Christmas decorations

Here are some pictures of our house decorated for Christmas:
The Nativity scene always takes it's place of honor centered under the tree. The wisemen are on the table in the kitchen... they are still on their way! :-)
A wreath my SIL, Rachael made for us for Christmas last year, and a snowflake bell door chime that another SIL, Julie, gave me for Christmas many years ago.

A sled that a friend, Dawn, made for me for Christmas probably 8 years ago now.
Candy Cane snowman. He's funky, but a dear friend gave him to me, so...

Side table in the kitchen... the wisemen are on here now.
The dining room

My kitchen windowsill

My one shelf in the living room :-)

Putting the tree up
Chris and I started a tradition of getting a personalized ornament every year with our names and the year on it. We didn't get one last year b/c of $ issues, but we're planning on making up for that this year. Anyway, here are the ornaments all together, and below are pics of them on the tree. I couldn't get a half-way decent one of the snowflake due to the reflection. Anyway, here they are...
Our first Christmas 2000
2001
2002
2004

2005

A large barn star ornament I made at a stamping party this year

the small barn star we made

A snowflake ornament that I made years ago. I have about 2 dozen of them on my tree. I love them!

The tree during the day

At night with the niches lit up as well.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Our house ~ decorated mostly my way!

Trying to catch up...

OK, bear with me here as I try to catch up on blogging before I don't have internet access for at least a week!

The last 2 Saturdays, Chris and I have gone to Louisville Bats games. It is great fun (yes, I'm starting to really LIKE baseball!), and a great way to spend Saturday evenings rather just sitting at home watching TV. The mascot is hilarious, and though the Bats have lost every game, it's just fun being at the game. When we went on the 7th, there was a family sitting in front of us with a little baby boy. For the last 2 innings, the baby just smiled and laughed at me while I made faces at him (he couldn't have been much more than 6 months old.) He was adorable. They also had a guy doing juggling acts between innings. He actually juggled 3 real running chainsaws. It was pretty cool.

This past week, the only entertainment was the mascot. He is great, and does a great job of getting people involved. Both days ended with gorgeous sunsets.

We saw something unusual on the way home from church last night... 2 metro Louisville police officers... driving 4 wheeler ATV's down the road. Now, I've seen police officers on horses, bikes, motorcycles, Segways, and in cars and SUV's, but never on 4 wheelers!

Here is another funny story (at least to me!) A few weeks ago on the way home from church Chris and I were driving through downtown (rather than on the interstate). We stopped at a stoplight right at the bottom of an exit ramp from the interstate that is closed for construction. Also at the bottom of this ramp is a police officer sitting in a car with the lights flashing to keep people from the construction site. Well, we stopped at the light and sat there for almost 30 seconds, then all of the sudden Chris started to drive. Now, of course, you may not think this is any big deal... until you find out that the light WAS STILL RED!!!! Apparently Chris was watching the next light down (which had just turned green) instead of the light we were sitting at! Now, every time we go by that light, Chris says something to the effect of, "You know, I saw someone run this light the other day. I mean, they stopped and everything, and sat there for a while, and then drove right through the red light." To which I always crack up laughing!

We went to closing today, and now OFFICIALLY ARE HOMEOWNERS AGAIN! Most of our stuff is packed, but Chris is working on packing the electronics tonight. The movers come tomorrow morning at 9 am. I am so excited that I get to UNPACK finally! The house is so nice, and the man that sold it to us is a dental hygenist. This translates into the fact that he did tons of work on the house, and did it PERFECTLY! The house was basically spotless when I did the walk-through this afternoon. The guy is super nice, and incredible helpful.

OK - I know I had tons more to post about than this, but I'm tired and I can't remember what I was going to tell you. Oh, yeah... on July 3rd, Chris and I got back some results from our infertility testing. The doc told us that it is POSSIBLE for us to have our own biological children, but not probable without some outside help. He is doing some further testing, and we should know what all of our options are after Wednesday. We probably won't act on anything for a while, but it is such a relief to have some answers, and above that, some hope! Of course, we serve the God of the impossible, so you never know what might happen! We're just waiting for His direction and timing in this area of our lives.

On Sunday, Chris and I celebrate our 7th anniversary. I just want to tell you all that I am so blessed to have Chris as my husband. We've been through a lot, but I'm thankful for such a Godly, loving, thoughtful husband. I could go on and on about what I love about him, but I'll spare you all the MUSH! :-) This Saturday we leave for my surprise anniversary get-away. I only know that we are leaving at 2 pm on Saturday and coming back sometime Tuesday morning. Other than that, I have no clue as to any other plans.

I won't have internet for the next week at least due to the move and phone service not being hooked up until the 20th, then waiting again for DSL, and being gone for the weekend. So - hope you all have a GREAT week! When I get back, I'm planning on posting some of our wedding pics and some pictures of us "through the years." Stay tuned... I'll be back! :-)

Busy

Wow - it seems like there is so much that I want to blog about, but time just slips by and the posts don't get done. I guess it doesn't really matter all that much to anyone but me. I love having this blog more for a journal for myself than for other people, but I'm glad that others read it, too!

Well, as you can tell from my most recent posts, we have been busy with trying to get everything worked out with the house. We were able to get our financing finalized on Friday, and Chris went and signed everything with the finance guy today. He is bringing home a huge stack of papers for me to sign tonight, and we should be "good to go" for closing on July 16th.

I also was busy last week trying to find a dress to wear to my brother's wedding this Saturday. It's kind of hard for me to believe that my baby brother is old enough to be married (he's eight years younger than me.) Anyway, I was hoping to have lost enough weight to get into an outfit I already had, but it didn't work out that way. It's pretty close, and I probably COULD wear it, but it doesn't look GREAT yet. It is a wedding, after all, though not mine, and there will be a lot of pictures taken. I want to look nice! So, my dear husband, (in spite of the fact that he has given me about $200 for stamps in the past couple months) graciously said that I could buy a new dress if I could get one for $25.

Now, I have lost over 20 pounds, which makes shopping very awkward due to the fact that I am in between sizes. (I actually am wearing a size 12 skirt today, and it is not skin-tight! That's a huge deal!) I still am not, by any stretch, thin, so all of those super cute dresses that are made out of bias cut fabric or stretchy (show every curve ~ or in my case, bulge) fabric are not flattering to my figure. The other problem I ran into is that I found some faux wrap dresses that looked pretty good, but were both out of my price range and required some sort of tank or camisole underneath to be modest. This would have increased the spending even more, and I couldn't do that.

Well, after searching high and low, driving all over the greater Louisville metro area, and shopping til I felt like dropping, I finally found a dress. Chris wasn't sure about it, as it has a fairly busy print on it, and he says that it's "not my usual style." However, after watching TLC's What Not to Wear, I am trying to CHANGE my style a little bit to wear things that are more flattering. ANYWAY, I wore it to church yesterday as a "test run" and received MANY compliments on it. I guess that means it will be pretty decent for the wedding. I'll post a picture of it after this weekend. That pretty much took up 2 whole days to find that dress!

This past Thursday, I spent a lot of time at our new house with the home inspector (that's why I was able to take all the pictures I posted last week. After that, I went shopping dress shopping. While I was out, I took a shopping break from dresses and went into a flea market. I was thrilled to find this: I have been looking for something like this for over a year now. I saw it and it screamed "Buy me, Buy me!" It was only $3.50, and I just happened to have the cash on me (and I very RARELY carry cash!) My kitchen is decorated in coffee and gingerbread men, so this was PERFECT. You can't much beat the price, either!

Saturday night, we went to a Louisville Bats game (Triple-A minor league baseball.) Chris' boss is a season ticket holder, and Chris was able to get our tickets for free. We went with our friends, John and Heidi, and had a great time. It was very ironic that the date we were able to go was also the date that the Bats were playing the Pawtucket Red Sox (farm team for the Boston Red Sox). Of course, my die hard Red Sox fan-addict husband was thrilled about that! The Red Sox actually won the game 4-1 after about an hour rain delay. Chris and I had to laugh about that... the 5 or 6 games we attended last year all had some kind of rain delay. We had a great time, though, and it was nice to get out and do something, rather than stay at home all the time. I'll have to post pictures of that another time, too.

I got new stamps yesterday... just a Gingerbread wheel that was retiring, but since my kitchen is gingerbread men, I had to get it... just in case I need more curtains, or want to make other decorative items with my dear little gingerbread men! Also, I got a set that is square decorative frames. I'm planning to use it more as a background than anything, but it, too, was retiring. When I make some cards, I'll post them.

I have a problem! I think I am allergic to my wedding ring! Now, I know that sounds crazy, but I'm totally serious. Up until November, I had worn my wedding ring every single day without removing it for any reason with no problems. The beginning of November, my finger started to break out. It gets very itchy, then gets red and little blisters begin to form. (I don't have this problem with any of my other rings, or on any other finger!) My nursing director thinks it is some kind of fungal infection from washing my hands so much and getting soap and water underneath my ring. Anyway, I was forced to stop wearing it for a while. Then when my finger healed, I would start wearing it again, and it would do it all over again. Recently, I would just wear my ring on my days off, and it was fine. Yesterday, I wore my ring all day and also when I went to bed. I took extra care to take it off and dry my finger and the under side of my ring each time I washed my hands. This morning I woke up, and my finger was itchy, red and very swollen. I took my ring off, and there were tiny blisters under where my ring was. I wish I knew what the problem was! I love my wedding ring, and I HATE not wearing it! Chris always asks me if I'm still married, even if I don't wear my ring. I told him he can't get rid of me that easily! Besides, in case anyone were to look, the big red mark on my finger should be enough evidence that I have SOME kind of ring that I wear on that finger!

Other than that, I can't think of anything major going on. Have a wonderful day. I'll post some new pictures one of these days when I get a chance! :-)

Virtual Tour of Our New House!

Welcome to the tour of our new house! I know there are a lot of pictures, but it gives you a better feel of what it really looks like. Unfortunately (in my opinion) the Louisville skyline art piece doesn't stay, nor does the dining room or living room furniture, which I LOVE! Oh, yeah, the big flat screen TV doesn't stay, either. We will be painting the kitchen burgundy for sure, and I would like to paint the 2 guest bedrooms eventually as well, but that can wait. I am SO excited! We did have a little "hiccup" with our financing... a bunch of the banks didn't want to count Chris' income b/c it is commission based and he's only been there for 6 months (they want to see a yearly average). However, today we got a lender, so all should be OK. Enjoy the tour!

Closing date and new website

Dawn... this is just for you... we are set to close on the house July 16th. Everything should be fine since the house is only 4 years old, and financing shouldn't be a problem. However, there is always that chance...

Also, I wanted to let everyone that is interested know that I started a new blog specifically to post pictures of my cards, cross-stitches, crafts, etc. The name is "Stamps, Scraps, Stitches-n-Stuff". I haven't posted any of my stuff yet, but there is a welcome post on there. Keep checking it... I'm going to try to post all of my old stuff on there as quickly as possible. :-)

In case you're interested...

... here are pictures of the house (from the listing.) They don't really do the house justice at all, but it will give you somewhat of an idea of what it is like. We're painting the kitchen/eat-in area burgundy before we move in.

The front of the house
A little closer...Landscaping...
Kitchen (from the eat-in area)
Eat-in area (view from living room)
Entry door/staircase to basement (not even close to what the rest of the living room looks like!)

Master Bedroom

Bedroom 1 (office or stamping room or guest room?)

We have the house!!!

As I wrote in a previous post... we had an offer on the house... and now we have it!! We accepted the seller's counter-offer which basically only raised the price of the house back up to the asking price, which was his bottom line. He is leaving the fridge, moving out at closing, and we get $5,000 back at closing. We talked to our pastor, who said it was a great buy... seeing as the prices are going up, we really like the house, it's in a good neighborhood, and it will have great resale value if we finish out the basement. So - we are homeowners again... contingent on home inspection and closing, etc. YEAH!!! I AM SO EXCITED!!! I already have ideas of how to decorate... :-) I'll be interested to see how things come out in decorating, since I REALLY haven't gotten a whole lot of a chance to do that yet, even in our old house (due to all of the remodeling/renovating we were doing.)

One more thing that I forgot to mention. Please pray for my family... and my dad's side of the family. My dad's mom, Grandma, passed away on Tuesday. It was time for her to go; she's had dementia and has not known people for probably 6 years now. The saddest thing is that she was unsaved, as is most of my dad's family. My parents are in MN now. The wake is tonight, and the funeral tomorrow. My sister and her family were able to make it as well. Please pray that they get the opportunity to share the good news and hope of the Gospel with my dad's family.

Also, please keep 2 of my brothers-in-law in your prayers. Both of them are looking for work after losing their jobs. Pray that the Lord provides jobs for them quickly, and that the Lord provides for the needs of them and their families while they are looking. Thanks! :-)

Update

Wow - it seems like FOREVER since I posted... (has it really been OVER a week?!?!?!) Much has been happening here this week, so I'll try to keep it short and sweet, but get you "up to speed" on the Mitchell Mania.

First of all, rather than posting on my blog, I have been going crazy trying to get cards stamped for the various happenings going on in our families, etc. I have also been working like crazy trying to get Nathan & Caroline's cross-stitch done so that I could get it framed and back in my hands BEFORE their wedding. I have difficulty finishing cross-stitch projects in the time that I would like to have them done, mostly due to the fact that I have little time where I feel like I can really sit down and cross-stitch without having something else I SHOULD be doing. However, I discovered that I can now incorporate stamping with cross-stitch. Combining these two crafts may help me cut down my stitching time, as well as make more unique gifts. My problem with cross-stitching is that I usually make my own patterns by hand, so I have to figure out all of the color combinations, etc, as well as the design. I just have so much trouble liking any COMPLETE cross-stitch patterns that I already have. Also, because I make my own patterns, they don't usually fit in a standard sized frame. This means that sometimes I cannot frame them myself, which also requires extra time to get them completed for an occasion. ANYWAY, I did get the cross-stitch done, and it should be framed and ready by the 25th, and we leave for the wedding on the 29th. (I will post pictures in another post in a few minutes.)

The other BIG event that is happening... actually as I post this... is we are buying a house! I know that was quick, huh? It has only been about 2 weeks since we started looking for a house. We met our realtor (referred to us by our realtor in MD) on Thursday morning. He did an excellent job for us before we even met him! He sent us a bunch of listings prior to Thursday morning, and we weeded out the ones that we were not interested in at all. Then he took us to I think 10 houses Thursday morning. Only 2 of them were we REALLY interested in, and after Jason (our realtor) doing some homework for us, and Chris and I really discussing the pros/cons of the 2 houses, we decided on the second one we had seen. We met with Jason this morning to write up an offer, and Chris just called me to tell me that the seller had counter-offered. We are accepting his counter-offer, which is about $2400 more than our offer, but he is leaving the refridgerator (which is worth it to me at this point.) Also, we will be able to move in upon closing. Apparently, in this market here, refrigerators don't come with the houses, and sellers will sometimes stay in the house for 30 days after closing. That is just non-sense to me!! Why would I allow you to stay in my house for an additional 30 days, when it is now MY HOUSE??? Anyway, maybe by the time I'm done posting this, I'll be able to tell you if we are buying the house for sure! :-)

My Lil' D is back from the hospital, and has been for a week now, and is doing well after his surgery. We don't really know if it helped, but at least he is doing well. His mom bought a puppy for him last week, so that has been interesting. (I'll post pictures in a minute!) This puppy is a yellow labrador/border collie mix. She (the puppy) is an addition to the Rotweiller, Black Lab, 3 cats, goldfish, lizard, and racoon... yes, I said, RACOON... that the family already owns! (Plus Mom and 2 other brothers!!) The racoon stays in a cage outside, all of the others are in and in some cases out of the house. D likes the puppy, but the puppy gets a little rough for him sometimes.

Oh, yeah, my car got keyed again this week while I was at work. There was a scratch near the driver's mirror... about the same place as before. The auto body guy at Chris' work was able to buff out most of it today. The other scratch is on the trunk and is too deep to buff out and is accompanied by a dent. It's so frustrating that someone is doing that to my car! I mean, I work there, and I am inside with D most of the day. I don't talk to anyone enough to bother them or make this a personal thing... I guess it's just that I have a nice car and they don't like it. I just wish they would QUIT!

Chris has been doing well this month at work so far, so that is always a blessing!

That's pretty much the news from our part of the world!