Christmas in NC

We had such a nice time with my family. It went really quickly, even tho it was 10 days with 9 people in our house.  See my previous post about our night at ANNIE.  

Here a few more pictures from our Christmas in NC:

Lily & Daddy building a fire on Christmas Eve

Lily got roller skates from Auntie Em....watch out!

The girls with Grandpa & Grandma

All 10 of us (Chris & Lindsay are expecting in June)

Bowling...Lily loved it

Chris & Lindsay & our girls

I just had to document that I bowled a turkey & beat everyone

A HUGE thanks to our family for helping with painting at the new house, watching the girls, the making of many meals, and keeping everything running for 10 days.  Our girls got pretty sick over the holidays (Lily had a 104 fever & an her first ear infection); my mom was a huge help.

ANNIE

This year, my side of the family is here for Christmas in NC.  Last year we told our families that we just can't buy plane tickets twice a year anymore.  We were so excited when my family said they would come to us.  We had thought we would be having a quiet Christmas with just the four of us. Anyways, Jake & I decided to do an event for everyone's Christmas gift.  We found out that Thalian Hall was putting on ANNIE, so we got tickets.

Lily LOVES Annie.  She thought it was pretty cool to "meet" Annie after the play.

Merry Christmas from the Flaming's

House progress

A little update on the "new" house. After one coat of primer & three coats of paint on each side the kitchen cabinets are painted (touched up) & all back together. Jake primed & painted the original hardware.  This weekend Jake worked on the recessed lighting. The plywood is down, the new sink has arrived & Jake is going to do concrete counters. It's going to be lovely!

Other projects we've been working on: peeling off wallpaper (thankfully only a border) in three rooms. Preparing the walls for paint (Jake's on his second 5 gallon bucket of drywall mud). Removing hideous lighting & putting in recessed lighting.  Removing unnecessary doors & walling it up. 

advent calendar 2012

Remember last year, when I made our advent calendar? 

Well, last year it was rather difficult to find tiny gifts for each pocket, as well as gifts that didn't cost too much.  This year I decided to do something different for the advent calendar.

 I saw THIS idea on Pinterest & decided to do something similar to fill our advent calendar.

Here are our 25 activities for our advent calendar:

1. Read "The Secret of the Star"
2. Play Candyland
3. Draw pictures & mail to Grandpa & Grandma
4. Paint Lily & Mommy's toenails
5. Make popcorn & watch "Charlie Brown Christmas"
6. Get in the car & go look at Christmas lights
7. Read "All is Well"
8. Go get Frosty's at Wendy's
9. Ride the Polar Express at Mayfaire
10. Paint a picture with watercolors
11. Read Luke 2
12. Go get ice cream at Cold Stone (we have gift cards to use up)
13. Get out the beads & make a necklace
14. Get out the jingle bells & sing
15. Have hot cocoa with marshmellows
16. Go carol to Papa & Nonnie
17. Make a Christmas craft with Mom
18. Go see Santa at Mayfaire
19. Read "You are Mine"
20. Make a Christmas tree out of play-dough
21. Read "A Tale of Three Trees"
22. Turn on some Christmas music & make latte's once the girls are in bed
23. Decorate Cookies
24. Open up the Christmas Eve box
25. Make Jesus a birthday cake.  Open presents - Merry Christmas!

Ella - 6 months

Our "little" Ella turned 6 months on Friday.
She is 18 pounds 10 ounces & 26 1/2 inches long.
Ella, at 6 months, outweighs Lily at ONE year (Lily was 18 pounds 6 ounces).

Ella is so sweet & smiley.  She is a content baby.  She rolls over belly to back & is so close to roll over back to belly.  I think her chubby thighs are preventing her.  No crawling yet; she is content to relax & hang out.

nap time PINspiration

Yesterday during nap time I had a lot of go-get-em & some PINspiration.  I got a bunch of things crossed off my To Do List.  Here are a few of them:

A pom-pom garland for Lily's Christmas tree that she can decorate & redecorate.

