Archive for the ‘Keep Christmas’ Category

Most Interesting PINTERESTS on a Monday (and the 9th day of Christmas, give or take a day or so)

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

Christmas Pinterests.

There were lots o’ Pinteresting-gifts among our family at Christmas. But I will save those for another time. These are some of the images and where to find them from my “Pinterest Board,” which I so aptly named {Love & Joy Come to You~Christmas Celebrating.” These are just odds and ends that struck my fancy.

You may see all of my boards at http://pinterest.com/jeanierhoades/

or the Christmas board specifcally at http://pinterest.com/jeanierhoades/love-joy-come-to-you-christmas-celebrating/

Well, now…let’s see…

I pinned some inspiring home Christmas decor

The {link} for this simple red and white staircase on the left doesn’t work anymore. I couldn’t find {source} info for the staircase on the right. It was just a repin.

I pinned food ideas and recipes

The snickernoodles lik came from a bright, beautiful beautiful blog: http://www.joyshope.com/. And don’t you just love these peppermint Rice Krispy treat snowballs? Almost too pretty to eat {source}.

I pinned trees I thought were just beautiful to look at or maybe fun to make

My daughter, Stephanie had a white tree this year. I just love the classy, subdued colors on this softly glowing tree. It came from {HERE}. People are so clever when they don’t have space for a tree, as shown by this tree-on-a-wall that was from Apartment Therapy. {see here}

I pinned music and movies I wanted to remember to try or that I just already love

FINALLY bought Christmas in Connecticut on DVD at Kmart for $5 this year. We’d still been using the old VHS. Zooey D. totally reminds me and everyone else of one of my girls (guess!) and I love her voice! So this is delightful. of course!

I pinned stuff to do with the grandbebes

This was my very first Christmas-board pin, from www.megdeurksen.com We are actually still working on these…almost finished. It is not too late!

I thought this ornament was sort of prophetic since it is for Christmas 2012 and it has NINE grandbebes on it

(I only have 6, remember, but I am thinking/praying/hoping there is a fruitful year ahead!!)

Can be purchased for me (*ahem), here!

I pinned some typography with words I liked and graphics with cool design

There was a whole series of the cutest retro-looking cards (left) at {THIS SITE}. FREE Christmas printables on the (right). Isn’t that cool? You should bookmark that site. Better yet, PIN it! CLICK HERE

I pinned things that reminded me of my childhood Christmases

The angel on the left? That is one I had on my tree top this year. My mom gave me our actual 1964 grocery-store-purchased paper and carboard angel with the spun-glass “angel hair”. I saw several blogs this year with it. Thrilling! Mine does not have a box and has been quite used. {source}… The centerpiece on the right reminds me of my mom’s well-worn white, leather ice skates she had for many years from her childhood. {source}

In general, I pinned a very happy, meaningful board. I didn’t “do” everything or try every idea (Though I will share some with you!), but I have a good start for next year. Have I mentioned before? Pinterest is fun!

Tags: christmas, Pinterest, Pinterest Christmas
Posted in Celebrations & Festive Events, Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Keep Christmas, Making a List!, Stuff I Actually Think, TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment | No Comments »

Time @ Christmas

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Who has time to spare anymore?

Time is my favorite gift of all. Time is limited. Time is fleeting. Time flies. It runs out and it is money. Time is of the essence and time is on my side. And time is my love language (you can quote me on that).

My 6 fav trees this year, each uniquely crafted by one of my grandbebes

I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE getting to spend time with my family, with other people I adore at Christmas just because it is Christmas. You could make the argument that we cram too much togetherness into the Christmas season, but it would be wasted on me because without a reason drawing us, we are prone to let too much time and activity slip between our fingers – and not with people who matter to us more than life. Then it is just gone, along with chances to love…

Every year, the gift that means the most to me is the time my busy kids and husband give me on December 25 (and the few days before and after). I realize its great value and matchless worth. I cherish it like gold.

Mailed for one-cent in the early 1900s.

