December 2020 Part 2: Christmas Projects

During December, our house always turns into a workshop. We try to light the world with service and thinking/giving to others. Rachel does this naturally, and it was no surprise her service focus led her to make a Christmas card for her teacher, Mrs. Goodwin. 

We did a quick mini session for our Christmas Card (and Brian worked on our Christmas letter, which was another work of genius). 

The kids were mostly patient with these as I ran back and forth from the camera to my spot. 

Last year, I heard about decorating small trees and giving them to nursing homes to bring cheer. I wrote it down so we could do it this year, and with the Pandemic, it seemed an even better idea. I suggested it as a Young Women activity for the group of girls I'm serving with, and we did a virtual activity where we all decorated these trees together. My fellow leader, Tina, and I divided up trees, ornaments, lights, and other decorations into big paper bags and dropped one off at each girl's house. We met over Zoom (since we weren't allowed to meet in person), and decorated our trees together virtually. Then, we collected all the bags so I could deliver them. 

I wanted my kids to participate in this as well, so I bought three more trees, a few more decorations, and each kid got to decorate the trees. 

I took them with me to drop all of our trees at the nursing home. They were so excited to have them, and we hope it brought some cheer to the residents who haven't been allowed visitors in so long. 

Each year, we carry on my childhood tradition of a sibling homemade gift exchange. It's always a creative challenge to come up with something that each child can make AND that will be useful/loved by the kid receiving the gift.  I presented a few ideas to Gabe, and he decided that he'd make a scrapbook for Rachel. We picked out paper, stickers, and pictures to put in the book. 

I made Christmas PJs, but didn't take any pictures of that. Brian did the shirts, and I'm pretty excited to show you what we came up with! In the middle of all these projects, my iron got knocked onto the floor and broke. I wasn't too sad; I've wanted a more legit one for years (this was Brian's from his single days). 

Rachel was so excited to start learning how to sew! We decided to make a World War 2 inspired back-pack to complete Michael's Halloween outfit. 

We decided to convert Gabe's shelf into a Barbie house for Rachel, and we recruited Nana and Papa's help. Brian and I picked out some scrapbook paper to decorated it, 

And Nana donated some fabric to act as "carpet". 

Brian and Kirt worked on this on their own in Mapleton. I was too busy with the other things to go down and help. Other than picking papers and doing a few video calls, this was left to these two amazing men. It's kind of amazing to me that I could let this go and not be in the middle of it, and I am quite proud that I could do that. They did an amazing job of it! 

After proposing a few ideas to Michael for what he could do for Gabe, he decided on making an A-frame tent for Gabe's room. Brian helped him come up with how to construct the frame, Kirt helped with some staining/finishing, and I helped Michael figure out the covering and sew it up once we got to Idaho. I wish I had taken some photos of him sewing it up. 

Everyone was excited to see what was in the huge present for Gabe, especially Gabe. This picture doesn't do the 4 ft wide present justice! 

We headed to Idaho the week before Christmas, so our deadline for getting most of our projects done was the day we left to go up there. It made for a few frantic things. The move helped with our neighbor gifts, since we didn't know as many people. We still ended up delivering over 20 rolls of wrapping paper and tape. We were kind of surprised how quickly the number went up! (Just as a comparison, our last year in Fox Hollow, we delivered almost 100 rolls. We don't know how to exclude anyone!). We didn't quite make our goal, hence the finishing Michael's project in Idaho, and I ended up mailing my client Christmas ornaments and most (if not all) my Christmas cards from Idaho. We finished them all up though, just in the knick of time! 

December 2020 Part 1: House Projects

As you probably already know, Brian and I usually have a project or 5 up our sleeve. We started off December by finishing up our cupboards around our mantle and in the funky cubby between our kitchen and family room.  Here are the cupboards when they were first put in: 

Did we ever talk about these counter tops? We made them from pine 2x 10s/12s that Brian joined together and I stained. We had decided on a color, and I got this piece below all ready, and then I got to work on the big pieces to go by the mantle. I decided to do just a quick coat of polystain on the bottom to protect it, and we loved how that color turned out so much that I ended up sanding the small completed countertop and all the shelves down to bare wood and starting over. It was a frustrating and tedious endeavor, but these were worth getting right, so we made sure to get them right. 

We got the big ones all ready, put them in, and realized that we didn't account for the doors on the cabinets, which meant that there wasn't a big enough lip on the front. The ironic thing is that the amount of depth we were missing equaled the amount of depth that Brian had shaved off. So, we glued the cut piece back on. You can't tell unless you're really looking, so we were satisfied. 

Giving these guys enough time to cure took a bit (along with all the coats of Poly), but we finally got to officially install them. 

I provided some resistance/weight on top so Brian could screw them into the base from below. Thankfully, he got the screw length right and they didn't go up through the top into me! 

Here are those cabinets, all decorated, and with half the hardware (shipping got a little delayed on the others. Thanks a lot, Covid.)

In the middle of refinishing and fixing these shelves, I also painted/finished this Nativity Creche that Kirt had made for me last year for Christmas. I love how it turned out! (He was thoughtful enough to give it to me unfinished, knowing that I'm pretty particular about my finishes!)

Finally, the cubby shelves went in!

This is how this section should have been this whole time. This was the last pain point for me with our move into this house, and I'm SO happy with how they turned out! 

A Christmas project led to repurposing Gabe's book shelf (and we'd already decided that it wasn't working how it was), which led to this pile of books until we could get the bookshelves we wanted from IKEA (which were out for a long time, once again, thanks to Covid). 

We had decided to put in a Murphy bed in our downstairs guest room/kids craft room. After looking at plans, YouTube tutorials, furniture stores, and even KSL, we decided to order a bed from Lori Wall Beds. It wasn't too bad putting it together 

But, we wanted it painted white, and we wanted to dress it up a little, so that took some extra time and care. 

We didn't get it finished and installed before the year ended, but we made decent progress before getting worn out. There wasn't a rush, so we finished it in January...or was it February? I guess you'll have to wait and see. 

November 2020 Part 4: Getting Ready for Christmas

 Excitement for Christmas started early at our house. I've never been so happy to see Christmas decorations in the store, even in October. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because of the Pandemic. Maybe it was because I didn't really get into it the year before because it was my first Christmas without Dad. Maybe it was because we're in a new house. Whatever the reason, I did lots of Christmas decor shopping and planning in November. We started off by hiring some elves to hang our outdoor lights. Brian was missing our Trimlights, but I wasn't sure I wanted to make that investment again and I wanted something different, so we hired a new company to hang and configure our new lights. 

And even though it was the beginning of November, we still turned them on nearly every night. 

Because packages were unreliable, we had to get our wishlists finalized by mid-November, so one Sunday, I pulled out some Christmas stickers and the kids wrote their letters to Santa Claus. 

The day after Thanksgiving, festivities really kicked off. We had dinner with Jen and Patrick and their kids, and after dinner, we made gingerbread houses with real, homemade gingerbread, thanks to Jen's mad baking skills. 

On Sunday, we decorated our tree with the new ribbon and new decor, as well as some of our favorites, including this gem that Michael and Kristina made for us back when we were engaged. 

It's always fun seeing our ornaments from Christmases past. We're getting quite the collection. 

We had the kids recreate their first Christmas picture. This might have to be a thing from now on. 

And, of course, we had to model the tree skirt, which is new this year: 

With our lights up, our lists made, and our tree up, we were ready for December to come.