Idea from HERE.

Felt wipes for Lily's babies.
Ok, so this only entailed cutting pieces of felt into rectangles to fit into her wipes container, BUT, my sewing/craft supplies are in Ella's room & I usually don't remember until Ella is already asleep.
Idea from HERE.

A JOY sign for outdoors.  This is in process.
I still need to do another coat of the red lettering & then sand & distress it.
Idea from HERE.

A holiday pallet sign for our dining room.
Idea from HERE.

Best part - all of these projects were FREE.

I used up supplies I already had laying around.

Thanksgiving week

We have had a lot of family come visit us this past week over Thanksgiving.  LOVED it! Anna flew in last Sunday (see previous post).  Then my Grandpa & Grandma arrived Tuesday night.  Emily drove up Wednesday afternoon.  Anna headed back Wednesday evening and the rest of our family just left this afternoon.  

My Grandparents came to visit us on there way to their winter home in Florida.  It was SO much fun having them at our home.  Grandma & Lily played dolls.

Grandpa & Jake worked on the new house.  They started off under the house in the crawlspace.  They moved around the plumbing & soldered some pipes. They came home filthy every day.

The toilet plumbing was in the hole in the bottom of the picture.  It is now moved into the former closet that we added to the bathroom.  See this post.

After they cleaned up, Grandpa & Ella snuggled on the couch.  I absolutely love how Ella is just staring up at Grandpa in this picture.

Grandpa & Jake also worked on door frames.

 Great-Grandpa & Great-Grandma & the girls.

deja vu

Jake put Ella up on his shoulders tonight & it reminded me of this....Thanksgiving 2010.

I gave Ella her first cereal last night. 

It reminded me of when I fed Lily her first cereal.  

aunt anna's visit

Aunt Anna flew in last Sunday evening.  We had a lot of fun having her here.  We picked seashells at the beach, went to Lily's dance class, visited Jake at school, went downtown & just hung out.  Anna stayed until Wednesday evening. Thanks for visiting us, Anna! Come again soon.

Anna & Lily at Port City Java

Group Hug

 Anna & the girls

Our 20 pound butterball!

more demolition pics

Well...we think all the demolition phase of the house is done.  We're bottomed out - it can't look much worse.  Here are some pics:

Walled up the closet on the left to add that space to the main hall bath that we gutted.

Added former closet space to the main hall bath.  The door used to hit the toilet when you opened it.  This weeks project is moving the toilet plumbing.

We've been working on the kitchen.  Priming soffitting & cabinets.  I have been painting the cabinet doors at home during the girl's afternoon nap. We had originally wanted to gut the kitchen, but it is just too expensive.

This weekend Jake & a friend worked on taking out the half bath in the salon.  We are converting the salon into a master bedroom & bath suite.  The half bath was at the end of that wall.  He then took out the wall to the left to add a doorway into the master bath.  Jake also removed the salon hair washing sink & patched up the drywall.

Now it's time to start putting it all back together.
Please continue to pray that our current house will sell. It's been on the market for one month.

Ella - 5 months

 Happy 5 month Birthday to ELLA!

Ella  (also affectionately called.... chub-a-lub, chubs, Hoss, Ella-Bella, turkey-lurkey, drooley-magooley, etc...)
Ella is so happy & smiley. We just love her.
She just figured out rolling over (belly to back) on Sunday.  She is a belly sleeper so when she ends up on her back she just plays with her feet.  Nap time has become a little more complicated.

Love these two.
So thankful that God has blessed us with them.

tip tap toe

Today the girls were encouraged to dress up for dance class, since Halloween is Wednesday.  I threw a pair of wings on Lily with her leotard & tutu & called it a BUTTERFLY!  Here are Lily's classmates: 

We had a pirate, butterfly, dalmatian, princess, witch, tin man, pumpkin, etc...

They're so cute & even cuter when they are "dancing."