New Year's Eve Partying

We are super glamorous people, so we spent New Year's Eve with Trey and Whitney, of course! We cooked, watched movies, and hung out. One of my favorite things to do with our friends is to just be together. Even if we're all doing completely separate things, it's just fun to be in the same room together.

 

 

Whitney and I had cute outfits on for about 10 minutes. (Just enough time to take this picture.) Then we changed into sweatpants and flannel shirts, and got to spend the rest of the night in comfortable clothes.

 

 

Chillin' like villains. We love us some Sapp men! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle masks, new headphones, and games on computers.

 

 

Welcome to Whitney's new obsession. Butters is a French Bulldog who joined their family about a week ago. I'm pretty sure Whitney would surgically attach she and the dog together if she could.

 

 

I swear, we spent time interacting! I just had to take this picture, because it made me smile!

 

 

Evelyn is absolutely in that stage where she gets into everything. She seems to have a special gift for finding the tiny buttons and breakable items in any room!

 

We had such a great time with our Wolf Pack! (don't ask) We love spending special time with them!

Dreaming And Dust (And Lots Of Paint!)

So, we want to sell our house. We're not sure of the exact timeline, and we're not exactly sure where we want to go (we have some dreams, but nothing concrete), but we're starting the process.

 

That means we're getting our house ready, speaking to our real estate agent, and dreaming of new places. We want to stay in Marietta, but it's always been our dream to be closer to our church. We make it work, but so much of our life revolves around ministries and activities that take place about 30 minutes from our home. Since I'm the one that does almost all of the driving with the girls, and I just happen to hate driving around everywhere, it's not a great combination.

 

Originally, our timeline to move was the next year or so, but recently, we've moved that timeline up (way up!) Ideally, we'd love to sell our house in the next few months. Wow! Just saying that out loud makes me feel a little panicked. We have reasons for moving the timeline up, but they're not public yet, so I'm pausing on that for now.

 

Before we can put our house on the market, we have some major fixing up to do. It's mostly all surface work, but it includes a lot of spackling, sanding, priming, and painting. When Steve's dad was here while we were in New York, he did a ton of work! The dining room is stripped and re-painted, and Mel's bathroom looks incredible - dad repainted everything from the ceiling to the cabinets. When my dad was here for Christmas, we worked on the half bathroom, our closet, and our Master bathroom. It was so great to have the extra help from our dads!

 

We're now working on Bella's bedroom, the playroom, and our Master bedroom. There is still a lot of work to do, but we have at least half of the list done! A few larger projects include our kitchen ceiling and re-carpeting all of the upstairs. And honestly, I am so sick of sanding walls and being covered in dust, and breathing in weird fumes. We're desperately trying to keep our eyes on the big picture, and I know it will all be worth it in the end! 

 

 Dad and I working on our closet...and pretty much how we're going to be spending the next few weeks of our lives.

Mimi And Papa Memories

Bella and Evelyn loved having Papa and Mimi here for Christmas! These are some of the "non-Christmas-y" fun we had going on!

 

Mimi was wrapping presents and tried to teach Bella how to sword fight with the empty cardboard rolls. As you can see, it didn't work in Mimi's favor! The girls had a blast "attacking" her with their cardboard swords!

 

 

We're a weird family. Luckily, we usually enjoy being weird together. On Monday night, we got a babysitter for the girls and all went to a great Italian restaurant called Ipps in downtown Woodstock. Dad and I got to enjoy being silly on our side of the table!

Bella helped Papa make his famous zebra cake! This was a delicious tradition in our house growing up, and we always believed Dad was the only one who knew how to make it right. (Turns out the recipe's actually on the side of the box. We were gullible children.)

 

Mimi and Bella, playing a new game on Mimi's phone. Phone and food are both great ways to bribe my children. I sense a parenting fail somewhere in there, but I'm choosing to ignore it.

 

The girls loved their extra one-on-one time with mom and dad, and we had just as much fun spending Christmas together at home!

