Christmas for Two

Today was my last day of work, and now I get to enjoy a 6 day break! I will work 2 days next week and then enjoy another 4 day break. I am so excited! I am looking forward to spending some relaxing and fun time with family.

Tonight however, Greg and I are having a little Christmas celebration just the two of us. It is a Grosse Family tradition to go looking at lights together on Christmas Eve (everyone including pets pile into the car in your PJ’s, hot chocolate in hand). Since we won’t be with my family on Christmas Eve this year, Greg and I are going to look at lights tonight. We are first stopping at Starbucks – which is a special treat because we hardly ever go there and I am looking forward to a white chocolate peppermint mocha. Then we are going to drive through River Oaks and look at Christmas lights. After that, we are coming back home to do stockings. We realized the other day that we didn’t actually have stockings to put our stocking stuffers in. Hmm, minor detail. So we decided to hide them throughout the apartment and find them. It will be like a Christmas Easter hunt. And believe me there are plenty of good hiding spots right now since you can barely see our floor, or kitchen table, and we still have packed moving boxes ready since our last move a few months ago stacked everywhere.

Merry Christmas!

Singing Talent

My sister's dog Duma is amazingly talented. Go check it out here for a little laugh.

November / December Catch Up!

Since I haven't blogged in a while, I will have to do a quick summary of what we have been up to in November and December.

First, as I said before, we bought a house! Praise God for His goodness in leading us to a great house. We closed just before Thanksgiving and have been enjoying starting the process of turning it into our home ever since.

Thanksgiving was spent in Dallas at my sister and brother-in-law's house. We rode with my parents there, and we all spent 2 nights together eating great food, playing Christmas Vacation Trivia, napping, shopping, and having fun. Here is my favorite picture from that weekend.

As soon as we got back from the Thanksgiving festivities, Greg and I went to work on the house. His Aunt, Uncle, and Mom came down for a weekend to help work on the house. We are so grateful for their kindness because we got a TON of stuff done. We painted, removed wallpaper, removed carpet, and removed the kitchen!

We still have lots to do but it has been a fun project to work on. We have been watching a lot of you tube videos around here trying to decide what we can do on our own and what we need to pay other people to do :)

We have already met several of our neighbors and they are all really nice. I am so excited to get to know them more and form relationships with them.

Next up, we went to a "Thrift Store Prom". Reason #167 to work with youth: You get to wear things like this.

I hope you noticed Greg's red tights. What you don't see are the argyle socks pulled up over the red tights. He's all mine ladies.

Then last weekend we hung out with our friends D and Little D, and made gingerbread houses! We did this every year as a family growing up and is something I always loved and still love doing.

We also got to go to an amazing Christmas show at our church last weekend. So much time and effort went into it and it was great to watch.

Now this weekend's agenda includes the following:

Finish Christmas shopping

Wrap presents

Work on house updates

Sunday School Christmas party

Mattern Family Annual Christmas Reunion

Baking

Cleaning!

whew I am getting tired just typing that...

But I am enjoying this Christmas season and the Christmas show at church was a good reminder of the true meaning of Christmas. We have such good reason to celebrate. I can only imagine the celebration that took place the very first Christmas. The people had been LONGING for the promised Savior, and he had finally come. THAT is something to celebrate!

I Married a Warrior

Greg announced to me this past week that he is going to participate in this.



Warrior Dash.



3.5 miles of crazy obstacles. Think 5K run meets Wipe Out (tv show).

Mud, fire, water, forests, gale force winds. Costume optional, but there is a contest. You get a helmet like the one in the logo picture.



I think this looks miserable. Greg is ecstatic. But I am going to paint Greg's chest like a warrior so I am excited about that.



The Warrior dash is coming to Texas May 1, 2010. It is in Forney, Texas (near Dallas).



Greg has started recruiting some friends to do this with him.



Ladies, if your husband is crazy like mine and wants to sign up to do the warrior dash, we can all road-trip it to Dallas and cheer on our men. Let me know!


PS- Lauren, make some room - we are staying with you! And maybe some friends too?

This post is long over due. My blogging has been very inconsistent. Jenny tagged me a while ago and I have been meaning to do this. I had to navigate through her old posts to even find the questions. But better late than never!


1. Where is your cell phone: Somewhere in this apartment. I usually just call it from Greg's phone to locate it.

2. Your hair: Bedtime-do

3. Your mother: Creative genius

4. Your father: Wise in all things

5. Your favorite food: Cafe Red Onion

6. Your dream from last night: Don't remember. But I dream all the time. Even when I fall asleep in the car on a 10 minute car ride, I will start to dream.

7. Your favorite drink: Diet Root Beer

8. Your dream/goal: Still figuring that out

9. What room are you in: Living room

10. What is your hobby: Cake decorating, frisbee golf with Greg, making crafty things, reading blogs

11. What is your fear: Being a widow

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years: A mommy!