There is a time at Christmas for everything,

and a season for every Christmas activity under the heavens (though maybe not everything all at once or every year - over the course of life, everything needed to be accomplished and enjoyed and celebrated during Christmas will be…):

a time to be born (a looking forward to adoption this Christmas!) and a time to make snowman hand-print ornaments for the family-tree,

a time to glue-together glittery-paper trees and a time to clean out the toy box for all the new blessings,

a time to play movie games and a time to break out the brand new Play-Dough,

a time to tear down the tents Poppa built and a time to re-build them in your own houses,

At Christmas there is a time to weep when your cousin grabs your new doll and a time to laugh while bright-colored papers fly through the air and some one who gets you gave you something you’d never have asked for but secretly desired,

There’s a time to bemoan too many cookies and snacks and a time to dance in the Christmas program,

a time to scatter 64 brand new Crayola crayons and 276 tiny army guys all over the place and a time to gather receipts for returns,

a time to embrace and a time to appreciate,

a time to search for lost pieces of the new puzzle and a time to give up,

a time to keep these people close in your heart and a time to throw away grudges and offense,

a time to split the last chocolate chip cookie in half and a time to mend toy parts,

a time to be silent, just delighting in the people who surround you and a time to speak life-giving words,

There is a time to love until your heart is wrung out of all love (at which time God Himself will pour His love into us, flow through us) and a time to hate evil and destruction and defy it to enter our homes, our families,

Christmas is a time for reminding the enemy of our souls that Jesus came and saved us and a time for the Prince of Peace to be welcomed into our lives to rule and reign as He should…

What on earth do we gain from all the work of Christmas? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race, but the times of celebration He wants us to have, too. He has made everything beautiful in its time…there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat pumpkin pie and spiral-cut honey-hams and drink eggnog and punch, and find satisfaction in all their outdoor illumination and tree-decorating and gift-giving and singing—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does (even in the Christmas celebrations we present to Him in worship) will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.

Thank-you for the time at Christmas, Father.

Obvious rip-off of Ecclesiastes 3.

Ornaments made through the years for the family tree

If I could put time in a bottle….

Posted in Celebrations & Festive Events, JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Keep Christmas, Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think | No Comments »

Gifts @ Christmas

Monday, December 26th, 2011

Lisa Bierer hand-painted a Christmas card for me about a year after we met them. She painted a colorful tree with boxes below and each was labeled with one of the names of Dave and I and the kids. And she wrote a sentiment that said something like “You were the gifts under our tree this year.” I have never forgotten how truly appreciated and cherished I felt by that lovely visual and those kind words. And in life, I have found, that some people just appear from nowhere and you recognize that are divine gifts – you could never have chosen them if you’d had the choice, you could never have recognized them on the street.

First – the children God gave me. That He chose me to mother these people, well…speechless. They are admirable and gifted and beyond me in every possible way. I could not have comprehended how precious they were before they came and would have been paralyzed with fear if I had. The greatest gifts I ever got…

Then the grandchildren my children are having. Beyond words, delight to the moon and back! I love them a gazillion-million-trillion and have only barely tapped the resources of that love, it just keeps erupting.

And friends (including my best friend, Dave). I can count the forever friends on my fingers. And that is more than I deserve.

With the addition of the new-kid, Ryan (Tredessa’s husband!!), we are now 17. It is hard to tell, but Stephanie is holding my new grand-dog, a 7 week-old cute-as-a-button terrier mix.

The gifts:: It really is not about a new toaster or diamond earrings or even the highly-thoughtful hand-knitted scarf, but about the person who hands it to me, or when I get to wrap something up for some one I love with so much of my heart I have nearly none left (Shakespeare rip-off), but they get it. They see behind the meager attempt-in-a-box the love that placed it there, even though a “thing,” an inanimate object, is powerless to say what I really want to say.

The gifts are sweet. They are thoughtful. They are appreciated, and cherished. They are really the people who gave them. They are the people I love.

This pic by Dani Lay Photography (taken at The Heaven Fest Christmas Party)

Posted in Celebrations & Festive Events, Keep Christmas, Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think | No Comments »

A Norma Moslander Christmas

Saturday, December 24th, 2011

I keep trying to be my mom at Christmas.

I grew up in humble surroundings. In fact, I just had some one recently refer to the neighborhood I grew up in as the “ghetto.” But to me it was Leave it to Beaver-middle America. My dad was bi-vocational, a milkman in the wee hours and a church-planting-pastor by night, which in those days meant that he was, besides everything else, also financing it. And I watched my mom toil over her budget and struggle to make ends meet. Into the night she’d sit figuring out how to feed us and clothe us and support missionaries, too. But when Christmas came, she made it amazing.

Every year she’d tell me, “We can’t do much this year, but I will make sure you have at least 5 gifts under the tree” (I think her budget was $25 per child and there were 5 of us). There were always more. Plus the little touches like nuts in the shell for cracking throughout December.

