A little more of our house

A couple posts back I had some ugly yellow and pink cabinets and I painted them black and added them to my office area. I really should have took my German dictionary into the store so I could have read everything on the paint. It took almost 4 days to fully dry :( and was greasy and incredibly thick and high gloss..... Oh well. They work :) I am looking forward to printing some art for the wall and getting some shelves too.

Joseph finished the table for me and one bench. Now we need to just make one more bench and get a few bar stools and be good to go.  It will be able to fit 10.  I love it.  I have used it for a buffett, art table, fort, meal time, playdough and sitting and talking at.  I have always wanted a counter height table. The buffet was used when we had 27 people over to our house. 12 adults and 15 kids. It was fun! The kids even emptied out my entire linen closet and made a huge jump into pit between Bridger and Gideon's beds.. :) The moms were nice to help me pick it up. It was a group of friends I have met at church. Really nice people.

The boys like being at the table.  They get up and down pretty easy.  Thank you Joseph!!

Our table is good for fort building too.

boys inside the fort... They pulled pillows and the rocking horse in and had some fun playing under there.

Christmas

So this has nothing to do with Christmas just someting I found on my yogurt.  They don't even sell regular yogurts around here, just "light"  I am telling you it is a bunch of propaganda.  I like eating healthy but the milk the yogurt and other things is just a bit too much.

These are some cabinets my friend gave me and that I will paint...  THey were spongebob cabinets.. YUK!  But the drawers roll out nicely :)

Ok now onto Christmas!

This is our attempt at a picture with all of us in it.  This is the best we could do.

Bridger and Gideon by the Christmas tree in their new PJ's from santas elves.

Bridger's new art set and using "one at a time"

Christmas morning about to open presents

Bridger's dragon

We had candelight in the room and they were more interested in the fire then they were in their stockings.

Bridger Boy

Their Tonka's.. a loader and dump truck

blowing candles out

getting the art kit

Gideon enjoying his art kit

Me on Christmas

Joseph

Ok so here are the boys in their new outfits from grandma and the table top Joseph built for me that needs legs and we will take care of that tomarrow!!  Yeah!!

I got Joseph a nice Smith and Wesson Military and Police pocket knife and 2 raquets and raquet balls to go on date night and play and have a little competition between us. :)

Christmas was wonderful.......

So I think we are inactive now.   THey canceled church AGAIN this morning.  It is starting to get really annoing.  Joseph said he would hit someone if they do it again.  It has been a month in a half since he has been able to go.  It sure would be nice if they held church for anyone willing to come and the rest of the scardycats can stay home.  So we had another church service at home and we learned about building on a firm foundation and we made pictures of our houses on big rocks adn sang the wise man built his house upon a rock.   Good Times!  Joseph and my house looked almost alike and we didn't even see eachothers till we were done :)  Funny!

A year in Pages

A quick look at the summary of my year in Pictures!

 

Family Pictures

Joseph going and coming from Basic training and Tech school

Road trips

Summer Fun

Saying our "See you laters"

The happenings lately

So we went to church last week but this morning we got a call that church was canceled due to a snow storm coming in. Well it is a good thing Donnelly didn't do this or we would go all winter with out church :) So we are chilling at home and I made some yummy carmel licorice. Really yummy! It is too bad for Joseph though, he hasn't been to church all month due to work and missing our ride and canceling church. Hopefully next week.

On Joseph's day off yesterday he went with one of our friends to go help a member in the ward move to a town about 30 minutes away. He left here 9:30 in the morning and didn't get home till 6:30 at night.....So much for having a day with daddy. It was a long day for him but I told him he would be blessed for it.

It has been snowing quite a bit here lately. I think people really freak out when it does. They shut down a lot of things due to it. I don't think they have enough snow plows to keep the roads clear. So that is why we are bumming it at home. :) We watched the Christmas devotional by the first presidency though and it was wonderful.

