Final House Update

Okay, we have been super busy to say the least-between finishing the house, moving, finishing my professional certification, projects at Josh's work, Thanksgiving, my birthday, our anniversary, Brooklyn's birthday, Christmas....  You get the point-October-January has been CRAZY!!!! But we are in our house now; moved in early October!!!  It still has finish work to be done and the "yard" is a blank canvas at this point, but we are in and we have space for our abundance of "stuff".  Oh, and did I mention that we LOVE it!!!!  It has been so much fun hosting things and not worrying about space.  I'll let the pics do the talking...

Mud Room!  I love this space!  We have a half bath in here, pantry, laundry, and an extra closet.  Kelly even made me a table for folding clothes.  I am in here sooo much!  It's nice that everything has a place and that it is roomy.

The master bedroom...  It is so nice to have actual room in our bedroom!  Before we basically had a narrow walking path around the bed.  

Our master even has a fire place.  Some people had commented that we would rarely use it, but we LOVE it!  It is so cozy and it was AWESOME when the power went out.

The master bath...  This is my side, we eacha re spoiled and have our own walk in closests in the bathroom.  We still need to custom order our mirrors... 

Josh's side :-)  We have a separate tub/shower.  I still feel like I am at a hotel when I use the tub!

The dining area

 

The kitchen-pre hardware for the cabinets...

With hardware...

Living room-pre mantle/firplace...

Mantle & Fireplace....

Ready for Christmas!

Formal Dining Room... I wasn't sure this would get used much, but it really does!  It is so nice to have the extra space when we have company.  And it can be completly closed off when the kids have ongoing coloring or puzzle projects.  

Lincoln's room and the sweet bunk bed Papa Kelly made him!

Brooklyn's Room

Brooklyn Turns 2!

Happy Birthday to my baby girl!!  Well, she is quite the independent sassy pants right now, but I love her dearly.  She is getting so big!!  A little big for her britches at times...  As of late she has taken a fondness to feeding the dogs-especially if she has something on her plate she dislikes...  The other day she wanted more yogurt (her favorite right now), but she had neglected the green beans on her plate.  Naturally, I told her she could have more yogurt when she ate her green beans.  A few minutes later she tells me that she ate them.  However some green beans "mysteriously" were on Lincoln's otherwise empty plate.  She even proceeded to say that Lincoln needed to finish his green beans...  She is going to be a handful!  She has been talking like a mad woman for a while now and she never ceases to crack us up with her comments and mimics.  I am hoping that potty training is going to be coming soon for this family!  She has been saying things like, "Change my diaper mama!", "I pooped in my diaper" and occasionally she tells me she needs to use the potty.  We bought her some big girl underwear and she loves them. She insists on wearing multiple pair at a time and often wants them over her clothing???  She is just getting into 2T and weighs 24 pounds :-)  I can finally french braid her hair into two braids!!!!      

Poor thing was sick on her birthday and Christmas.  But she had fun at her party which was after Christmas :-)  Way more people showed up than I anticipated, but everything turned out and I think people had fun.  The kids had a blast at least and that's what really matters.  The theme was Yo Gaba Gaba, as she loves that show right now.  Of course Amy did the cake and it was awesome!!!  A HUGE thank you to all who helped us celebrate the littlest Brannin.

 

 

 

Christmas Festivities

As I reflect upon our Christmas I am again reminded of how abundantly blessed we are.  We were hit hard this holiday season with illness.  It started just before Thanksgiving when I ended up with Hand Foot and Mouth Disease.  It was awful!  I was out nearly a week and my feet are just now recovering fully!  Lincoln then proceeded to contract bronchitis.  He had a fever of 102-104 for 5 days :-(  Due to his illness he and I missed out on Christmas with The VanFleets down in Longview. Then of course he shared with his sister and she ended up being sick on her birthday and Christmas.  In the mean time Josh somehow picked up pink eye along with a fever and sore throat causing him to miss out on Christmas with my grandparents!  That being said-I am reminded (thanks Dad...) that it could be worse!  While this holiday season was stressful, tiring, and filled with sickness, we all recovered and are healthy.  For that I am thankful.  That being said I can't sugar coat the fact that I had a few melt downs and pitty parties...  

This Christmas we did "Elf on the Shelf".  We had an Elf that Santa sent to keep an eye on the kids.  He was reporting to Santa about their behavior.  However each night the Elf ended up getting into some mischief... The kids loved it.  They were sad when Elf had to return to the North Pole... 

We started Christmas morning with a, "Happy Birthday" rendition for Jesus, stockings and gifts from Santa and of course we exchanged gifts with one another. Lincoln had been asking to open his stocking nearly every day since it went up on the mantle!   

Of course we couldn't forget presents for the dogs!  Brooklyn makes sure that when they are sleeping they each have their new blankets :-)

We started, well continued the Christmas festivities, with Chrstmas breakfast at our house.  We traditionally go to Kelly and Danette's, but with Kelly being away for work, Danette and Jessi came down for a quiet morning of food, presents, and playing.  It was so nice to relax and visit, but we did miss Papa Kelly.  

She LOVES her new stroller!  Thank's Auntie Jessi for assembling it!

We then went to my grandparents for dinner with my parents, aunts, and uncles.  The kids of course were spoiled with many gifts... 

 

Brooklyn loves Uncle Mike!  He opened all of her toys... :-)

Lincoln loved the silly string that he got in his stocking.

We ended the evening at our house.  My parents came over and visited while we opened presents.  The kids each got bikes along with an abundance of other cool toys!  We will be going through some of their old things and donating them soon!