Créche

This year our Church put on a créche for our community. There were over 400 Nativities from all over the world. It was really neat to see nativities from Haiti, Pakistan, Iran, Croatia, Jerusalem, Brazil, Mexico and many, many other countries from across the globe. It was really neat. While checking out the nativities there was also a live nativity set up to take pictures. Costumes and photographers were provided. What do you think?

(Thanks Sandy, (my MIL)for being such a good sport and being a Wise man in the photo. It would not be complete without you.)

Chris made a great Joseph.




Here on some pics of the Nativities. Really the picture just doesn't do justice to what it was really like. Whether you believe in Him or not, the feeling was undeniable and very strong.
This last picture is the Fontanini set that my MIL set up. My brother-in-law, Darren, has been collecting this nativity set for years. Isn't it so amazing?



May we all remember what the season is about.


Merry Christmas.

The Martha in Me

I don't consider myself to be a crafty person. I never really have been. When it comes to making my own crafts, well, they usually turn out to be a disaster. But lately I have been on a craft kick knowing that the outcome probably won't be what I was hoping for. And thanks to some friends here, they have inspired me to give my crafty skills a try. So I made a purse. And to my ASTONISHMENT... It actually turned out just fine. In fact I am toting it around town as my purse.

TAH - DAH


The flower was actually really easy to make! ( Olivia was mad that I wasn't taking pictures of her, so she made her way into the photo!)



The inside of the bag matches the flower. And there are a couple of pockets too!



I even enjoyed making it enough, that I will probably make more. And I hope that this crafty side of me will even take on some new projects. Because it is going to be a long winter!

Please, come in.

So I have this really cute and talented friend named Katelyn Foutch. She is an aspiring photographer that has an eye and the gift of photography. She recently came to my home and took some amazing pictures. If you want to learn more about her photography, you can click here. And act fast, her prices won't stay so low for very long, because people are booking her faster than she can snap the pics!

Please, Come in....

We are excited to share our home with you.

The Entry Way

My favorite part of the house.. The Kitchen.. My Brother and I antiqued the Kitchen Cabinets.

The Great Room.

We love this room because during the day these windows let in a TON of natural Light. (Which is a necessity for winter!)

I LOVE my door knobs. All the doors in the house have glass door knobs with the original back plates. Chris and I had to scrub all the rust off of them and they turned out great. They are all from the early 1900's. Ebay was great for finding these!

Laundry room with a recycled old weathered door. Our contractor had to add 6 inches to the door to make it tall enough to fit our normal sized door. ( Which amazes me that doors were so short back in the old days! Have people gotten a lot taller?)

At the last minute I choose to do hooks in the bathroom over towel bars. Now I don't have to worry about keeping my towels straight and nicely folded!

Olivia's bedroom. She actually isn't sleeping in here yet but soon will be when we transfer her to a big girl bed. We decided to do the diamonds again, since they were so short lived in our last house.

And these are some really cool collages that Katelyn put together for me that I wanted to share.

Thanks for coming to our home. And thanks Kate for taking and sharing the pics for the world to see! You are amazing!

176 Days of Building Our House

We have completed our house and are in the process of making it our home. We moved in about 2 months ago and have loved being here. I posted several pics, proof of our adventure in building a home. Luckily, we didn't have too many bumps in the road while building,
which made the process a lot of fun for me. And the end result was exactly the way I pictured!



This is what the lot looked like right before they started to dig the hole for our foundation.


We were so excited to have a hole in the ground.
Shortly after the hole was dug, we had footings and a foundation poured.



Then started the framing process. The house is taking shape!!



We have bedrooms!



Then came the roof and windows.




And some siding.



Along with some plumbing, electrical, hvac, insulation, and drywall.


Then, I decided to take on some tiling. I laid all of the tile in the house. (my hands and fingers were sore for days!)




Then we hired a painter to drive 700 miles to paint our house. Adam, my brother painted the whole house along with the kitchen and laundry room cabinets. Above is a pic of the kitchen before he painted the cabinets. We had a great time putting in 15 hour days for a 10 days straight. But it was worth it. I love the way it all turned out! And the memories... still have me laughing.



Then our driveway and front porch were poured.

And the outside was painted and the retaining walls were put up. (thanks to my awesome husband who stacked a majority of those 90 lb blocks!)
This is our house...176 days later.

We love it! Stay tuned for inside pics. Coming very, very soon!!

Random summer and fall photos

Here are some random pictures from the last 5 months or so