Oh by gosh by golly. We're homeowners! We closed last week and it feels like a weight is beginning to lift. I'm so grateful we have a few-weeks runway to get our things moved over, and that our rental home is only about two blocks from our new house. It has been fun and easy to grab a carload full of boxes or smaller furniture pieces at a time and run it over. The first item Jared took to our new home was our 15-foot-tall Christmas tree. It is ridiculous and we love it. Brings Christmas cheer to the whole home, which is nice since we likely won't get our "full" Christmas set up this year. We may add stockings to our fireplace mantel (we have a fireplace mantel!) and call it a day. The real movers are coming this Friday to help us with the larger furniture.
We are also enjoying having the space and time to do a bit of room painting during this transition. We will have wallpaper installed in our office and bathroom soon, so we are painting the ceiling and trim in those rooms first. Luckily this is a relatively simple paint project because we don't have to tape much--the wallpaper will go all the way from baseboards to ceiling and cover a multitude of overpainting issues. It feels good to start putting our own touches on what is kind of a soulless builder-grade home. A lovely builder-grade home in a pristine location, but our starting point is a bit bland. By the end of the year we'll have a tree mural and lemony yellow ceiling in our office (more of an art/music room really), and emerald-tone marbled wallpaper enveloping the powder bathroom, so. We're coming on strong with the initial design choices, that's for sure. I'm very excited. It feels like us. It feels like home.
On Saturday we were able to visit my grandma and see Santa! We're glad the BYU game was on in the background and the hot cocoa was free-flowing. Santa had a little wardrobe/sleigh trouble and arrived an hour late. If there's anyone who can get away with showing up an hour late to their own party, it's probably Santa. In a big step up from last year, Jack and Alice BOTH sat on Santa's lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas, even though Alice was "a wittle nervous." Proud of how far these kids have come over the course of this year. And as always, it was wonderful to see my sweet grandmother. And now for some pictures from our week:
