I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...

We got our first snowfall last night! Not a lot of snow but snow nonetheless. Pretty exciting for folks who come from year-round 70 degree weather! According to forecasts, the worst of the storm is supposed to come tomorrow, so maybe more snow!

Here is the view of the hills behind our house, from our back porch. You can see the snow sticking in the trees! It didn't stick in the field behind the house--maybe tomorrow it will be more white out there!


Here our our cars, with a little layer of snow.

Introducing...

...the newest addition to our Toyota family...that's right, I am now a minivan mama! So, from BMW to minivan in less than 2 years...if poor Jared had only known what he was in for when we got married, well, he may not have tied the knot.

This is pretty much our exact car, but we are having leather added next week while I am in San Diego.

Magical Huggable Hangers

We lost a lot of closet space in our move, unfortunately. Gained a lot of living space but now we have nowhere to hide our messes. :-) In our old house, we had huge, vast closet space in the master bedroom, complete with built in shelving and drawers. No more. So, I've been fretting over what to do with our clothes and the professional organizer (see last post) suggested Huggable Hangers. We were at Target the other day and they were on sale so we decided to give it a try. They advertise they can double or triple your closet space, which seemed suspicious to me but we were willing to give it a try. While they didn't quite triple the closet space, they did do wonders for clearing up space and making it so much less cluttered. Here are some before and after pictures.

BEFORE:
Note that I could not get all clothes in one frame.




AFTER

Catching Up

I'm a lazy blogger. I often have ideas for blog entries in my head but finding the time to sit down and actually put them into an entry...well, this is where I fail. I am good at reading blogs, though. I'll consider that an accomplishment. So...here's a peek into our life.

Mealtime
Forget eating around the table or in a high chair, Jack has shown such an interest in the way that the dogs eat, we're just feeding him with them now. Kidding, folks, kidding!



Like Father, Like Son


Fugitive!
This kid HATES getting dressed. Diaper and clothing changes are fraught with tears, screaming, some four-letter words muttered *mostly* under the breath, and no shortage of immense frustration on the part of all parties. Here's Jack making a break for it after a bath. See that devious face???



Washing Dishes
Well, we wish we could teach him to wash his own bottles. *Sigh*



Standing Up!
Jack's into everything, often giving us near coronaries as he handily shows us what we need to babyproof. For example, stealthily (read: quickly) crawling towards the one uncovered outlet and attempting to stick his tongue in the socket. Ayyyy... Here's a picture of him nicely standing up...


Organizing!
Okay, I'd love to take credit for this, but I won't...I actually had a PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZER (who knew such persons exist???) come to the house and help me with some projects. My pantry had been making me crazy and this is what we wound up with.



Still Unpacking
Here is our latest accomplishment--we've finished putting Jack's room together. We haven't painted yet, which we plan to at some point, and we also want to put up new window treatments. But, here is the rough draft. Note the two paintings on the wall, painted by my very-talented sister (both sisters got all of the creative genes, leaving me with none).




Finally, Buddy, our own personal elf, is keeping an eye on everyone and reporting back to Santa on who is naughty and nice. We've adopted The Elf on the Shelf as a new family tradition.


In closing, we are enjoying this Christmas season, this new chapter in our lives and feeling so grateful for all of the many blessings we've had this year. As we reflect on the past year, and most of all give thanks for the birth of our sweet baby boy, we eagerly anticipate our Savior's birth. We hope everyone enjoys His many blessings this season, especially joy and peace.