JOY! Our Charming House in Cammack Village

Yes, of course the word joy is associated with the upcoming holiday and I am filled with joy when I think about how absolutely blessed I am to be able to spend Christmas with the ones I love. However, the JOY I speak of today has come from my going through and organizing the things that were in the last 2 boxes from my condo! I probably shouldn't be too proud of this considering we have lived here in this house together for almost 6 months now but alas, I am so super excited!! We still have a long way to go to bring this house up to the level of organization that my sometimes type A personality requires but we have come a LONG way! When I moved in after the wedding you could not even see our dining room for all of the wedding gifts. Definitely a blessing yes, but I thought we'd never find a place for it all! We did and we celebrated with a bottle of wine! THEN, I found a renter for the condo I lived in prior to the wedding...yes, another blessing indeed! However, all of the stuff crammed into a 2 story condo had to go somewhere and again, the dining room disappeared...as did the living room, guest room, "back" room, breakfast area and kitchen. It felt like it would never end but of course after a lot of work and a lot of compromise* it finally did (sort of!). I am not posting pictures of the "mad house" (other than the Christmas ones already posted) until we have a "not mad house"...and our new furniture arrives! I just had to get this all out and thought this the perfect place!

*There are still too many ducks (never alive and used to be alive) in this house for me and I fear the antlers in the picture below will require a spot on a wall one day soon...but I hear compromise is a good thing in a marraige! :)

Merry Christmas!

So, almost 2 months later I'm finally posting a new blog!
We've been staying quite busy these days! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with our families and soon after we went to Kansas to visit my grandparents and so Jim could deer hunt. He is happy to report that he got the biggest deer of the week and I'm just happy that our freezer will be full of what I pretend is meat that comes from the "grocery store". Since, we've been getting ready for Christmas. We finally decorated our house and our cute little tree. We didn't get the lights up on the outside of the house this year because we just ran out of time. Hopefully next year we'll do that again because I just love our big colored lights on our cute little house!

A couple of weekends ago my friend Andrea and her kiddos who live in Springdale came to visit for a fun day of shopping! Her boys are so much fun! Luke will be 3 in March and Sam will be 1 in April. Andrea is such a fun Mom! I really enjoy watching her with her boys. She is teaching them so much and is very patient even though at times she definitely has her hands full as most moms do with little ones! Luke is very smart and likes to talk a lot. Sam is very observant and very laid back. We started the day with lunch at DGP where Luke stuffed is pockets full of pink packages and paper towels...later to be found in the wash! Then we headed to Mid-Towne and Park Plaza to shop with the crazy mass of people! We had so much fun and Luke really enjoyed playing with the kitty and Jim. I think Santa needs to bring him a kitten for Christmas!

We are off to Lavaca to spend some time with my family and friends this Thursday and then we'll be back for Christmas with Jim's family...then we're headed to Dallas for New Year's Eve with a few of our best friends and the guys will be cheering on the Hogs at the Cotton Bowl! WOOO PIG SOOIE!

Here are a few pictures of random happenings in our world...

My Papa, Dad, Brother and Jim with his deer...


Kansas Sky...


Christmas at the Battreal house!




Luke and Sam!


Luke and Jim making funny faces...


Luke playing at Starbucks...


Cute Sam!