Christmas Day

Most of my pictures from Christmas are on my mom's camera, so I'm still waiting for those to come in. Meanwhile, I think I've updated the other blog posts from the last week...

Christmas Eve

We've been attending Eastside for almost six years, and this is the first time we've gotten to be a part of the Christmas Eve services there. I was so excited! With all of the travel and family and projects going on throughout the end of November and all of December, I was not doing a good job of staying focused on the real meaning of Christmas. This service was just what I needed to pause and remember.

 It was a "family service", so we got to keep the girls with us. I think that was my favorite part! I had to take Evelyn out at the very end, but it was so special to have both girls with us while singing Christmas carols and sitting with our family and friends.

 

 

Evelyn and Daddy, holding hands in the backseat. Our "fancy family" pictures are on mom's computer, so this is all I have.

 

Part of the service included bringing the kids on stage to hear a story. Bella is in the red dress on the right. She was fantastic! We were sitting in the second row, so she kept turning around and waving to us. When Denise asked what the kids were going to give Jesus for Christmas, Bella raised her hand and said, "My toys. But just one. Not all of them." I think we're really getting through to her.

 

The extra awesomeness of being home for Christmas for the first time is that we got to enjoy all of our special moments with the Sapps! Here we all are after the service - Madeline was freezing and Charli was done with the entire process, but we captured our families on camera!

 

Whitney and I in our finery! We were both a little giddy to be together for Christmas this year!

 

 

Back at home and in our matching, Christmas PJ's. One of the traditions we've started as a family is to open a new game on Christmas Eve and play together! This year was Hungry, Hungry Hippos!

 

 

They loved it! Mostly because it's loud and crazy, and it was so much fun!

 

 

Papa and Mimi taking their turn

 

 

Ready for bed and excited about Santa!!!

Meeting Santa

Tonight was our yearly visit with Santa at our local Chick-fil-A. We LOVE this CFA and they are always wonderful with kids! Bella does better with "new" experiences if we can tell her as much as possible of what is going to happen, so we walked her through the steps of meeting Santa. 

We told her that we would be eating dinner first, then Santa would come out and we would sit next to him, we had to smile for pictures, and then she could tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas.

Bella handled it like a rockstar! Steve and I made a huge deal about it when Santa walked out, and talked about how his reindeers were still up on the roof waiting for him. She got really excited and was in a great mood for our pictures! 

Evelyn was definitely not convinced! She's working on the same cough and cold that Bella already has, and she's been in a rough mood since we got home. As soon as I walked towards Santa, Evelyn started to lose it. Luckily, we were expecting this, so I just sat down next to Santa.

Our second "official" photo. Evelyn calmed down a lot once she realized I was going to hold her the entire time and Santa wouldn't touch her.

I love these pictures! Her facial expressions and little feet tucked up! They're just so precious! And I love the second one where it looks like she's so sure Santa's going to bring her exactly what she asked for!

We don't make a big deal about Santa, but we play along with the idea that he brings special presents for Christmas. Steve and I haven't figured out all the logistics of how Santa fits into our Christian Christmas, but for now, I love that he is part of the magic for her world! 

Breakfast At Bethlehem

Before we left for New York, Steve got to take Bella to our church's annual event for kids called Breakfast at Bethlehem. 

This was Bella's 2nd year, and she loves it! They have live animals, a nativity, and Pastor tells the Christmas story.

There are so many times when I'm the one that gets to do special things with the girls and at first-glance, they tend to prefer "Mommy", so I do everything I can to make sure the girls get one-on-one time with Daddy whenever possible!

We got a smile! They had such a great time together! Bella got to do a craft, and her friends David, Charli, and Molly were at the table with her! 

Bella got to feed the donkey and pet some chickens. When Joseph and Mary came out with Baby Jesus, Bella called out, "That's not Jesus! That's just a doll!"

I love that she and Steve got some special time together, and live animals are always a guarantee that she'll be happy!