel room calling our name and since Thomas was in our only pack-n-play, Katie Wynn was getting to sleep with us.  When we got to our room, she jumped on the bed and lined up the four pillows across the headboard.  "This one's Daddy's, this one's Mommy's, this one's Katie Wynn's, and this one is for Thomas!"  I replied, "Well Thomas isn't going to need a pillow because he has his own bed."  "Ok!  This one's for Katie Wynn's feet!"  Of course it is.  I should've known...

It was quite an adventure trying to get Thomas to sleep with Miss Chatterbox laying in the bed talking her head off.  She talked and talked and talked until she literally fell asleep mid-sentence.  Matt and I didn't think she'd ever fall asleep! 

We were back over at my aunt's for brunch pretty early and the house was already bouncing with awake kids.

Jett and Neely took turns reading from Luke before we opened gifts.  

We couldn't wrap up the celebration without an attempt at an all-grandkids picture.  Here's the one I took at my Mom's house last Christmas.  There were 12 kids - 6 boys and 6 girls - and I was just a week away from finding whether Thomas was a boy or girl.  I think I commented that the genders would be uneven next year after he arrived.

Well, I was wrong!  Thomas did arrive and add to the boys' count, but then Jentri came in November to even it back out.  Now the little girl Erin is having in March will turn the tables again! 

Fourteen kids on one couch...there's no way I could get smiles from everyone!  I'm calling this a success because at least all faces are somewhat turned towards the camera.

After all the food, gifts, and excitement of the morning, both kids crashed hard and slept the whole way home.  Matt and I were very glad!!

That wraps up all of our Christmas festivities for 2014.  Now we're in the middle of playing the super fun game of "Where do we put all this stuff?!?!"

Christmas Day

Picking up where we left off with the Christmas Eve post, the first person awake on Christmas Day was actually...Katie Wynn!  She woke up at 6 o'clock on the dot, but not because of the excitement of Santa Claus.  Just because that's around the time she normally wakes up.  I brought her to bed with me and Matt and tried to get her to lay down for a few more minutes.  By 6:15, she was jumping on the bed saying she was ready to get up.  Again, not because of Santa Claus.  This time just because we were at Mimi and Poppy's house and she was ready to get up and play.  I asked her if she thought I should get up and see if Santa came and brought presents while we were asleep, and she got a little quiet and kinda excited.

After going downstairs to turn on the lights and wake up my parents and get the camera ready, I texted Matt to let him know we were ready.  He came down empty handed and said she wanted me to get her.  Upstairs, she was sitting up on the bed waiting patiently for me to come carry her down the stairs to see what Santa brought.

We had fun setting their toys out the night before!  I'm trying hard not to go overboard with gifts for our kids, so they each got one big-ish gift from Santa and a few small things in their stockings.  To be honest, I might not have even gotten Thomas anything if we had been with my nephews.  It's not like he would've known any different!  

I missed her first looks into the room, but she initially went to Thomas's toy.  She had seen one of them before and knew what to do with it.  I had to gently guide her into looking over at her new kitchen!

We showed her that there were goodies in her stocking too!

While she was excited about the Frozen and Mickey Mouse bandaids and even the big girl panties, I think her very favorite thing was her orange.  She even stole the one out of Thomas's stocking too!

Thomas enjoyed his goodies too!

Not too long after we got down there, Parker joined us to see what Santa brought him.

And Ramer, the last to arise, was down a few minutes later.

After all the initial excitement died down, Katie Wynn loved going through everything in her kitchen and inspecting all the different foods and accessories.

Since my oldest brother, Nick, and his family don't stay the night, we have a tradition of going to their house bright and early for breakfast.  It's hard leaving all the toys from Santa after the kids have just seen them, but Beth always prepares a delicious breakfast that we can't wait to get over there and eat!  We pile into cars in our pajamas and make the five minute drive over.

We left there with full bellies and went back to our house.  We always get together with my Dad's side of the family on Christmas Day around 2:00, so I knew we'd need to get naps in a little early.  But when we got home, we each had one more present to open!  Lala and Poppa left 4 presents under our tree so that we'd have something from them to open on Christmas Day.  So fun!

Katie Wynn opened up some fruit that she can slice and cook with in her kitchen.  She loves getting to cut the pieces apart!

Thomas opened up a new Sophie the Giraffe chew toy and he got straight to work chewing on it!

And just like with every other toy that was supposed to belong to Thomas, Katie Wynn tried to claim this one too.  

As for us parents, Matt opened up the instruction manual to a new grill that he had already put together and used.  I opened up this sofa table from Ballard Designs that I was so excited about and use every single day now!

We took these pictures so that we could text them to Matt's parents to let them know we'd opened their gifts.  After I took my thumbs-up picture, Katie Wynn needed to take one too.

After opening our last gifts, we all took epic naps!  Katie Wynn actually slept on top of me on the couch which never happens.  Christmas morning is exhausting!

