Merry Christmas!

I am SO excited to celebrate Christmas with this handsome fella!

And his handsome daddy too, who is the reason for that cute smile....

Last year, he was just a little too small to appreciate it!  To him, it was just another fun day with his cousins, grandparents and Great Grandma...



...and paper eating.

 This year, he's already getting into the Christmas spirit, even before the big day!  

For example, when we went to get our tree, it was located right next to a huge kids playground and he kept wandering over to that the whole time.

Silly boy.

 Here is is corralled in the tree area.

See the longing in his eyes?  It wasn't for the tree.

(See those cute mittens?  My friend sells them on Etsy... they are the best, they do not have thumb holes so his hands just slide in and you can sew a ribbon to them and string it through the coat so the mittens never go missing.  Jack actually loves wearing them! 

Check out her site here.)

So, anyway, he's a big boy this year... toddler bed and all...

What? Doesn't everyone sleep like that?

See the cushion on the floor?  It's there because he falls out periodically. 

Moving on... a big boy like Jack (he's 20 months) can definately enjoy Christmas this year! 

I'm looking forward to starting our own traditions too. 

And it's really important to us to make sure Jack always understands the true meaning of Christmas. 

Christmas is the day Jesus was born and we want him to understand that Jesus is the best gift of all and the ONLY gift we really need!

Luke 2:10-12

...But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 

One thing we're doing to try and reiterate the true meaning of Christmas every year is to give him only three gifts from us.  The reason is because this is Jesus' birthday and Baby Jesus received three gifts on his birthday (gold, frankincense and myrrh), so Jack will too.

 I think that will help put it in perspective a little when it comes time to open Christmas presents! 

It was really hard to limit it to three because I see so many things I know he would love AND I'm a major bargain shopper so I could have bought him lots of stuff for not a ton of money, but I do NOT want him thinking that Christmas is all about him and his GIANT pile of presents! 

I hope we don't sound to Grinch'y'. 

We just really want him to appreciate what he has and always understand

the reason for the season!

Besides, last year the only thing we gave him was a Bible and look how excited he was about that!

 Clearly he was so overwhelmed, he just couldn't take it anymore.

I heart that little stinker.

Dining Room Redo!

What you are looking at are pictures of our dining room furniture.  We inherited this a few years ago from my Grandma and Grandpa...  I love the furniture, but as you can tell, it shows it's age for sure. 

 I found a recipt in the drawer saying they purchased it from Sears in 1980... can you tell?

 The table has two leaves and six chairs... so it's a great size for a small crowd. And without the leaves, it's perfect for our dining room on a daily basis.

 If only it wasn't so ugly...

 Should we paint it?

Oh yes we should!  Here is the final result (it only took us three months to finish this!)... ack!  But now that it's done.... woah... I couldn't love it more. 

 All the difference in the world, right?

 We have some Christmas decorations on it right now, but the minute the last thing was done (chairs) I had to take pictures, immediately!!

 We replaced the hardware on the hutch and took out the door dividers... here's another before...

 The table and chairs are just paint, that's all! 

 Here's a few with the placemats I'm making... I only have two done so far... but they add so much color and FUN!

 Love the black chairs... the kitchen has black cabinets so it matches perfectly with those.

 Ahhh, a million times better!  Worth all the work.... first we sanded, then primed two coats, then did three coats of white, then two coats of clear coat. 

What do you think??