She’d make “popcorn-ball garlands,” red and green rounds wrapped in cello and tied with red and green curling ribbon for relatives and neighbors. Her baked goods were prized gifts.

She made a big deal of December 15 – the day we always got the tree (my dad would not allow it earlier) and we’d carefully unpack a mish-mash of ornaments her relatives had given to her when she got married. I so regret getting her to switch to more organized “designer” trees 20 years ago or so, and teaching her to “theme.” I think she has reverted back somewhat, but I don’t know if any of my childhood ornaments, like the little collectors elves you see now, are still around. She gave me the angel-hair/spun glasss angel tree topper from 1964, but much of the rest is now gone. Because 20 years ago I was too busy trying to be unique to recognize the rich beauty of the traditions and little pieces of Christmas that had always been there.

On Christmas eve (right about now as I write), as soon as the sun began to set, we were home – warm and cozy and ate snacks and had homemade hot cocoa (not pre-mixed, please, my mom made it in a heavy pan with whole milk and fresh cocoa). There’d be popcorn and Bugles. Bugles. They were a Christmas Eve snack. And there were these things called Pizza Spins, which they no longer make. Usually some chips and dip, a rare treat in those days. And we would snack while watching A Charlie Brown Christmas or The Davy & Goliath Christmas episode.

We’d go to bed a little earlier than usual on Christmas Eve, dad having read the Christmas story to us from the Bible and the fam praying on our knees together before then, most years. I would agonize trying to go to sleep. I was always filled with such anticipation. Then there was always an unwrapped gift that we came out to in the morning. And other things my mom managed to fit into her budget.

I loved it.

I am still trying to figure out how she did it….

“All that I come from and all that I live for and all that I’m going to be – my precious famaily is more than an heirloom to me.”

Posted in Celebrations & Festive Events, Keep Christmas, Memories & Melancholy, Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think | 1 Comment »

Christmas is for Kids

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Grandbebe’s annual Christmas PJ Party with Nonna and Poppa~

1.7 seconds after they got through the front door, this is what I saw.

The PJ party included, but was not limited to cookies for baking and Toys R Us for shopping and Good Times for eating and food playing. There was hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream and popcorn and movies and 7up and cookies and cousins and the-best-way-to-spread-Christmas-cheer-is-singing-LOUD-for-all-to-hear and the Christmas story and making ornaments for Nonna’s tree and the annual reindeer-head print using little-but-growing hands and feet and paint (what the heck am I thinking!??) and watching Gilligan’s Island, of all things and sleepy little heads nodding off anywhere from between 9 pm and 2 in the morning (Guini and Hunter are almost always the hold-outs). And somehow they still wake up at the butt-crack of dawn no matter how late the festivities and little monkeys jumping on beds and o-my-goodness: I was born for this!

I snapped these while talking to my mom on the phone while the kids ate breakfast with Grandpa.

The employees at Toys R Us did not seem nearly as joyously enchanted with our little monkeys as we were. It was merry mischief.

Merry Christmas from us and our grandbebes.

With flash, with no flash. Cameras! grrrrr….

Tags: christmas, Gilligan's Island, grandbebes, Toys R Us
Posted in Celebrations & Festive Events, Keep Christmas, Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think, TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment | 7 Comments »

I am the Nativity

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Living in darkness

I am a weary traveller.

There is a plan charted out, birthed before the ages. This path has been worn not only by necessity, but in utter anticipation for my passing through. One generation will praise His works to another. My part in the story keeps me moving forward. Having received the baton of faith, I prepare to hand it off.

I am a census taker,

rigid and law-abiding. There are rules to be kept and religion feeds that beast. The church-girl in me keeps records and checks things off lists, shoulds and woulds. Then Grace is born and the columns and lines cannot contain Him, cannot, even to the nth-degree hope to define Him.

I am the inn-keeper,

the rooms of my life and heart overcrowded and full. Life and age and circumstances, not to mention the busyness of the times, filling every nook and cranny. I almost hopelessly shrug Him off – no room, but a longing to fulfill destiny drives me to make a place for Him, keep Him here close…

A Light has come. A Light has come!

I am the star.

There are people watching, looking for the hope I’ve been given and I am leading them somewhere. May I lead aright, pointing them to Jesus. All for Your name, Lord. For your acclaim and Your fame in the earth…

I am Mary.

