the new FAMILY ROOM and KITCHEN

the long awaited addition pictures.... this post is of the new family room and kitchen. when we got home from thanksgiving they set the kitchen cabinets and put in the granite counter tops, painted walls, did the stone work on the fire place... by that next friday dave and i were moving in the furniture and loading stuff back into the kitchen. we just love it! i am so proud of dave and the man he is. he is an incredible builder but also so smart with money. we were able to refinance our house now with the addition and our mortgage is going to be the same it was without the addition! God has been so good to place all the right people in the right places to help us get this awesome deal. we are truly blessed and have made a decision to always have the house filled with the lord and his plans for our family. as our children grow up, we want our house to be a place they WANT to bring their friends to. i heard of a family that had a chest freezer in the garage and it was always stocked with frozen pizza and ice cream so when their kids brought friends over there was always something to eat. my prayer is to always be able to have a freezer full of food and house full of friends to eat it :)

dave built the book cases on either side of the fireplace as well
looking into the kitchen... the kitchen is part of the original house.

we didnt change the size of the kitchen at all just moved the stove to the other side of the kitchen and opened the wall up. we did get new cabinets and counter tops and i just love them.



more to come....

ice

we have had a pretty crazy winter here already with a few days in the teens all day. the kids have been out of school for 6 days already due to snow and ice. they were excited. they got a three week christmas break. me, not so much. i had big plans on doing finishing touches on the house and getting ready for christmas. instead we made salt dough ornaments and little kids projects.

the ice day was so beautiful so i went out to take a few photos. when i was out, i slipped an fell! it made me feel like such an old lady. my side still hurts actually. oh well.

picking out a tree

i love going to pick out a christmas tree. i especially love it when it is snowing when we do :) we were lucky the night we went. it started snowing while we were there. the kids had a ball running through the trees and were super excited about the snow.

getting so grown up and handsome. see he finally has two front teeth again. :) i has been 5 1/2 years since we have seen him with two front teeth.

we found the perfect tree and its snowing!!

and this is how jori helped us find the tree. snuggled up asleep in the warm car.

dedication dress

mom these are for you! sorry it took me so long to get these pictures of the gorgeous baby in a beautiful dress up for you to see. love you, thanks again!

sweet sisters

these days it seems the girls are either best friends or bitter enemies and it can change in the blink of an eye. i guess that is how girls are though, right? i just love this picture as you can just see how much they care for and love each other. this was taken after church and the girls are wearing the dresses my mom made.

and last but not least... the real life photo :)

jori's dedication

well, the blog marathon didnt happen because my internet was acting funny. so i will try again.

the sunday after thanksgiving we had jori dedicated back home at our church in tennessee. we drove all through the night saturday to get back for sunday morning. the kids did great. mom and dad were a little sleepy. we wanted to do it at this time because two of our good friends were also having their daughters dedicated at the same service. jori is the first of our children to not be dedicated at Spanish River, our church in Florida, but it was important for us to have hers done with the good friends we have made here.

while we were in florida for thanksgiving mom whipped up this beautiful dress for jori. i mean seriously, it took me longer to pick out the fabrics than it did for her to sew it. she is so good! it turned out just beautiful and we picked fabrics that would match dresses that she had made for the girls as well. it was both traditional, in that is was long, and non-tradational, in that it was not all white. i just love the way it turned out. thanks so much mom! you are the best!

thanksgiving 2010

a quick thanksgiving recap....

we SO enjoyed being in WARM sunny south florida for thanksgiving. the kids did great traveling down there and loved every minute of being at grams, papa p's and kenzie's house.
the thanksgiving table was beautiful and prepared by many hands. dave shot another wild turkey this year so we brought that down and cooked it on the grill again. mom cooked a traditional bird in the oven, so yummy. aunt donna, uncle john and jessie were all in town and helped with the cooking as well. grandma and aunt margaret brought over some food as well.

the day after thanksgiving we went out shopping on black friday. i didnt get up as early as mom and aunt donna but met up with them for the fun and good deals. we did get some really great deals. dave always thinks it is so crazy what they do, but it pays off. i love to watch mom and aunt donna get so giddy about the deals :)
saturday the girls helped gram make monkey bread while we waited for aunt nicole to arrive. she had to work at the hospital for thanksgiving day and the day after. we didnt get to visit with her as long as we would have liked, but we sure enjoyed the time we did have.
uncle scott and aunt nicole loved spending time with jori and jori loved it too :)

the kids had a great time with my cousin jessie as well. she is great with them.
then we took advantage of everyone being in one place and set up the tripod and took some family photos.

so that was our thanksgiving. we had a great time while we were there and then came home to more things being done in the house. we were excited to get all the finishing touches done.

friends

ok so get ready for a little blog marathon... they will be short and sweet but i want to get these blogged before the end of the year.

while we were down in florida for thanksgiving, i was able to meet up with a childhood friend while she was down visiting florida as well. we were best buds growing up. abby was in my wedding and even though we dont live anywhere near each other for years we have kept in touch and i am so thankful that we have.

she has a sweet little daughter ellie that i got to meet for the first time. it was a great little visit. i am so thankful for the little visits that help keep our friendship going.

4 months

alright.... so i am going way back here now to catch myself back up. yesterday jori turned 5 months, but this will be all about her being 4 months old.

jori is officially a thumb sucker like her sister brenna. i have been fighting it hard to not let her suck it. i loved when brenna first started to suck her thumb. it was so darn cute. now as a three year old who has her hand into everything and then puts her thumb in her mouth it drives me crazy. when i saw that jori kept finding her thumb i would take it right out and give her the paci back. jori got to the point where she would pull the paci right back out and drop it. smart little kid! so i have given in... she is an official thumb sucker.
jori also found that she has toes! she love them! she even sucks her big toe sometimes like it is her thumb.
- a few other stats (i have been SO bad at writing down everything jori has done. i was so good with the first three, but have been terrible with jori, so sorry sweet baby)

- she has ben sleeping 7 to 8 hour stretches, still in the cradle next to our bed, while the guys worked on her new room

- so playful, loves when the big kids talk to her

- weighs 17 lbs

- likes to sit in bumbo seat

- loves to play in exersaucer

- just before she turned 5 months i gave her some prunes to help move things along and she ate them up like candy! we will be working on cereal soon.

so behind again

well i am so behind again. sorry no pics of the addition yet. we are living in it and enjoying it just still not done. tools still here and there an rooms to be painted. i still want to blog about thanksgiving, joris dedication, we have had 4 snow days already where the kids were out of school. it is has been crazy. so hang in there with me and i promise i will get some blogging done soon.