Family Tree

For Father's Day this year I surprised Matt with this family tree. You can see that it's painted directly on the wall and, with the help of my sis-in-law, it turned out exactly as I had imagined. Pulling this off was a labor of love as I had to do it in one day... I collected the photo's (4 generations worth) and got the vinyl lettering names together over 6 weeks, but had literally one day to paint it on the wall, place the photo's on/near a branch, wait for paint to dry, and then place the vinyl lettering. I sent Matt off fishing for the whole day (6am to 10pm...he may have loved this part of the gift as much as the tree!) and then went to town. When he got home we turned off all of the lights in the house so that it was pitch black and sent him straight up the stairs to bed so that he didn't see it until Father's Day morning. The kids were so awesome with this project and helped me so much. It was a tender experience with them and also with really bonding with their mother's side of the family (they sent so many perfect pictures for me to use). Needless to say, Matt (emotional as he is) was tearful and touched and LOVED our first Father's Day as a new family.

House, Thanksgiving, Christmas-prep, and general catch-up...

What a great year it has been! As you will see on our (forthcoming) Christmas card, the year was fun and FULL of travel, and now that it's the holidays, we are staying put. Thanksgiving was in our home with 20 people (I didn't do ALL of the cooking by myself, thank heavens), with Christmas decorating following that weekend. For those of you who don't know, we did a lot of work on our home this year (literally tore down walls...see photo). I LOVE the way it's turning out and each new thing (shall I list them?... expanded kitchen, added office/french doors, change living room, add new piano, paint paint paint, sand/strip hardwood floors and re-stain VERY dark, new furniture, new mudroom/bathroom, new "stuff" in Kayla's room, "family tree" and re-do family room, set-up all guest rooms. NEXT: double-ovens, new stove, new island. So excited!!) is making our house our own and making fun memories with our family. Our house is yours when you come to town and we look forward to showing you the before and after photo's!

So, by way of travel, I think we went to California 6 times in the 10 months we've been married. Much has been for Matt's or my work, and it's been nice to have the kids be able to join us so much (all but once, I think!). I had a convention in San Diego in September and Matt and I stayed at the beautiful Hotel Del Coronado... it was a lot of work, but it was also beautiful. I love Matt's job and his ability to work from any state (he's over the western region so he's joined me on business trips to Vegas and San Diego so far!). The pix of Matt in a suit and me in a grey/silver dress is from the Convention I'm talking about (sorry about the red-eyes...too lazy to fix that right now).

Okay, I'm a rookie-blogger and can't figure out how to put pictures EXACTLY where I want them, yet... so I'm going to just start another post and go from there. Don't laugh at me.