I am incredulous at the call of God on my life. Heart palpitating, palms sweaty, “How can this be?” I question God’s reasoning, His trust in me at all, His relentless pursuit. I concede with a tentative sigh, “Then may it be unto me as You have said. I am Your servant, I will obey…”

I am Joseph

whose goodness as a moral and loving man could be so wrong-spoken of, his motives and very character questioned in light of his participation in the Plan. That he risked so much in spite of possible loss of reputation, possibly friends and family even – all for the Glory. May it be said of me.

I am the shepherds,

kneeling low, sore afraid for the dazzling brilliant power of the revelation of Glory, the ear-splitting loudness of it roaring through my frame. Everything being promised by these heavenly hosts, too strong to comprehend, almost – I need, I need. God has seen me, He has heard my cry and He has thundered in response: Good news – great joy!! A Savior is born today! Peace on earth and goodwill toward men from God! God’s very good-will and Peace towards us. Overwhelming, unbelievably good news!

I am the angels

singing of God’s great love, a messenger of the joy of my salvation, spreading the great-great promise of His love, His good-will and His Peace toward those who dwell beside me on earth. Sweet, sweet song of Salvation

I am a sinner,

trudging along, too many times unaware of all that God has given. Forgiveness, at my fingertips. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Forgiveness, right there for the acceptance, a hall-pass from death to life from a faithful and just God, by the bloody, agonizing death of Jesus Christ – to His conquering resurrection. Just like that! [snap fingers here} Forgiven.

Arise, shine.

I am a wise man.

Having seen and followed Your star, I bring my gold, my treasure (family), my belongings, all that I am or have or ever will be or possess and, bowing down, I place them at your feet. Any thing I have came from You anyway. There is nothing of it that I desire beside You. Please receive all I place here as my worship…

I am a wise man.

I bring my incense, pouring out my prayers and petitions to You. And in love, like the love You have shown for me, I pour out my life for my family and friends. And I ask You, from the deepest recesses of my heart, to mend and repair relationships and bring healing for hurt, beauty for ashes, and rejoicing for mourning. And may this prayer be true and not contrived and may it be pure and not for self-gain. And may it be a sweet-smelling offering to You.

I am a wise man.

I carry Myrrh, the embalming oil. And I fall face down with all I can muster, nothing in my hands but bondages of sin and death and my own feeble attempts to save myself, but I give it to You and You raise up the dangling-ring of the keys to death, hell and the grave, taken by force when you led captivity captive and set. me. free. And in place of an oil that cannot heal the rips and scars on my nearly-fatally wounded soul, You pour a fresh oil on my head, a wild-ox anointing and my leaf is green Forever-life is established and I am set free from the law of sin and death. Forever.

I am. the Nativity.

This came to me as a prayer just pouring from my heart yesterday morning upon waking. May love and joy come to you these days leading to our Christ-mass-worship. And may you comprehend your place in the story that began so long ago like you never have before. NOTE: I will try to go back soon and add scripture references.

Tags: christmas, jesus, nativity, prayer
Posted in JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Keep Christmas, Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think | 5 Comments »

Joy @ Christmas

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

S W E E T ! ! And sweets.

Baking day was Sunday. Just the girls, for the working part. Then the boys for the chicken tacos (and beef, too). Extra salt, please.

Minty Cake Balls with Green Mint Icing (Gemma)
Peppermint Brownies with crushed candy topping (Guini)
Hot Chocolate Truffles (Guini)
Peanut Butter Cookies, gluten-free and totally flour-less! (Averi)
Chocolate Chip Cookies (Tara)
Peanut Butter Balls (Tredessa)
Puppy Chow (Jovan)
Dipped and Decorated Pretzels (the little girls)
Turtle Pretzels, with Rolos and Pecans and almonds (Stormie)
Candy-Kiss & M & M Pretzels (Jovan)
Ritz Thin-Mints (Tara)
Hidden Valley Ranch Oyster Crackers (Tara & Stormie)
Homemade Twix (Stephanie invented with mini-wafers, caramels and chocolate for dipping)
Christmas Crack (Stormie). The name implies your absolute inability to quit eating it. It involves sugar and butter becoming caramel, being poured over saltines and topped with rich chocolate chips, cooled into crispy-sweet-savory succulence. Yes it does. You’re hooked already, aren’t you?

