I'm so proud of Karilyn

On Sunday, Karilyn sang for two services in her Cherub Choir, recited part of a verse, and also played Mary in her Sunday school play. I was feeling rather apprehensive about the whole thing. I was worried we'd get sick, or Karilyn would be nervous or who knows!

The singing was first. Another mom and I stayed in back of the kids for the performances to make sure no one fell off the bleachers and to keep them "in line". They did really well for the first service. When it came time to exit the stage some of the kids went over to the other side of the stage to say their verse, while the other mom and I were supposed to help the rest exit. It didn't go so well. Some of the kids followed the other ones, one walked across the stage in the back, and one went down the steps to find her mom. I was chasing kids everywhere, in front of everyone. Yikes. I'm sure it was probably pretty humorous. It went okay during the rehearsal, so I didn't see this coming.

The second performance didn't go as smoothly as the first. Some of them were sitting, some were moving all over the place, others weren't really singing. But the exit process went well, thanks to my fear of not wanting to chase kids all over the stage again.


Then it was time for the play. Karilyn did so well. She was beaming as Mary. She looked so sweet doing all her things perfectly, except when she almost dropped baby Jesus on his head. Too bad I didn't get a picture of that.

A puncture wound, a sliced finger, and several bruises later...

We have safer basement stairs!

I've always wanted to have our basement steps carpeted, it made me so nervous that someone could fall and get really hurt. It problem is though, I'm cheap! However, now that we are going to be using our basement more frequently, especially after Christmas, I wanted to feel safer about having the girls walk up and down the steps, especially Heidi. So I thought, how hard could it be?

I gave myself a budget of $100 and did some research. I wanted to surprise Dave and have it be one of his Christmas presents. I got all the tools I needed on Monday and went to the Habitat Restore to get the carpet and pad yesterday. I went over my budget by about $20, but I got really nice carpet.

I got to work after lunch and got 4 steps completely finished before I punctured my leg with a utility knife. Ouch! Simultaneously, Heidi woke up from her nap, prematurely, and was screaming her head off. So I called Dave, who was due home anyway. By now, he figured out what I was doing. So he came home and helped me finish. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of ME carpeting the stairs, and I did most of it. Oh well.




Don't look too closely!

The sliced finger was Dave's, on a pair of scissors, and the bruises are all mine.

The After Pictures

I'm bummed that I didn't think to get "before pictures". I spent the weekend cleaning up the basement. It was really bad! There was rice EVERYWHERE from our rice box. There were also all kinds of toys, books, and various trash items spread everywhere. I was at the point of not letting anyone down there as I would have died of embarrassment.

My motivation to clean all started Friday night when Dave and I went to an auction. I'm kind of a chicken at auctions and I'm afraid to raise my little yellow card up, so I missed out on some things. I'm hoping to get over my timidness because I really enjoy getting good deals and the whole auction atmosphere is fun, except when it's really cold like it was on Friday night.

Anyway, we weren't going to go to the auction but my mom and I just happened upon it as we were driving home from Ikea. At Ikea I bought 2 bins, a broom and a dust pan, a real exciting trip. Anyway, I am so glad we stopped at the auction.

They had a $1,900 school bus indoor play set thing. We waited and waited for the bidding to start. When it did, I handed my yellow card over to Dave and told him I didn't want to go higher than $250. I knew it was a long shot, as I thought it would go for at least $1000. I was sad when the bidding go up to $250, but then Dave bid $300 as I gasped and nearly fell off my chair. I sat there as the auctioneer did his thing, "Do I hear a $350...$350...an all maple play set...think of the grand kids...do I hear a $350?" Then after a minute he pounded his little gavel and said, "sold to seller #73." We won, I was so happy.

It's kind of cool, I had a bit of a disappointing week and I was questioning some of God's plans. I feel like God put this there for us, I've always wanted one, but knew that we couldn't fork out $2000 for one. I've had that happen countless times before, where I've wanted something or needed something and God puts it right in front of my face for free or a small amount of money. Sometimes I've had to wait a couple of years, but his timing is always worth the wait.

Anyway, I couldn't put a nice, new play set down in our dirty basement, so that's where my motivation came from. The plan is to build it on Christmas eve and surprise the girls with it. We also have a rope ladder and rings to hang.

So here are the pictures:




I did this all by myself, well almost, Dave moved a white chair for me. He was busy insulating our garage.

I'll post pictures of the new play set after Christmas.

My favorite Quote and our Christmas lights

Karilyn got herself dressed today and said:

"I don't really kind of feel like matching much today."

In an effort to spend more time together as a family this year we are doing The 12 Dates of Christmas. We did our first one today. We took Karilyn and Heidi to see Santa. Okay, so we don't believe in Santa at our house, but they were having a santa party at my OB's office and Karilyn and Heidi LOVE going there, so I thought they would have fun. They'll be so excited, I have an appointment tomorrow too. You would be able to see Karilyn's newborn picture on the wall behind santa if the tree wasn't blocking it, and if the picture was a little bit bigger.

And here is our house all decorated:

I walked out across the wet street in my socks to get the picture. And yes, the lights over the garage aren't cooperating, thanks for noticing.

And, oh dear, Dave got another deer. A doe, I asked him if we could actually keep some of the meat this time.

Professional Gingerbread house makers, WATCH OUT!

We created some "really cool" houses today. Shall I enter them in a contest?





The pictures just don't do them justice, they are even more awful in real life. I'm really bad at gingerbread houses!