Merry Christmas!

Here are a couple pictures from our church's Christmas Eve service.



The girls participated in a handbell (chime) choir. It was a first for our church and it was beautiful. The chimes were borrowed from another church that wasn't planning to use them.

The girls also sang a medley of Angels From the Realms of Glory and O Holy Night that they've been working on at their voice lessons.

The whole service was different than years past because we have a new pastor this year. It was nice to have things changed up a bit but still finish the service with everyone standing around the perimeter of the sanctuary, passing the flame from one candle to another (Allison's favorite tradition).

Our family wishes each of you a Merry Christmas, filled with love, joy, peace, and the hope that Christ brought to earth.

December Quiz

We attended the girls' quiz this past Saturday.



Both girls were finalists in individual competition, but neither placed.

So many teams left before the awards that the pictures almost look like the girls did place.

Allison's team took first in their division.

Julianne's team didn't place. We were all wondering if Julianne and Paul's drivers training classes may have had something to do with their performance. They didn't do badly-the rounds they lost were close-but they're going to have to really study to beat those teams next time.

Christmas gift idea

My dear friend Becky is offering a great sale right now on some of her wonderful soy candles.

Her sale includes some cute Santa mugs filled with her special hot chocolate candle (including darling little marshmallows!). I've ordered some hot chocolate mugs as Christmas gifts for the girls' piano and voice teachers. They are unique and fun, not to mention how fantastic they smell.

Go take a look-you can find a link to her candle website from her blog, if you are interested in something other than the sale items. But I really recommend the hot chocolate mug. Mmmm, like a brownie without calories.

Julianne's room re-do

Julianne had some definite ideas of things she wanted to do with her room.

She's crazy for paisley and fleur-de-lis so she picked up some stamps at Hobby Lobby several months ago in anticipation of finishing her room.



She and Allison only stamped the wall with the largest window. Didn't want this to be *too* much.

Her curtains are a polka dot fabric.

When I saw this fabric, it screamed "Julianne" at me. She loved it and decided I should use it for her fan refashion, even though it wasn't a perfect match to some of the other elements of her room.

Her fan originally was bright and multi-colored: red, blue, green, and yellow. She wanted me to spray paint it purple but there is a little part-below the fan blades and above the light-that I couldn't paint as it didn't come off. My solution was to make a fabric sleeve for it. It closes with velcro so she can remove it if she needs to get to the switch to change the fan's rotation.

She added a couple verses to her plain soft green walls.

This one is Psalm 16:2

I didn't realize she planned to paint the verses on her walls so didn't give her any tips about getting them straight. She had them done before I ever saw them. Ah, well, experience is often the best teacher, right?

Allison's room makeover

When we replaced all our windows last year, we changed a small window for an egress one in the girls' rooms. That, of course, meant drywall work for Clarence.

Drywall work meant, of course, that the rooms had to be completely repainted. Julianne had been waiting for 5 years to paint over her Veggie Tales walls but Allison still loved her garden room.

The girls were anxious to paint their own rooms and I was equally anxious to let them. It's a great skill to acquire and they are certainly old enough to learn.

Once they had painted, we started the search for curtain fabric. I decided that since we were just going with valances, the girls could certainly make those, too.



Allison finally finished hers yesterday and put them up.

This summer, I used fabric to cover their fan blades, following a tutorial I found online.

Allison chose to keep her room simple, only painting and adding the little touches of fabric. Julianne's room is slightly more elaborate. I'll share pics of hers next time.