Van Natter November

And here we are in the Christmas Season!!
November flew by. Spent a lot of time prepping for guests. I had all my meals prepared and frozen for Mom's visit. When she wasn't able to come, I was able to use them for Emily and Jacob.

We finally got furniture for our new family room.  We got 2 couches and a love seat: 6 recliners in all! Plus a big screen TV for over the fireplace. That room got quite a lot of use while Em and Jacob were here. They watched movies up there, Jacob played X-Box with Ian. Addie enjoyed more room to run around and explore.

Thanksgiving with Moultons was so much fun, as always. But it felt weird not having Grammy there. We were just glad she was out of the hospital, hadn't needed surgery, and was on the mend. So grateful for all Linda and Mark's attentiveness to her.

Finally brought in the turquoise love seat from the garage once the living room painting was done. I love it. It's not too bright but pulls in the turquoise from the kitchen at the other end of the big open room now. I have a small glass table on each end with a red lamp on top of each, but haven't photographed that yet. The lamps turned out to be smaller than expected so I'm torn - they are the right size for the tables, the right height for the loveseat, but look too small in the room. What to do, what to do??

Jacob picked up my Expedit from Ikea while he was here. Still don't know how he fit those 4 big boxes in his car along with Addie in a carseat!! But he did it! Then he put it all together on Thanksgiving morning with the parade on in the background. I'm really excited to have it. For now I'm putting nativities in the cubbies (25 of those!) After the holidays we'll see what I end up doing! (The photo was taken with my iPod but you get the gist.)

 
I put together the Ikea trolley I bought last summer when I saw they had it in turquoise. I am loving it!!

Annette and I got together at her house to make our Advent Calendar boxes using her Silhouette cutter. It was so fun to fold boxes for a few hours. I haven't had a chance to finish mine off yet but I enjoy just seeing the fun paper drawers in each little opening. I used the new Basic Grey Aspen Frost line. I don't do any paper scrapping anymore, so it was kind of fun choose Christmas papers.

John is almost done with Tithing Settlement. Most everyone came during November so now every December Sunday isn't taken up. This was his 25th year of Tithing Settlements!!!!!

Ian's eyes have swollen nearly shut twice in the last couple of weeks. It's what happens when he has nuts but he hasn't eaten or even touched any, so now he has to figure out what is causing this allergic reaction. He's missed a couple of days of work due to it. Thank goodness he has sick days to use.

Hope everyone has a super fantastic Christmas season!
love, Kathi & John