We always spend the afternoon of Christmas Day at my aunt's house.  I took similar pictures to some I knew I had taken last year (on the left) for comparison's sake.  Hasn't Katie Wynn grown so much??

Katie Wynn was being way too silly for pictures so Bren tried to show her how to sit in Matt's lap and pose.  It didn't really work, but Bren looks cute!

A couple of blurry family pics with the uncooperative two-year-old.

My brothers continue to fight the [losing] battle of trying to win Katie Wynn's affection.  They want her to like them so bad, but she just cries when they hold her!  Even when they do fun things like try to get her to crawl through their legs...still tears.

Thomas seems to be ok with them though...at least so far.  

Mom and I always talk about Thomas's evil grin.  He has this smile where he wrinkles his nose and it makes his brow furrow and his eyes look a little crazy.  I finally got a picture of it, below on the left.  Excuse the snot, he had a bit of a cold.

Here are some random family snapshots from throughout the day.

Katie Wynn became obsessed with my cousin Natalie.  She sat in her lap the whole time we played Dirty Santa and even let Natalie help open her gifts.  Since then, she has asked for "Natanee" to come over and play about a hundred times.  We will have to get her to babysit some time when she's home from school!

We play two rounds of Dirty Santa - once with the adult girls and then again with the men.  (The little kids just get their own gifts to open.)  This year, the girls were much dirtier than the men!  I think I ended up bringing home my fifth gift.

My aunt works for Nike and receives all kinds of merchandise throughout the year from their "giveaways."  It's way more than her family needs so she saves it up to divvy it up between all of us at Christmas time.  She has bags full of everything from shoes to work out gear to hats and socks and gloves.  In my family, there's a little bit of elbow throwing as we sift through and grab the good stuff in our sizes.  :)  (As if we haven't just opened gifts for two days straight!)

This year, thrown in with all the freebies was a spandex one-piece outfit.  I'm assuming it's for a cyclist to wear.  I bet my oldest brother, Nick, five bucks that he wouldn't put it on with a pair of neon orange shoes and walk out for everyone to see.  I can't beleive he actually did it!  I guess that just shows how cheap he is because of course he made me pay up!  The best part of the outfit was definitely the series of cut out holes in the back.  Can you imagine the tan line you'd get from wearing that!?

Now the joke's on my brother because I've put these pictures on the internet and it's gonna cost him more than five dollars to get them removed.  :)

After seeing Nick in full body spandex, we decided it was time to go!  Just kidding, but we really did leave shortly after that.  Both kids crashed pretty hard that night.  Good thing, too, because the next morning we hit the road for one last Christmas celebration...

Christmas Eve

This year, Christmas Eve started out in a very special way.  For the last nine years, our church has hosted a program called Hope for the Holidays where teachers from area schools submit families that could use a little extra Hope over the holiday.  Our church members then adopt these families (last year we adopted over 150 families!), shop for Christmas gifts for them, and then deliver those gifts along with lots and lots of food and health kits to the family on the morning of Christmas Eve. 

For the last six years that Matt and I have been celebrating Christmas as a married couple, we have adopted a family to shop for.  When scheduling allowed, we've included Anna and Wyatt in our shopping adventures and let them help pick out clothes and toys for our adopted children.  We plan to do the same with Katie Wynn and Thomas as they grow up.  However, since we both typically work on Christmas Eve, shopping for and wrapping our gifts was about as much participating as we could do.  We have always dropped off our bags of goodies and left them for someone else from the church to deliver.  

This year we both had the day off work and decided we wanted to really help spread the Hope this year.  We dropped the babies off (they are still too little to accompany us, especially since we didn't know what kind of neighborhood we would be traveling to) and joined our church members at the church.  After a quick meeting and prayer in the sanctuary, we pulled our loaded-down-with-gifts car in the drive-thru line to have the youth group fill it up with food.  There was so much food, too!  A huge laundry basket full as well as another box full.  And a gallon of milk that had just been purchased that morning.  And we got a 'health kit' bag for each of our children (we had three boys this year) that was full of wash rags, soap, shampoo, etc.  

Our adopted family doesn't live too far from where we do.  In fact, I drive past their house almost daily.  They knew to expect us that morning and they were ready!  The two middle-school aged boys were excited to see all the presents and the older, teen-aged boy helped us carry in the loads from the car.  The whole family was incredibly grateful for the Hope we had given them, but really, we were the ones touched by the experience.  It was amazing to see our congregation going out in fleets to spread holiday cheer to our community and we personally enjoyed getting to see the faces of the boys that we had shopped and prayed for.  What a great way to begin our Christmas Eve!  I look forward to carrying on this tradition with the kids as they get older.

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After our first Santa Claus duties were complete, I hurried back to my parents' woodshop while the kids were still away.  We planned to pick them up around noon but I needed to help Santa's elves finish a few gifts first.  Talk about waiting til the last minute!  

The kids made it home just in time for a nice long afternoon nap before all the excitement of the evening began.  We wanted them to nap at home so they'd get some really good rest before going to my parents' house.  Matt left during their naps to go get started on his contributions (the beef tenderloin!) for dinner.  

