Some Photographic Evidence of Change

I realize there are far fewer than necessary photos of the house, but so far not much has taken place that's photo-worthy. There are a lot of really large holes in rooms that we worked really hard on, (anyone who has been in our house knows how proud I am of the paint jobs in the dining room, movie room and GraceAnne's room. Yepp--all ruined). Then the exterior guys pressure washed the house and sanded it, but you can't really tell that by the photos, either. Stupid crappy camera. So instead, let me entertain you with my adorable daughters:
We "made" gingerbread cookies. It's been really hard for me to get into the holiday spirit since I can't decorate, can't have a tree, we're not really going all out for gifts this year, etc. SO..while at HEB feeling sorry for myself, Violet and I decided we'd get a gingerbread cookie kit and force the holiday spirit. I really didn't even want to decorate the darned things, (not like it's hard), but after GraceAnne was so stinkin' excited to see the kit and begged me to turn on Christmas music, I had to smile. After I took a couple of sips of homemade hot cocoa with marshmallows, helped her decorate her first gingerbread men and heard 'Silverbells' I was sold. It is Christmas, tree-be-damned!
And what better gift than a tiny smiley baby? She's so darned sweet!

As far as the house is concerned, some pretty major changes have taken place in the last two days. Apparently hell has frozen over and the electricians decided to show up and actually do some work. They've even got their "rough" inspection done. There are now new light switches and outlets and new lights and new wiring...we'll have a doorbell wired in and our smoke alarms, (omg, we have more than one!?), will be wired in, too. Obviously none of that is very interesting in photographs.
The porch, however, ROCKS THE HOUSE! Or rather, preceeds it. I didn't know they were going to do this, so it's a Christmas surprise and I was SO EXCITED to watch them pull the boards off this morning. They were so rotted and disgusting and covered with about 20 coats of ugly paint. It's completely done now with nice new boards, but I haven't taken a picture of the new porch yet. Allan told me I should go out there, but seeing as it's in the 20's tonight and I'm in my skivvies already I'm not going anywhere. He said he didn't feel like hopping out there, either. Guess you'll have to wait. No whining...we've done our fair share of waiting on all of this, too!

Hope ya'll are having a great holiday season! We love and miss you all :)