Christmas 2010

I think I'm just about recovered from Christmas by now (and I didn't even have to do very much). I can't imagine all the work my mom went through, buying gifts for all the kids that still live at home (and making sure that each of their Christmas's were balanced so to minimize spats between siblings), finding gifts for each of the four married kids and all the grandchildren, on top of passing homemade rolls to all the families in the ward (because my dad's in the bishopric). Yikes! I'm not sure what I'll do when there's that much on my plate at Christmas time...

We had a nice Christmas here in Albany considering we didn't have any family around to celebrate with (though Skype definitely came in handy).

Duane and I gave each other our gifts before Christmas. For me, he spent a couple hundred dollars fixing my ring. The diamond was a little loose and I was constantly scared it was going to fall out, so he had a jeweler build it back up. I was so happy to get it back again just before Christmas. It's as beautiful as ever and I love seeing it sparkle like new again. Yay!

 For Duane (and maybe a little for me ;-) Okay a lot for me...) I painted Kalvin and my and Duane's room while he and Tristen were in Arizona. I was so excited because I already had most the supplies necessary minus a few more disposable rollers and mud. I had told him of my plans to do Kalvin's room, but not of ours. When I say painted, understand it was a 5 day endeavor of scrapping off the pealing wallpaper, mudding numerous cracks, waiting 30 hours for it to dry in the cold, sanding the mud again, in some cases mudding again, let it dry, sand again, then caulking EVERY edge and corner (that means all along the base boards, and around each window and door frame. Then I applied the primer paint and final coat and of course the clean up and decorating which included putting up blinds in my room (yes, thank you. I was very proud that I put them up by myself. Though I did break one of Duane's drill bits in the process. Sorry, Love, I need to get you a size 3/16" drill bit). I actually stayed up one night painting from about 9:00 till 5:00 the next morning (in that time I prime coated each room, caulked and painted in color).

I actually really enjoyed my alone time working. I had an old MP3 player (because Duane had the iTouch in AZ) and listened to old conference talks, and EFY songs. By the last hour though, I was trying my hardest to just be done and didn't bother to switch to a different album and ended up listening to two different Enya songs over and over (or was it one song? I'm not really sure cause Enya all sounds so similar).

I let Kalvin help with the prep work. This is my and Duane's room here.

 And even let him put a few primer coat strokes up.

 Then, he took the camera and snapped a few of me at work.

 Here are some compare photos of before the painter caulk and after.

So, here is Kalvin and Tristen's room. It's not perfectly decorated with color schemes, nor does Kalvin have any kind of bedframe, and Tristen is sleeping in a pink and green 80's pack n' play, but the paint was free and we already had the pictures for the walls, I just hadn't put them up yet.

 And here is my and Duane's room. Equally so, I had all the decorations already, I just hadn't put them up yet (they had collected a lot of dust in our basement in the last year and a half). Is that crazy or what?! That I waited a year and a half to put them on my wall! Sad. The walls you see here are the same cream color, called Baja, as the rest of the house.

 

 I added a green accent wall because I just really like the color green and I already had this "E" frame that my sister had put together for me a couple Christmas's ago.

 

Pictures of the kids Christmas, to come.