Home for the Holidays!

We drove down to my mom and dad's for a few days........aahh, there's no place like home for the holidays! Things have been so busy for us lately, we were really looking forward to slowing down a bit and relaxing at mom and dad's. There's something about being there that just instantly calms me. Maybe it's the smell of apples and cinnamon that sweetly fragrances their home or maybe it's all of the precious memories I have there.But I always look forward to it. Mom always cooks the best homemade meals, I mean goes all out! And I find it difficult to stop eating! I mean how many helpings of sweet potato casserole should one really eat?

And Lili was ready to celebrate her 2nd Christmas! She loves wearing something on her head, hats, underwear, bathing suits, whatever! Here we are in the car on our way down south!


My two little ragamuffins :) Like I said, we are very relaxed at Nanny and Pawpaws, but Lili's hair was driving me crazy!

Emma loves to decorate their french doors with Christmas cling-ons.


Emma got a 60 piece USA puzzle from Nanny and Pawpaw and can do it all by herself! I helped her the first time and I'm ashamed to say I had to look at the box!

Santa brought Lili an interactive baby doll that came with her own stroller, baby bed, and high chair. She loves it, when the baby cries she will pat her belly and say "heeyyyyy" really softly. It's too sweet.

Emma enjoying her Christmas goodies. Her new friend Biscuit (giant dog beside her) was her gift from Nanny, PawPaw, and Uncle Brad! She LOVES her! She tells me over and over that she is a real dog and she is her responsibility........:)

Then onward to Mississippi.....we had Christmas night there with family. This is "Nanda" and Land, my aunt and cousin, two precious people! Nice snuggie Land!

We gave Mawmaw a collage frame of pics of the girls.

Pawpaw Vines modelling his Dirty Santa gift.....a beautifully crocheted red scarf! I'd take it for sure! Notice Uncle James giggling in the background :)

Emma's Special Gift

Her gameday shirt from Mimi and Popi. Here she is wearing it....

Aaannnddd sleeping in it.

Santa???

We had Mike's family Christmas on Saturday and Santa made a visit to Mimi and Popi's Saturday night. The kids were so excited!

Lili eventually warmed up to Santa, she showed him her baby doll that she got as a gift from Mimi and Popi.

And she high-fived him!

She loved opening up her gifts!

She really got into it!

Gingerbread Houses

Friday, I volunteered to help Emma's class make Gingerbread Houses. Although, this looks like it could have been chaotic, it went really well and was so much fun!

We are so thankful that the Lord made a way for us to send Emma to this school. It has been such a blessing to our family and Emma looks forward to going to school every day!

Renovation Pics: Dust, Dust, and More Dust!!

Mike is removing our ceilings downstairs to put insulation up for sound-proofing.....and this is what it looks like when you take down all that 84 year old bead board.

Below is the framing for our bookshelves by the fireplace in the living room.

The windows are in! And a short wall to separate the living/kitchen area. We want to keep the plan as open as possible but still have distinct spaces.

The green wall on the right has been cut back a couple of feet to make the walkway by the stairwell wider. This little nook will be nice I think.

In the process of taking down the ceiling, see all the nails?

This is our current challenge. This fireplace was filled in so we busted it out and this is what we found. Not much of a fireplace, not even big enough for logs. So, we are trying to decide whether we want to go to the trouble of building it up and making it bigger or just sheet rocking it and coming back to it later. You're probably thinking the same thing I am, "Don't sheet rock that fireplace in!!" We really don't want to have to do it but we're thinking it'll get us in the house quicker, save us some money and later down the road we can do something with it. But the verdict is still out.

Renovation Pics

We've been working recently on the plumbing and central heat & air. Here are a few pics of the new additions!

This is in the upstairs bath the girls will be using. We picked this faucet out specifically with them in mind. Lately the challenge at bath time with Emma has been turning on the faucet and getting it the right temperature all by herself. Our apt faucet has the "crystal" knob you have to turn and the water temperature is so finicky that it's hard to know where to turn the knob each time. We thought this lever style would make things alot easier for Emma :) and she can turn it to the same place every time.

Duct work in the attic

Don't freak out! We initially thought this was a nest of some sort but there doesn't appear to be anything living in it. Mike thinks someone just put some straw up there......???? At least there's not a family of squirrels moving in with us.

We are so excited about the progress but can't get in the house soon enough!

Please keep us in your prayers. Our apt. lease is up in January but thankfully they will renew monthly until we tell them we're moving out. We'd love to be in by February, we know God's timing is perfect and He has a plan and purpose. He's teaching us so much through this. We are learning patience and total dependence. Please pray that we would continue to rely on Him and trust in His timing. He has provided every month that the mortgage and rent come due. He is Faithful.

Stories by the tree.....

Sadly, all of our Christmas books are in storage....somewhere at the bottom of a huge pile of boxes. Christmas books are such a treasure to me, we have made so many special memories reading together. Last year I bought an Advent Children's' Book and I remember how excited Emma was to sit down and read the next page of the story each day.

Just yesterday morning I purchased this book from Lifeway.....and the timing couldn't have been better. I didn't tell Emma I was going to buy a Christmas book and in fact she hasn't even brought up the fact that our other Christmas books are missing. But, when I picked her up from school yesterday she began to get really sad. She started singing the song, "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and it made her remember one of our special books we read every year. I then had to explain that they were all in storage and it was going to be impossible to get them out this year but that we'd have them again next year. She really teared up but understood. It was so precious......I knew how much it always meant to me to share these stories with her but I didn't know she treasured it just as much. Well, after dinner last night I told her to clean up toys in the living area and make room by the tree for us to all sit down and that I had a surprise for her. She was so excited and anxious to know what was going on. We lit a candle and everyone sat down and I brought her this book. She smiled the biggest smile and her eyes just lit up. And SHE read this book to us under the tree. It was priceless. One of our best Christmas memories yet. What a precious gift we have in our children. They are wonderful reminders of enjoying the simple things in life. This quiet time under our beautifully lit Christmas tree is a time I wouldn't trade for anything.

