Catch-Up

This season is a whirlwind whether or not you intend to do anything. Seriously, busy. Last weekend was the worship arts concert that I was in. The choir didn't really sing much but we were on stage the whole time since it takes a long time to get a choir in place. And even though we didn't sing much it was really nice to be part of the whole thing. I was really impressed with the quality of music from the band and the amazing stuff that the dancers did. There were back flips and front flips and breakdance-looking-gymnastic-type-stuff. Overall it was really cool- I'm sad Travis missed it.

We had snow on Thursday! Which is where I got the new blog header. The girls and I had so much fun and it was that really wet, packing snow that is perfect for snowballs and snowmen. Chloe and Halle made me laugh because they'd make a snowball and throw it at each other but never hit the intended target. Chloe finally just pressed the snowball on Halle's back. Here are some pictures of the snow. Yes, my Thanksgiving pumpkin is still on my front step. I didn't get any pictures of the kiddos because the batteries died but you can see how much we got. I wish I'd had a sled. I did see deer tracks all over our backyard- super cool. Since I don't do any heavy duty gardening, I'm thinking of feeding them.

Travis has been sick for a week and we found out yesterday it's walking pneumonia. I had a temporary freak out feeling when he told me but it's called walking pneumonia for a reason. I'm not sure if I've ever seen Travis this sick for this long. He will have missed a week of work and with the week he took off for my grandma's funeral, I'm wondering if there will be any vacations this year.

Chloe had her school Christmas program last night. This is the first school that has had a Christmas program. I didn't take the video camera thinking that it would be hard to find a good spot to film. But as it turns out Amanda took a message from Chloe's school and mixed it up in such a way that we were 50 minutes early for the show- so we got a front row seat. Travis couldn't go and I was bummed but I remembered that my camera has a video feature and we purchased a 4 gig CF card for it this past weekend so I was able to record some of it- in 30 second intervals. Which you'll find below. It's pretty pixelized but hopefully Travis can pick Chloe out of the crowd. You can see her head right between the Asian girl and Indian boy on the front row. She was very excited about the whole thing and proved it by posing for the camera.

Ah, we're in the silly picture taking days- I'm so excited!

In other news we were able to refinance our house and signed the papers on that this past Monday. I have to admit that I've wondered if we really made a good choice buying this house. When we were buying it and expressed doubt, people would say "its in Franklin" as though that's the end all in buying destinations. I know in Middle TN there's the attitude that everything in Franklin is made with gold- but you've seen my house. Anyway, it did appraise and we're actually able to take some equity out (we had equity? who knew?) and put in new windows and some other yet to be determined improvements. I'm writing a check to the window guy tomorrow for 7 energy efficient windows! That's the whole house. They should be done by the middle of January, although I think rain could push it back to the beginning of February. I hope it's sooner though because I'm cold. I promised pictures of the house in my last post but I've only got this one.

See anything missing? Does this ring a bell?

I thought I'd taken more pictures of the window with the shutters so you'd probably only notice if you've been to my house. When I was painting the wood around the window, I couldn't leave the shutters unpainted because they'd be a different color. But have you ever tried to paint shutters? I finally decided that I didn't have the time and really needed a sprayer so I took them down. In the whole house there were only a couple of things that I liked and the shutters were one of those things. But in the end I think I like the look of the curtain better. It's a little less convenient but it's cute.

And lastly, we've decorated a bit around here. Amanda is crazy-excited this year and started decorating before I had a chance to. My mom gave us her Christmas village that Amanda has very fond memories of. She set that and the nativity up when we got back in town after Thanksgiving. I haven't taken pictures of the whole thing but here's a shot of my little sweeties putting the star on the top.

And that's a wrap. I'm not sure if I'll check in again before Christmas but I hope you all have a merry one.