Five!

Tomorrow is our 5th anniversary at Gatesgreen Drive.
The home improvement list seems to get longer every year,
but looking back over the last 5 years, we've actually accomplished a couple of them:

Things we've torn up/thrown out/or
otherwise destroyed and dragged to the dump:

A tree in the front yard shaped like a rainbow
Two hideous scraggly bushes blocking the front window
A wooden clothesline in the backyard ( CEMENTED into the ground)
A chain-link fence with a stump growing into it
Two bathroom floors
A linoleum kitchen floor with lots of knife marks in it
2 nasty ceiling fans in the family room that screamed 1981
7 single-pane windows
A crooked exterior door requiring a running start and a slam to get it shut


Things we've added/replaced:

A wood privacy fence between our house and the neighbors
4 mulch flowerbeds with rock dividers
Tons of grass seed, flowers, 4 rosebushes and 4 boxwoods
Kitchen pantry, cabinets, and counter top
2 light fixtures in the family room
1 bathroom light fixture
1 hallway light fixture
1 exterior door that closes properly
7 energy-efficient windows that don't leak
New furnace
New air conditioner
Painted every inch of every wall, door, trim, and ceiling at least twice
New closet door in family room
Installed hardware on the kitchen cabinet doors and drawers
New porch light
New lamppost fixture
A new mailbox and post that doesn't lean at a 45 angle
2 Built-in bookcases in the family room
Faux wood blinds in all the windows
Installed the house numbers so at least one house on this street is identifiable
(Virginians are weird)
A sandbox in the backyard (which should also go on the ripped out list, as it didn't make it the entire 5 years before we took it apart after it was overrun by weeds and stray cats)
Baseboards in 2 bathrooms
There are probably more, but this is getting exhausting.

So this may explain where all of our money has been going.
Here's to spending all our money at Lowe's and Home Depot in 2010!

The big present

Parker's big present this year was a
Nintendo DS Lite. He has been pining for it
ALL year. At the end of the video, you can see
he starts to tear up. He gave me the BIGGEST
hug and could barely whisper "thank you"
because he was so overcome!

Sweet/Awesome: The Sequel

Thank you, Adam, Crystal, Isaac, Amber, & Angela!


Thank you, Grandma Williams!

At long last...Christmas Morning!

Parker wasn't sure he'd make it,
but the moment finally arrived.
It was really close, though.

Thanks, Grandma Williams!The second best part of Christmas-

inordinate amounts of food. A small sampling of the goodies offered...
we had ham, sour cream & chive potatoes,
stuffed mushroom caps, rolls,
a veggie platter, cheese/crackers,
fruit salad, raspberry thumbprint cookies,
banana bread, pumpkin bars, wassail,
fudge, oh Henry!bars, lemon squares,
apple pie, rice krispy treats.....Here's to the feast!Dad feigning excitement over a tie!
(I think he got a few of those this year.)A glorious moment- all 7 of us fit on one couch!My surrogate niece, Charlotte,
in her Christmas garb.
She came over to check in
on the festivities.

(VIDEOS TO FOLLOW...)

Christmas Eve

Isaac, Katie & Lily came to visit us
on Christmas Eve for a few hours. We spent some quality time
playing Guitar Hero, swapping gifts,
and there were some piano lessons
thrown in there, too.

Nerf Guns Make Great Christmas Presents

We had 4 days off this week...
this is how some of us spent them....

Snowed In

Hey, some white stuff fell in Virginia!

We only got about 6 inches,
some areas in Virginia got 2 feet.

Parker clearly doesn't have the
experience with snow that other kids do,
or the following video wouldn't be so funny.

Christmas CD 2009

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

I Heard The Bells

Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I don't go shopping on Black Friday.
I get my Christmas on.

Parker and Jeremy are usually in charge
of assembling the big tree in the living
room, and I put up the sad, scrawny,
Charlie Brown tree in the family room. We try to cover it with as many
lights and loud ornaments as
possible to distract from the fact
that it's kind of a heinous tree.

I found a great gingerbread house
kit this year-the house was
already glued together with that
crazy strong cement-like icing, so we
didn't have to try to keep the walls
from collapsing in on each other
during the construction phase.

Not pictured: Parker eating the high-quality
gum drops off the roof line, 20 seconds later.

Jeremy recorded this year's Christmas
CD over the weekend.
Parker was gracious enough
to stop by the studio.

Parker had a particularly troublesome time
with the line from "Grandma Got Ran
Over by a Reindeer."

Publish Post

Giving the thanks!

Waiting excitedly for the Feast of Gratitude!

Amber & Mom working their hands to the bone to give us a lovely feast. Thanks Ladies!

I posed long enough to make it look like maybe I helped make something . . . I'm just posing.

And we feast! (Adam, Dad, Angela, Isaac, Katie, Lily, Mom)
Camera Shy/The other end of the table: Jeremy, Amber, Parker, Janell

Cousins united in reverent bliss!

Adam caught in the act. AND sporting his awesome new "old man" expression.

Adam furthers his "old man" persona by taking a post-feast nap on the floor.

It's finally possible

...to seat more than 3 people in our family room now.

To those of you that had to endure
the saggy, back-torturing, miniscule blue
couch we once had, you have my apologies.

Extreme Home Makeover (The Kitchen Edition)

This is the story of a sad, half-finished kitchen.

It contained an empty, blank wall,
clamoring for possibilities.

We stared at this wall for five years.

One day I got tired of staring and visited
cabinetry shops, Lowes, Home Depot,
and many cabinetry websites.

After 4 design sessions at 3 different
stores, several hours, three weeks,
and about $1700 later, some boxes arrived.
The boxes contained the kitchen's destiny.

Jeremy figured out how to re-wire the
outlet and moved it up above where the
base cabinet would go. How did he
know how to do this?
It's part of the kitchen mystery.

How do a few screws hold up
all that wood? It seems to defy physics.

Using the infamous kitchen chair as a step stool.

Did I mention that this man donated
blood today? That's right,
he's saving kitchens
AND saving lives!

And then, one day, the kitchen was finished.

It was the craziest thing.
There was SPACE in the kitchen.

There was a pantry, for FOOD!

There were slide out trash and
recycling bins! The giant blue
eyesore of a trash can
was nowhere to be seen!

We gained 4 cabinets, 4 drawers,
a pantry, and about 5 feet of counter space.
And Jeremy did all the
installation, saving us $400.
How I love that man!