Plus? There are cupcakes and sugar cookies and chocolates and Cutie oranges. There is hot chocolate and spiced tea and banana bread and pumpkin bread. o-my-goodness. Suagr-shock!

After baking and dinner, we watched Nativity! on the “big screen” in the living room.

We used the “vintage” movie screen and a way-modern projector. Rent it. Stream it free from Netflix. Whatever. You will like it. It is cute and sweet and British and funny.

Trace Bundy was over-the-top incredible at the Heaven Fest Christmas Party.

He did a 2-guitar thing in D-minor and D-major called, “Joy and Sorrow,” or maybe it was “Sorrow and Joy.” I can’t remember. But JOY wins. That I do recall. Because it does. It is actually a huge part of what Jesus is all about!

Luke 10.21 Jesus, full of joy…

Luke 2.9-11 …the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

John 3.29 [Jesus speaking] That joy is mine and it is now complete.

John 15.11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

John 16.22 I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

John 17.13 I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world,

so that they may have the full measure of my JOY within them.

His joy, in us. The hope that keeps me going…

PS // I “ran into” Heather at WalMart and Marilyn at The Dollar Tree yesterday! Happy surprise!

Slightly amazed that I know people as wondrous as these. Got to see Candi and Amy Jo and Patrice at the Christmas Party. Missing my Pearly-Q. Might have to plan a reason to bump into her!

Tags: heaven fest, trace bundy
Posted in JESUS, Lover of My Soul, Keep Christmas, Stuff I Actually Think | 4 Comments »

The Kelley Christmas Card!

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Move over Pomplamoose! And Andy Williams!

Or at least just give us some space. Stephanie and Tristan and the kids (Gavin, Guini and Gemma May) just released their Christmas Greeting 2011. It is THE coolest!

MERRY-MERRY-Merry Christmas!

Tags: christmas, tristan kelley
Posted in Keep Christmas, Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think | 4 Comments »

Decorations @ Christmas

Sunday, December 18th, 2011

There is the tree in the living room.

It is themed and quite lovely, I think.

Then there is the tree with a gazillion mismatched things, and it is the tree of my heart. Not designer. Not a tree anyone would want to replicate, nor could they. This tree, the family room tree, is filled with the ornaments we have collected over time. There are things dating back to our childhoods, Dave’s and mine. There are thing the kids made growing up and now even things the grandbebes have made. There are ornaments I have received as gifts. I have vintage ornaments and 5 Baby’s First Christmas baubles. There is an egg-shaped Mod Podged thing my mom made in the 70s that has my high school graduation picture on it. And felt-frames with my childrens’ little school days photos. There are odds and ends ornaments giving tribute old Christmas movies and 1960s Christmas TV shows and even a letter Stormie wrote to Santa one year, even though we never actually did the Santa thing.

It is the tree that makes me smile. And cry a little.

Gemma and I unpacked the ornaments the other day

21-seconds of Gemma

Posted in Keep Christmas, Memories & Melancholy, Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think | 3 Comments »

Home 4 Christmas

Saturday, December 17th, 2011

I’ll be home with bells on. I’ll be home with bells on.

Trim the tree and wrap the presents, turn the Christmas music on

This Christmas I’ll be home with bells on.

Can’t you just hear Dolly Parton belting that out? It is a happy place for me: Dolly and Christmas!

Home.

Tredessa and Ryan just moved in to their leased, little 3-bedroom first home – in time for Christmas. It is so cute. They’ve got a big, fenced back yard with a workshop and garden shed. The house has been renovated and painted and upgraded and spiffed-up just in time for them, but those gleaming wooden floors slant for some good marble-rolling, like any 100-year-old house does. They are near “downtown Frederick,” one of the cutest little towns between Denver and Fort Collins. Everything is small and quaint there, little shops, family-owned Italian restaurants, and parks where young families meet up during walks and soccer practice. They have an alley and live about 7 blocks from Rocky and Jovan and only about 1.3 miles from Dave and Tara over on Hawthorne Circle. The photos below are realtor shots.

Front of house. Entry and living room (the piano is at the base of the stairs now), family room

Eat-in kitchen, fresh paint and brand new counters and cabintery, one of the bedrooms, new carpet.

1200-little-square-feet of love.

Concerned about a lack of good closet space and how small the rooms are, her sister Tara incredulously reminded Tredessa: the whole house is yours! You are not rooming with other people now. You have just increased your square footage by like 1000+ square feet!