Bridger loves to play the bad guy lately and plays with a light saber or is red claw from the land before time series and goes around running after us with his "claws". Bridger is counting and drawing circles really well and loves to sing songs. and He likes to tell us the bunny story. So cute!

Gideon is always asking "what is 8+8 or what is does that say?" So I am looking forward to starting pre-school at the beginning of the year and workinig with him to help him learn to read and get better at math. He loves learning. He always has a new question for me every morning. "what is that dangly thing in your throat?" or "what does your ear drum look like" So we research the topic on the internet and he loves finding out more.

Here is a little tour of our home....The rest will come after a cleaning day :)

Our under the stairs play room

lounge area under there
Our stockings in the dining room :)
A friend was done with this and gave it to us. The boys have been drawing with chalk and crayons all day yesterday and today

We bought our first computer system. A printer, computer and monitor. We are very excited to have it. We are going to use our laptop for our pre-school computer to research, current events and learning games on.

We watched our first movie on our computer last night.....True Grit with John wayne as Rooster cogburn. Good ole' westerns.
This is our weekly schedule. Joseph has a interesting schedule so we worked with it and came up with pre-school days, cleaning days, play days and when we do things. This is our everyday calender that we can refer to when scheduling in other things.
Chilling in the play room

Our Tv, boy dress up :), and train area in the closet

Our pre-school area. We are excited to finish it up
THe lounge in the playroom. Planning on making a tent or tippi in here
The boys bedroom
Their beautiful quilts grandma Jarvis made for them

Our Neighborhood with the snow

My Sillies in front of the window
Gideon's Snow Angels
Go Gideon!

Oh how I love December

So yesterday we missed church due to us missing our shuttle ride because we can't drive our car because or temperary registration expires on friday and I went and got gas here on base on Saturday and when I went to go pay for $20 of gas I ended having to pay German prices which was $42 for gas.....That is like 7+ dollars for a gallon of gas. AAAaahhhhhh!!! That makes me not like Europe. So we came home from the bus stop in our church clothes adn had our own little meeting and devotional on feeling the promptings of the Holy Ghost and listening and being worthy to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost. It was fun. Then we chilled and watched scripture stories the rest of the day and played.

The boys watching scripture stories
Me leading the music for our "church meeting"
Me and my boys singing
Daddy and His boys leading another song
Bridger reading scriptures
Me and my boys!
Being silly
Pray, Laugh and Love
Our Christmas tree.... We are adding ornaments everyday that we make. So I will take another photo of it when there is more on it.
The boys marshmollow crafts....Bon Fires!
My nativity scene... The angel, The manger with a star, shepherd and sheep, a donkey, a cow, and mary and Joseph and baby Jesus.....Can you see any of them :)
I love you Grandma and Grandpa!! Jones and Jarvis
Table stuff I got at Airmans attic and I went in my yard and cut branches off of really small bushes to help make my house a little more beautiful.

So we are going to be finally getting our things (couches, beds, stuff) this upcoming friday. I am so excited. I also found out that it has been here in storage since the 23 of November but they don't let you know these things they just expect you to call on a daily basis and figure it out your selves. :P Anyway, So my plan is to hide away all the toys and playroom stuff and on Christmas Eve bring it all out and set it up for them. That should be fun. I am going to make under the stairs a playroom. They love it under there.
So like I said before Joseph is going to be deploying and we are excited for him but at the same time sad he has to go. This is what we have been planning on it just kinda sucks that here the deployments are every 6 months. I guess that is the joys of being over seas .....You are close to where they need you so that means more often. But we will do our best to make it a positive experience for our family. I am planning on coming home for a good amount of time during the deployment if finances allow me to. I will keep you posted on that.
Life is crazy and it really seems like the advisary works harder to make your day go bad around the holidays and when your trying. So we are just trying to stay above the water enough to breath fresh air and not let the bad things pull us down. We are excited for the Holiday season and we have Sssssssssssssoooooo much to be grateful for.