13. Where were you last night: At Olive Garden with the Perots

14. Something you are not: Bilingual

15. Muffins: Pumpkin chocolate chip are my new fav

16. Wish List items.: furniture

17. Where did you grow up: native Houstonion :)

18. Last thing you did: Fell victim to a flying head-butt by Greg. Running dive, head meets hip. That could leave a bruise. Greg needs a son.

19. What are you wearing: A hybrid mix of church clothes and pj's. That is weird.

20. Your TV: Found out we had been receiving free premium cable for a year and a half. After moving apartment units we realized we actually only get 13 channels now. None of which interest me. Stink.

21. Your pets: None

22. Your friends: Love to be around

23. Your life: Blessed

24. Your mood: Relaxed

25. Missing someone: I guess family, and extended family. I could always use more family time.

26. Vehicle: Olivia is her name. I am very fond of her. Although she attracts door dings from other people. I think I get a new one a week.

27. Something your not wearing: Make up. I am about to go to bed.

28. Your favorite store: Target, Hobby Lobby, the Limited

29. Your favorite color: Blue

30. When's the last time you laughed: Earlier when Greg charged at me with his head

31. When's the last time you cried: About a week ago. House hunting can be emotional.

32. Your best friend: Girl: Lindsay, Guy: Greg

33. One place you go over and over: Work, Kroger, Church

34. One person who emails me regularly: Greg, usually daily

35. Favorite place to eat?: Red Onion

I said a Boom Chicka Boom!

Is that how you spell that? If you are wondering what that means, then you should go on a middle school retreat. I just got back from the Middle School Retreat at Lake Tomahawk, and I had a great time with all the kids! All girls in one bunk room, all guys in another. Craziness from morning til night. Yellow school buses to and from. Lots of singing Taylor Swift songs. Camp food. What more can you ask for? Here are the highlights:

French braiding girls hair at midnight

The perfect October weather

S'mores! You can't leave camp with out em. Some kids couldn't leave camp without 8 of them. Yeah. That is the answer I got to "What number s'more are ya on there?". Yikes. What does that equate to...like 4 Hershey bars?


Playing Zip Boing (a ridiculously funny game involving covering your teeth with your lips and not being allowed to laugh/show them)


Watching 6th grade boys unashamedly and passionately lip sync every word to Miley Cyrus "It's the climb".

Ok, girls were singing too. It was just wasn't as funny as the boys because it is more expected.

Sitting around a picnic table as my girls eagerly look up scripture verses.

Watching a "who-can-finish-their-lunch-faster" contest involving nacho cheese & lettuce coated fingers and faces.

Hearing songs I haven't heard in years. Ex: "I'm squishing up my baby bumble bee, won't my mommy be so proud of me..." and "Hi, my name is Joe, I've got a wife and 3 kids and I work in a factory". Anyone? Anyone? Those are the classics.

Getting to know lots of kids I didn't know before.

Camp games. Who comes up with these things? Pelting the opposite team with flour filled socks? 1 part pain, 2 parts fun!

Learning more about the fruits of the spirit and hearing all the kids recite Galatians 5:22-23.

Overall, an awesome weekend. I just woke up from a 2 hour nap to tell about it. That feels better :)

Here is a picture of some of the 6th grade girls.

C'mon girls, picture time, try to form a clump.

There we go!

The Bright Side of Moving

Well, we moved apartments this weekend! We are now the proud renters of a first floor apartment in the same complex. It wasn't the worst thing ever. In fact, it was a pretty easy move. Mainly due to the fact that...(drum roll please)...we got movers! It was absolutely worth it. We were planning on moving ourselves until the boxes began to accumulate, and accumulate, and accumulate. Granted, it is only a one bedroom apartment, but still, it seemed like an overwhelming task. Plus, we were on the third floor. I now LOVE getting movers. They did a great job, and got the whole thing done in under 2 hours. We still had plenty do as far as unpacking, organizing, and cleaning the old place, but things went so much faster with movers. We are pretty much all organized in our new place, and we have cleaned out the old. All in one weekend! I am so happy about that.

So to look on the bright side of moving apartments, here is a list of the good things that have come out of this move.

1) We are now on the first floor- no more carrying groceries up stairs!

2) We have wood floors. I love them! Some apartments in this complex have them, some don't. We didn't realize until we moved in that this one did. It makes the fact that we have cardboard boxes everywhere just a tad more classy. Yep, the boxes are staying like that. Since we are still hoping to find a house soon, we are not unpacking all of our boxes.

3) We are closer to the parking garage. I know this sounds lazy, but it is nice :)

4) Since our new place is the same layout as our old, when unpacking, I didn't have to decide - hmm...where should the bowls go? I just knew. To the right of the microwave, of course.

5) We got rid of some old stuff; such as tylenol that expired in March of 2007, and some old flip flops.

6) We are partially pre-packed for our next move. We are saving all our boxes and packing material so we will be ready to go at any time.

7) Greg and I are getting to practice patience, and contentment. We are fine where we are, and will wait on God's timing for when/if he provides us with a house.

8) We get a chance to be in our third "love nestle" together. That is Greg's phrase. No, not "love nest", "love nestle".