And Tredessa and I were just talking about how good God is and what a crazy blessed year it has been for them. They met, fell in love, got married and were planning to live in an apartment for a year or two, but the deep desire of Dessa’s heart was a house where they could stay put for a bit and maybe get started on their family. And God just delights in doing good toward us. And so my daughter has a home. Home for Christmas!

Where the Heart is…

Home is a big deal to me. My family moved a. lot. while I was a kid, and both my parents had had rather nomadic childhoods so there was this silly moving thing. Dave and I determined NOT to do that, yet, living in a small Nebraska city experienced some uproot and movement we did not enjoy. I long for cocooning. I enjoy having a place. Yes, sometimes I have made it an idol, and I have had to learn that God is my home, He is where my heart truly rests.

5 LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;

you make my lot secure.

6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

surely I have a delightful inheritance.

7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;

even at night my heart instructs me.

Psalm 16 NIV

But at Christmastime, like no other time, I think, home is wondrous. A house to hold everything your heart holds dear. Season turns in to season and the children grow and look forward to certain cookies baking and a particular ornament going in an exact place on the tree and new jammies because of the Christmas morning photographs and the traditions make home more than a roof over some walls but a place, an altar of sorts, a warm reminder from Father that we are His family, His household of faith. And He blesses us and gives us family on which to lavish our love and a place in which to enjoy it.

And God has blessed my familia. With homes and family.

Stephanie and Tristan got to buy their house when they had only been married for 3 months! She was still only 19 years old (Tristan was a ripe old 21, I think) when God planted them in the middle of their block, a good-looking young couple who were not even certain yet about becoming parents, when or if it would be in their plans. But o-my-goodness, the delight a year and half later when they presented us with Gavin. Now three of the cutest kids frolic through those rooms and Steph’s home-style has grown (in the 10-years-on-Dec-27-since-they-got-married!!!) and become colorful and jovial, kind of a light, bright, retro-vintage, but wholly modern and extremely hip home base. And she changes up her Christmas decorating every year. And a lot of times I see on Facebook that she has been listening to Spotify and I will smile when I see her, in her very own home with her own little munchkins, listening to a lot of the Christmas music we listened to while she was growing up. Wasn’t that just yesterday?

I don’t think we have a full Kelley-family Christmas-decor reveal yet, but this is from a recent photo shoot Steph and Tris did in their living room. You can see more at www.maydae.com

Dave and Tara travelled so much they were not even interested in buying their own home for years. They’d been able to lease a wonderful, roomy place right after their 4-month-honeymoon-ministry tour when they got back to accept a position at Northern Hills. But suddenly last year, it hit Tara that she wanted to buy a house. Just kaboom. She was ready to commit to a neighborhood and a little bit of stay-puttedness (yes, I know that is not a real word). And just a couple of days before Christmas, they closed on their home, the perfect place for them with lots of parking for lots of people over there all the time and a gorgeous back yard that connects to open space where Hunter can run. And parks nearby. And lots of family near, now. Ahem. And the house is warm and bright and cozy and light and roomy, yet intimate and filled with Tara’s touches and super clean and organized! We squeezed all of us and Ryan’s family from Florida in there for Thanksgiving and we all became fast-friends and family just because we were so squished and it was lovely. Last year at this time, they got a house for Christmas with an extra bedroom for a new baby – and who even knew that was about to happen!?!

Tara’s at Thanksgiving and after Christmas movies last night

Inspired by Dave and Tara’s success, Rocky and Jovan decided they’d had enough of apartment dwelling and bought their first house right after Christmas last year. And Jovan boldly added color and more color and handmade touches everywhere. Jovan has been madly crafting and creating all season long, some of which you can see on her blog (www.littlebitsandgiggles.com), making life merry and bright for her family. While Rocky continues to work on the recording studio going in to the basement, the girls are enjoying their great big yard and being very close to their grammie and papa (Jovan’s parents). There is definitely room for a baby brother!! Haha.

Then Stormie. The baby of the family – she bought her very first house just before her 25th birthday this past April. And she has made it uniquely hers this Christmas season. Her very busy schedule and exiting roommate caused her to decide on something very “scaled back,” though her version of that includes an actual antler “tree,” Yes, antlers. And she even put a few lights outside. And did some very different, non-commercial-type things for her little home Christmas decor. For her and the dog, Saber, whom she lovingly calls, “The German.”