Call me crazy......

I'm trying something new here. My skincare regimen consisted of washing twice daily with a skin brightening/exfoliating cleanser (popular store brand), applying a vitamin syrum, and then a moisturizer. At night I had been using these Aveda cleansing pads after I washed, they seemed to work really well but were really expensive, so after I used them all I decided I needed to search out other methods.......we're all trying to make our dollar stretch. And I was starting to notice my skin was more dull, cold weather had set in and made it more dry, and aarghhh the dreaded break-outs! Soooo, I had been thinking of changing things up a bit, particularly I wanted a more frugal skincare regimen but it still had to work! I was reading a blog article the other day about natural skincare.........homemade skincare! Well, it definitely sounded like it was more frugal than the expensive store bought cleansers that I had been using. But, homemade?? I was a bit skeptical at first. But I researched a little, talked a little, experimented a little, and I can say that I am beginning to believe all the hype! Not only are these homemade skincare recipes more frugal, but they are actually alot healthier for my skin. And that is really what's important to me.

My new skincare regimen is (hold on to your seats!!) only consisting of two things.......oil and more oil. Doesn't that sound crazy? It did to me, especially since my skin seems to break out at the mention of oil, what is that about?I'm 32 years old and NOT in puberty anymore!! Well, a dear friend of mine recommended Coconut Oil as a moisturizer, I wasn't too sure what to expect but it is a very light-weight oil that is solid at room temperature and as soon as you put some in your hand it turns into an oil. And a little goes a long way, so a jar like this will last forever. And I have sensitive skin prone to break outs but this has been great so far! I'm also using it on my hands and it works well for your hair too. You can apply a little to the strands of your hair to tame fly-aways and frizzies. But a little goes a long way, so don't put too much on or else you'll go flat :)

Coconut Oil

My cleanser is also oil! I have been using the Oil Cleansing Method for a couple of weeks now and am absolutely loving it! Simple Mom has a very informative article on this method if you are interested http://simplemom.net/oil-cleansing-method/. But basically, what you are doing is removing dirty oil from your skin and replacing it with clean. Most facial cleansers strip the skin of its oil, so it overproduces oil in order to compensate for this thus leading to break outs. But, when you wash your skin with an oil, this restores a healthy balance. My mixture is Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Castor Oil. The Castor Oil removes dirt particles and cleans out your pores, while the EVOO replaces and replenishes your skins natural oil, it has the same pH as your skin. I use equal parts of them mixed together with a few drops of organic essential lemon oil to give it a fresh citrusy scent and I apply it at night. I apply to a dry face, I gently massage it into my skin for about a minute ( it's like a mini facial!). The oil dissolves my makeup/mascara better than any remover I've bought! After this, I apply a warm washcloth and just let my face steam for about a minute, this opens up and cleans the pores. Afterwards, I just take the washcloth and wipe my face and voila that's it! No need for anything else, no moisturizers, no nuthin'! I haven't had any breakouts and my skin hasn't been dry at all.

Oil Cleansing Method

I've been so thrilled with the results! I'm getting really healthy skin and making our dollars stretch at the same time!

Went to see Christmas Lights

I was able to grab a quick picture of the girls in their Christmas PJs before we headed out the door! We drank hot cocoa and ate homemade cookies while we drove around and enjoyed seeing Christmas lights in a few of the neighborhoods around Huntsville.

Nutcracker

Emma brought this home from school yesterday. She drew it in art class. This child loves to draw. She will wake up before us on school mornings and pull out her art supplies and draw and color til her heart's content. I will probably enroll her in art classes this summer!

Advent Inductive Bible Study

I am doing an Advent study using the Inductive Bible Study method this year. It has been wonderful! My precept bible study has taken a break for Christmas so this has been a great way to stay in God's word each day. This lady has written the study to incorporate your children as well!
http://www.miikogibson.com/advent_study.htm

Our Simple Little Christmas...

I'm so excited about celebrating Christmas this year! This past year has brought about alot of changes for our family. And while being in our cozy little apartment, we've decided to go a little more simple for Christmas this year. And actually, it's been quite nice.

Yay Christmas!


Decorating our tree

Lili's favorite place :) Hasn't she grown?!

Emma's favorite place too.

Lili LOVED helping decorate the tree! See the little "candy cane" made of popcorn? Well, that is actually what was originally intended to be popcorn garland. We set out to make it and no one seemed interested......so, we didn't get very far! Maybe next year our garland will drape the entire tree, haha!

Mom came to visit and got to help us decorate the tree! The girls really had a fun time with her. We wish we could see her and my dad more often and miss them very much :)

Our star for the top of the tree is still in storage somewhere, so Mike put this snowflake on top for me. I think it looks nice and will do for this year :)

It sure helps having a tall man! He didn't even have to use a step stool!

That night we took the girls to Santa's Village. Emma was more interested in this Penguin than Santa Claus! She followed him around b/c she wanted to keep giving him hugs.

Lili was our tour guide for Santa's Village. She didn't like the big animals so much. There was a bear that we passed quite often and it upset her every time.

Emma got to write her own letter to Santa and give it to an elf!

Is that Rudolph??