Happenings 'round here

A few Saturdays ago, I recruited the grands to help complete my little nesting project of converting Jimmy's office into the kids playroom. Papaw's job was to put together the shelving pieces from IKEA along the big wall. He had a bit more "help" than I think he bargained for, but by lunch all six shelves were assembled and in place.

So far, I'm loving it. I've got a lot more to do in there, but it's gonna be great just having a "place" for everything in one room. It may not be the biggest playroom, and will get much more crowded once Girby and her girly things arrive but hopefully they will share the space well.

The office, however, looks like a bomb went off. There are deer heads laying all over the couch, boxes of files, office supplies, and junk all over the floor, and currently our computer is sitting in the middle of the room on a card table.

I attempted to find an envelope and stamp the other day to mail off a bill and seriously contemplated just putting Trace in the car, and driving to Staples and the post office to buy and mail the needed items rather than have to search aimlessly through the junk.

On December 1st, we had a big birthday celebration at our house...
Miss Gingie-Bug turned 14... or 98 in dog years! Just the day before, a dear friend of mine had to put her beloved 15-year-old dog, Tyler, to sleep. She had had him since we were in college and she was so crushed. It just made me realize we have to seize the moment and cherish them while they're here. So, like a crazy person, after dinner I rushed out and bought cupcakes, candles and a little tiara to have a birthday party for our precious pup.
Trace has really gotten excited about all the Christmas decorations around and I love to see the magic that comes with having a little one at Christmas. It is so special to get to experience it through their eyes.

Every year Jimmy shimmies up the front door to get to the dormer in our foyer. It never fails, that this is inevitably the wreath that falls off the window and into the yard no less than a half dozen times during the season.

Trace insisted on helping him this year, so Jimmy finally lifted him up, climbed the ladder, and laid him in the dormer. I warned them that if this didn't happen quickly and safely, it may just send me into labor, causing me to drop Girby right there in the foyer. I was a nervous wreck!

This of course, led to him then following him into the attic to the other dormer toting the wreath and candle. There is no floor in the attic, so the slightest wrong step would have landed them in the floor of my master bathroom.

Trust me, this can and HAS happened before.

When Trace was a few months old, Jimmy's cousin literally fell through our ceiling in the middle of the night when he got confused as to which door led to the potty. Just imagine waking up to see a grown man's leg dangling through your ceiling at 3 in the morning. Of course, I was sleep deprived and groggy and it took me a few seconds before I remembered that Bryan was actually staying at our house, so my first thought was that some man was upstairs trying to steal my baby.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!