My sweet pea woke up a little bit crabby from her nap but it wasn't anything that an oreo cookie and a present couldn't help cure.  Mrs. Kim, Thomas's babysitter that used to also keep KW, dropped by gifts while they slept so I let her go ahead and open that one up.  

Oreo face!

Excited about her new Elsa-Anna stickers!  (See them on her shirt?)

We quickly got ready for church and called Matt to tell him to come pick us up.  I love our church's Christmas Eve service.  It's at 5 o'clock in the evening and the church is always so packed!  I get to see lots of friends that I grew up with who come home to visit their families.  Plus, I love singing all the Christmas carols and lighting the candles at the end.

You know what they don't have at the Christmas Eve service?  Children's church.  Not that I was eager to get rid of my child or anything, but 5 o'clock in the evening in a jam-packed church after we've talked all day about Santa Claus coming to visit did not really equate to her wanting to sit still and be quiet.  I gave her a candy cane.  Why did I do that?  She's never had a candy cane before.  Why did I think that wouldn't become a royal mess?  I must've been desperate.  Matt had already left to take Thomas (who was burning hot and all stopped up) to get some medicine and my dad had his hands full with my nephews, so I was on my own on entertaining the wild one!  I had already lost a game of tug-of-war in THE AISLE when she tried to steal my lipstick bag, and she'd already emptied all the other contents of my purse into the pew.  She also very LOUDLY greeted her Daddy and Thomas when they came back.  The candy cane seemed like a good idea.  Here she is with her sticky mouth.  Yep, I resorted to church selfies to keep her quiet.

After approximately 12.5 hours in that pew, we made it to the end when we sing Silent Night and hold up our candles.  So magical!  Gives me the chills every single time.

"I do it!  I hold it!"

We left church and went straight to Mom and Dad's for dinner.  Mom and Matt, our resident cooks, still had a few things to do before we could sit down at the table.  Thomas was the first to get to eat - a festive meal of sweet potatoes and apples probably - and Uncle Nick was his high chair.

If Katie Wynn is going to go to anyone in the family other than Mimi and Poppy while Matt and I are present, it's going to be Aunt Beth.  

Here are the men/boys of the family.  Across the back, from left to right, is my oldest brother Nick, my dad (Poppy), Thomas (6.5 months), my brother Ben, Matt, and Ramer (3).  In the front are Jett (9) and Parker (6). 

Our first attempt at a girls picture had a photo bomb...

We had to have a redo, obviously.  It's a good thing Erin is adding a baby girl to the family soon because we are outnumbered!  Here we have Erin (and baby girl), Beth, Katie Wynn (2), me, and Mom (Mimi).  Up front is Bren (6).  It's fun to think this time next year there will be another cute face in this picture!

I think this is the first time we've been able to all sit down to eat dinner at the same time since some of these kids have been born!  We had to add a kids table but for a few minutes...maybe five?...it was actually quite peaceful while we all sat and ate together.  (Then the "When can we open presents?!" started!)

I absolutely love this picture.  Don't you know that hearing "We have to wait until everyone's done eating and the kitchen is cleaned up" is the hardest little thing for a toddler on Christmas Eve?! (That's when we open presents together.)  I can remember feeling EXACTLY like Ramer when I was little.  It's like it took for-ev-er for them to get the kitchen cleaned up, and the adults were the slowest eaters EVER!

I tried to get a few pics of the kids in front of the tree while the kitchen was being cleaned up.

The six-year-olds each wanted a turn holding Thomas, or "Baby Promise" as Ramer calls him.  :)

We delayed the present opening even longer by having the kids sit down for a story.  Uncle Ben volunteered to read it so they crowded around.  We want the kids to know the real reason we celebrate Christmas and this year we used a children's book for help with that.  

Things got a little crazy after this so I put the camera down.  I've said it before, but when the gifts are passed out, it becomes a free for all.  Paper gets ripped, bows start flying, there's shrieking and laughter and oohs and ahhs.  It's nice and chaotic, just how we like it.  I took a few pictures after all the gifts had been opened.  (Poor Thomas, who still wasn't feeling well, was put to bed before we even read the story.  He slept through his first Christmas Eve.)  

I monogrammed this cute little red pair of Converse tennis shoes for Katie Wynn and she absolutely loved them!  She put them on immediately with her smocked Santa dress.  :)

I love this picture of Katie Wynn.  She's inspecting a picture ornament that I made years and years ago.  Usually if I show her a picture of myself at Mom's house and ask her who it is, she'll say it's "Kay-Wynn!"

The last pictures that were taken before going to bed were of Bren helping Katie Wynn with her new scooter.  

We bid farewell to my brother Nick and his family and went upstairs to tuck the rest of the kiddos into bed.  Any guesses on which one - Parker, Ramer, Katie Wynn, or Thomas - was the first to arise the next morning?  I'll let you know in the next post.  :)